A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)

Photograph by Jeff Wall

A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) is a color photograph made by Jeff Wall in 1993. The large photograph is a rework version of the woodcut Yejiri Station, Province of Suruga (c. 1832) by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. The picture is displayed in a light box and it has the dimensions of 250 by 397 cm. It belongs to the collection of the Tate Modern, in London.

Description and analysis

Wall worked on this photograph for five months. It involved four actors and it was shot in a landscape near Vancouver, British Columbia, when the appropriate weather conditions were in effect. He modified and collaged elements of the picture digitally for the final result. From the left, the characters express different reactions to the gust of wind. The female character of the left is still, in a state of shock, while her head is concealed by her scarf, blown by the wind, which dispersed her sheet of papers into the center of the picture. Two men hold their hats in their heads, facing the strength of the wind, while a third man, in between them, looks to the sky as his trilby flies away. Two thin trees in the foreground bend and release some leaves. The landscape appears to be suburban and presents brown fields and a canal, with small shacks, a row of telegraph poles, concrete pillars and other signs that evoke industrial farming.

The book Time and Photography (2010) states that "What is also clear is the way in which Wall uses carefully constructed composition to play with the relationship between the flattened staging of the tableau of figures in the foreground and the receding landscape of modernity that is always the true subject of Wall's pictures, that lies behind them. Our own gaze, in this moment of non-time, follows that of the central figure up to the lost hat sailing overhead, the clarity of whose reproduction belies the naturalism of the photograph as a whole.".

References

^ "'A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)', Jeff Wall, 1993". Tate.
"Jeff Wall Artworks & Famous Photography". The Art Story.
"Photographer Jeff Wall & A sudden gust of wind". Public Delivery. August 3, 2019.
Lucarelli, Fosco. "Jeff Wall, Study for 'A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai)', (1993) – SOCKS". socks-studio.com.
Alexander Streitberger, Hilde van Gelder, Jan Baetens, Time and Photography, Leuven University Press, 2010, pp. 57-58

v t e Jeff Wall
Photographs	The Destroyed Room (1978) Picture for Women (1979) Mimic (1982) Dead Troops Talk (A Vision After an Ambush of a Red Army Patrol near Moqor, Afghanistan, Winter 1986) (1992) A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) (1993) A Fight on the Sidewalk (1994) Untangling (1994) After "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue (1999–2000) Tattoos and Shadows (2000)
Album covers	Avenue B (1999 Iggy Pop album) The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities (2006 Sonic Youth album)
Related	Vancouver School

v t e Hokusai
Woodblock prints	The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (1814) The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1831) Fine Wind, Clear Morning (c. 1830–1832) Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit (c. 1830–1832) Sundai, Edo (c. 1830–1832) Kajikazawa in Kai Province (c. 1830–1832) A View of Mount Fuji Across Lake Suwa (c. 1830–1832)
Print series and collections	Kinoe no Komatsu (1814) Hokusai Manga (1814–1878) One Hundred Ghost Stories (c. 1830) Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (c. 1830–1832) One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (1834, 1835, c. 1849) Oceans of Wisdom (c. 1832–1834) A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces (c. 1833–1834)
Paintings	Great Daruma (1817) Tiger in the Snow (1849)
Related	A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) (1993 photograph) 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985 novella) Katsushika Ōi Miss Hokusai Hokusai quadrangle crater Woodblock printing in Japan
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