v

3.15.2011

japan, visual history




Do you know this Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849)? The first print is The Great Wave at Kanagawa. I first encountered it when someone gave me a Japanese tea set with the image on the teapot and the cups. This image suggests the long history Japan has had with tsunami. Lest anyone in the nuclear power set try to suggest that what's happening this evening was not foreseeable. I assume it was part of the risk analysis. But what we have here is, by the latest assessment, is something between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I'm not sure what it would take to surpass Chernobyl.