Where would you start if someone asked you to depict the relationship between two worlds--between the dead and the living, the unconscious and conscious, the sleeping and the wakeful, your inside and the outside? Hokusai started with a protagonist from the other side, drawing back a curtain so he can peek from one world into ours. Our world seems a little more flowing--what are those white waves? But the delicate curtain--exactly what diaphanous boundary does it hang across?--is just as full of beauty. And the onlooker, as well as being spooky, seems impish, maybe even raffish about being able to peek in.This is one of my favorite works of art, about the worlds we carry along with us, and the pleasure of cutting across them.
