Interpretations vary but I personally think it's self-perpetuating. In the late 1800s Japan opened up to contact with the West after centuries of being closed to almost everybody, in fact nobody could leave the country and only chosen few could enter. Some of these prints got out and it must have been like seeing an alien artefact for the first time, almost impossible to imagine in this day and age with the internet. But artists like Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Degas, Picasso all scrambled to get hold of them. They were enraptured by this new form of art, many of them painting homages or their own versions of favourites. The Great Wave became famous because of this, and the cycle has repeated since.

I think it's one of those it's famous because it's famous things. Something has to be the most the special and I guess this particular thing is the thing that gets to be so special.