Battledores

Battledores translates the Japanese hagoita, the rectangular wooden paddles used in the New Year game of hanetsuki and, by the Edo period, produced as decorative objects bearing portraits of kabuki actors and bijin. Within Takeda's Saru series the title signals a print in which monkeys handle or are themselves figured on such paddles, extending the parodic substitution from the battlefield into the calendar of seasonal play. The mokuhanga medium has a long association with hagoita imagery — both share the woodblock as production technology, and both rely on flat color and strong outline to read across distance. Takeda's Saru body of work moves between the major battle subjects of the Genpei War and shorter pieces drawn from elsewhere in the cultural repertoire, and prints such as this one demonstrate the elasticity of his monkey conceit. The piece reflects Takeda's wider habit of moving between satire, decorative tradition, and high pictorial reference, traceable to his sculpture training and his work as a Bungei-Shunju Cartoon Award-winning satirist.