"Ideally I would spend a whole year on a freighter watching the waves. If God himself, in honour of my 60th birthday, would give me the strength and the power and the glory, now and forever, to draw a beautiful wave. But no, nothing like that. As soon as I got home I tried it, to no avail. I started spirals instead. That at least gave me something to go on. Drawing waves—those apparently shapeless, chaotic glories—is something I will have to leave to you and your (almost ex-)compatriots."
https://escherinhetpaleis.nl/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp...
北斎模様画譜 (1884) - Hokusai Pattern Book - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...
I used safari’s built in translate feature to translate the page from Japanese to English, scroll down for download options.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...
It is cursive script, and only specialized academics/people with extensive training in calligraphy/etc. would know how to read it.
Interestingly enough this is an area where machine learning has been extremely effective:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1973-0723-...
If you are asking about the text written on the pages themselves, it takes a bit more effort unless you are familiar with archaic script. I can make out some of them as guidelines on how to draw the patterns.
https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/en/imagebank/theme/hokusaimoyo
Hokusai Moyo Gafu: an album of dyeing patterns (ndl.go.jp) 170 points by fanf2 10 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44224992
