The “Dynamic Painting” is actually a woodblock print of a big ol’ wave, and you’ve probably seen it before!
The “Dynamic Painting” is always genuine.
Once you buy it from Redd, take it over to Blathers to put in your museum. Once he does, he’ll add a plaque below it with a description that will read as follows:
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai, circa 1831
Woodblock print
The signature piece of ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai, painted as part of a series when he was in his 60s. Although it is dubbed “Thirty-Six Views,” he eventually added 10 more to make 46 in total.
The version included in the game is a bit small, so here is the real version that is considerably easier to view so that you can take in all the details!
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai (Printed from 1731-1734)
This piece is actually a part of a series of landscapes that depict Mount Fuji from different locations and seasons. This one in particular is easily the most famous from the series.
In this larger version, you can see that there are three boats dealing with a very dangerous sea, with Mount Fuji far in the background. It’s a bit hard to make out that detail in the much smaller version within the game, but you can see in this larger version why they decided to call it a dynamic painting!
Additionally – while the title of this indicates that there are 36 in the series, the artist did add an extra ten later on! So there are really 46 of them in total! Why stop when you have such a good thing going on?!
Hokusai is also one of the many ukiyo-e artists that are featured in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The term itself translates to “pictures of the floating world” and artists in this genre created woodblock prints like this one, or paintings like the graceful and scary paintings!
Looking for more information on the art in Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Check out the master list of all the art available!
The Bardic Unicorn 
