Altamira

The title refers to the prehistoric cave paintings at Altamira in northern Spain, dating from the Upper Paleolithic and known for their bison and other large mammal imagery. Its inclusion in the Saru series — otherwise built around episodes from the twelfth-century Genpei War — extends the monkey conceit into the longer history of image-making itself, sketching a genealogy that runs from cave-wall pigment through medieval Japanese narrative painting and on to the woodblock. The mokuhanga technique becomes, in this context, one moment in a sequence of mark-making technologies. Takeda renders the cave imagery within the visual vocabulary he uses elsewhere in the series — flat color zones, contour-driven drawing, and the Saru protagonists figured into or onto the painted surface. The print reflects Takeda's habit of moving across periods and traditions, a tendency observable across his cartooning, photography, and silkscreen practice, and consistent with his refusal to be constrained by a single medium or art-historical reference point.