A Peasant Crossing a Bridge, from the series A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poems

A Peasant Crossing a Bridge, from A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poems is a Katsushika Hokusai print from around 1835 in a long, narrow format associated with this poetic series. The composition pictures a country worker carrying a heavy load across an arching bridge over a deep ravine, with mist drifting between rocky banks and a rough cascade plunging below. Hokusai uses the verticality of the design to dramatize the difference in scale between the small figure and the surrounding wilderness, a technique he refined in his Thirty-six Views and the related waterfalls and bridges series. The accompanying poem, drawn from the Sino-Japanese anthology that gives the series its name, frames the scene as a moment of contemplation as well as a record of labor. As an ukiyo-e print the design is part of Hokusai's effort to expand the conceptual reach of landscape, pairing Chinese poetic imagery with carefully observed Japanese topography. This impression is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago collection, where it joins a group of Hokusai landscape sheets that demonstrate how Edo ukiyo-e of the 1830s could absorb classical literary culture without losing its grip on everyday rural life.