Discussion

Landscape Waterfalls

Waterfalls are simple. Water running on land starts out high, drops over an edge, and ends up low. Waterfalls are common, and most are pretty ordinary. Most of the time, the things that noteworthy waterfalls are noteworthy for are their surroundings.

One example is Tukad Cepung Waterfall in Bali, Indonesia. It is what is called a plunge waterfall, one that goes straight down without touching the wall behind it.

There is nothing noteworthy about the way the water falls, the height of the drop, or the volume of water. However, its setting is spectacular. It falls into a narrow, cave-like canyon. At certain times of day, gorgeous sunbeams visibly pierce the mist at the bottom. It is a highly popular tourist destination. No exact record of the number of visitors is kept, but it is known to be well over 100,000 people annually. 

The photo below shows just one part of what is a system of 16 terraced lakes connected by over 90 cascading waterfalls in Croatia's Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The overall landscape is the main attraction here, though the way that the water emerges from the foliage in split streams helps a lot. 

In major waterfalls, the sheer volume of water flowing over the top adds a lot to the attraction when visiting in person. The thunderous roar of the water and the blast of mist at the bottom can be very impressive. That is a good part of the attraction of Niagara Falls on the U.S. and Canadian border. Niagara Falls is three falls in one. Two of them, American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, are shown below. Bridal Veil Falls is the small one on the far right.

The part of Niagara Falls that gets the most attention is Horseshoe Falls. This photo was obviously taken in the winter.

The three falls that together comprise Niagara Falls has an average total flow of roughly 600,000 to 750,000 gallons of water per second, the greatest in North America. Both of these photos were taken from the Canadian side of the Niagara River.

The tallest waterfall in the world is South America's Angel Falls, dropping about 3,212 feet or about 6 tenths of a mile. It isn't an entirely straight drop. There is a short cascade and a further vertical drop toward the bottom. The height is so great that most of the water is fine mist and vapor by the time it reaches the bottom.

Angel Falls is located in Venezuela's Canaima National Park. It plunges off the edge of the Auyán-tepui table-top mountain.

Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park is only the 5th or 6th tallest waterfall in the world, but it is the tallest in North America. It consists of three parts. The initial drop is 1,430 feet. Then there is a 675-foot cascade. The final drop is 320 feet for a combined 2,425 feet, or about 4.6 tenths of a mile.

The most dramatic area is a U-shaped chasm called the Devil's Throat. Around half the water in the total system falls through that area.

Artwork

Japanese artists have produced some very nice paintings and prints of waterfalls.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760 – 1848)

Hokusai is most famous for his series of prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, but he was a master of many styles of art and did many other ukiyo-e prints, too. One of his popular series was A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces. There are 8 prints in the series. Among the best is this one of Kirifuri Waterfall near the outskirts of Nikko, a city in Tochigi Prefecture.

This is a modern photo of Kirifuri Waterfall.

Another of Hokusai's waterfall prints is this one of Amida Waterfall in Gifu Prefecture. It is unique in that it presents two views of the fall. One is of the river just above the fall in the round circle, and the other is of the water drop.

Maruyama Ōkyo (1733 – 1795)

Ōkyo formally studied art in the Kanō school and took an interest in several styles of art including Chinese and Western art. He developed his own style influenced by Western naturalism and eventually founded his own school. It is uncertain when the pair of hanging scrolls titled Waterfalls in Spring and Autumn below were painted. Spring is on the right and Autumn is on the left.

Nakabayashi Chikutō (1776 – 1853)

Chikutō developed an interest in painting at an early age. He became supported by a wealthy merchant and initially learned to paint by copying artwork owned by his patron. After the merchant's death, Chikutō moved to Kyōtō where he joined a literary circle guided by the philosopher, Rai San'yō, and a Nanga (Southern School) artist, Uragami Shunkin. He eventually wrote and published an illustrated book on painting called Gadō kongōsho (The Heavenly Art of Painting). His Waterfalls in Landscape hanging scroll was painted in 1841.

Takahashi Shōtei (1871 – 1945)

Shōtei was another artist who started at a very early age. He had a variety of experiences until becoming associated with a hanga (print) publisher, Watanabe Shōzaburō, who started by commissioning Shōtei to produce shinsaku-hanga (souvenir prints) for the foreign tourist market. Eventually, he went on to other forms of art. This painting, Shiragumo Waterfall of Nikkō, printed in the late 1910s, is probably one of his shinsaku-hanga prints.