Astro Hacker News - Hokusai and Tesselations

srean |next [-]

Escher invoking Hokusai in his sixties

"Ideally I would spend a whole year on a freighter watching the waves. If God himself, in honour of my 60th birthday, would give me the strength and the power and the glory, now and forever, to draw a beautiful wave. But no, nothing like that. As soon as I got home I tried it, to no avail. I started spirals instead. That at least gave me something to go on. Drawing waves—those apparently shapeless, chaotic glories—is something I will have to leave to you and your (almost ex-)compatriots."

https://escherinhetpaleis.nl/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp...

lioeters |next |previous [-]

Found a copy of the book on Wikimedia. It was originaly published as a pattern book for kimono textile, then rediscovered in 1986 in a collection at the Boston Museum. Since then art historians in Japan found further prints.

北斎模様画譜 (1884) - Hokusai Pattern Book - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...

mrkpdl |root |parent |next [-]

You can download a full resolution pdf of the book at the original posts’s link, which is much better quality than the one on Wikimedia.

I used safari’s built in translate feature to translate the page from Japanese to English, scroll down for download options.

|root |parent [-]

srean |root |parent |previous [-]

Could you check the URL ? I think something broke during the copy and paste

pentaphobe |root |parent |next [-]

This seems to work

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...

masfuerte |root |parent |next |previous [-]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:NDL8546...

lioeters |root |parent |previous [-]

Oops, I think it's fixed now. (;

srean |root |parent [-]

They seem to have reversed how Japanese books flip.

p1anecrazy |next |previous [-]

Is there a way for non-Japanese speakers to experience this?

gyomu |root |parent |next [-]

If it makes you feel better, the vast majority of modern day Japanese speakers cannot read this either.

It is cursive script, and only specialized academics/people with extensive training in calligraphy/etc. would know how to read it.

Interestingly enough this is an area where machine learning has been extremely effective:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.09433

omoikane |root |parent |next |previous [-]

It's mostly pictures and not much text, except for the initial popup you see which is the usual cookie consent prompt (left button = minimum required, right button = agree to all). But looks like British Museum also has this book if you want an English interface:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1973-0723-...

If you are asking about the text written on the pages themselves, it takes a bit more effort unless you are familiar with archaic script. I can make out some of them as guidelines on how to draw the patterns.

srik |root |parent |next |previous [-]

There is a i18n “English” button on top right. Unless you meant something else.

srean |root |parent |previous [-]

I used google translate.

cubefox |next |previous [-]

srean |root |parent [-]

Ah! This HN post must have been where I had seen this first. Thanks for the comment.

334t45 |next |previous [-]

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l4tq3 |previous [-]

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