Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai produced many masterpieces over his long career, but The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a work that can stand alongside Lednardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in terms of its popularity and cultural impact. The woodblock print is the first work in a series dubbed Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji that he began in 1830-1831 when he was roughly 70 years old. It has been reproduced in countless ways since then, culminating in an official LEGO Art set that launched last year.
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The LEGO Art Hokusai The Great Wave (31208) set allows you to recreate this iconic image in 3D with 1,810 pieces. It’s a very relaxing build, especially if you scan the included QR code. It will launch a soundtrack that includes content that is designed to enhance the experience. The work depicts a stormy sea and some very unfortunate fisherman with Mount Fuji in the distance, and when you fish rendering the scene in brick form, it will be ready to display on your wall. That said, I personally own this LEGO set and can say that it’s fantastic.
What’s more, the Hokusai LEGO set is currently priced at $83.99 here on Amazon, which is 16% off list. If you have room for more LEGO art on your wall, the Van Gogh Starry Night LEGO Ideas set also got a similar deal here on Amazon where it is priced at $135.95, or 20% off list.
“We’re thrilled that fans of art and Japanese culture will get the chance to immerse themselves into the relaxing project of recreating the iconic Great Wave, captured in a LEGO Art set,” said Annemette Baaskjær Nielsen, Designer at the LEGO Group.
“This set offers so many ways that fans can unwind and find their flow. Not just immersing themselves into the building process, but also getting into the artwork and how that is composed. Sparking an interest in Hokusai’s instantly recognizable original and its rich history of almost 200 years.”
The LEGO Ideas 21333 The Starry Night Set features the brick built painting in 3D form complete with twinkling stars, bright moon, and the Saint-Rémy village landscape. It also includes a van Gogh minifigure painting the scene with a paint brush, palette, easel and mini painting on a printed tile that can be attached to The Starry Night if desired. You can even hang the set on the wall as a work of art in its own right.
The Vincent van Gogh Starry Night LEGO set is the brainchild of Truman Cheng, a 25-year old Hong Kong based LEGO fan that submitted the concept to LEGO’s Ideas crowdsourcing platform. He notes:
“When developing the original concept, Truman Cheng, a PhD student and LEGO fan, was just playing with LEGO bricks when he realized that stacking them together in random intervals looked a like van Gogh’s iconic brush strokes. “It was a was a good brain tease to come up with tricks and techniques to capture the look of the original painting,” Cheng said, talking about his design “The brushwork goes into many directions in the moon and the swirling cloud, so there was some creative use of bracket and clip elements involved.””
