Lin Xiangru and Kojima Takanori is an [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) print by Katsushika Hokusai from the series Five Sibling Pictures of China and Japan for the Zakurogaki Group (Zakurogaki-ren goban no uchi wakan e-kyodai), dated about 1821 and held in the Art Institute of Chicago. The Zakurogaki-ren was a poetry club whose members commissioned [surimono](/glossary/surimono) prints to circulate among friends and exchange at the New Year. Each design in this series pairs a Chinese and a Japanese historical figure as conceptual siblings, asking viewers to recognize parallels between the two cultural traditions. Lin Xiangru, a celebrated minister of the Warring States era, is famed for outwitting a powerful king to recover a precious jade disc; Kojima Takanori, a fourteenth-century Japanese loyalist, inscribed a poem on a cherry tree promising allegiance to the exiled Emperor Go-Daigo. Hokusai pairs these figures in elegant composition, using the surimono's privileged production values, metallic pigments, careful color registration, and embossing, to honor both literary and historical reference. As an Edo ukiyo-e print, the work demonstrates how privately commissioned surimono fostered learned visual play with classical Chinese and Japanese sources. The Art Institute of Chicago's impression preserves Hokusai's refined linework and saturated color, allowing this transcultural pairing to retain its intellectual charm.
1821
Color woodblock print with metallic pigments; surimono shikishiban
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
c. 1832
Color woodblock print; oban
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Lin Xiangru and Kojima Takanori, from the series "Five Sibling Pictures of China and Japan for the Zakurogaki Group (Zakurogaki-ren goban no uchi wakan e-kyodai)" was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in 1821.
Lin Xiangru and Kojima Takanori, from the series "Five Sibling Pictures of China and Japan for the Zakurogaki Group (Zakurogaki-ren goban no uchi wakan e-kyodai)" depicts landscapes.