Monkey Bridge in snow

Monkey Bridge in Snow by Kishio Koizumi belongs to the artist's wider sosaku-hanga (creative print) practice and circulates among the views catalogued in connection with his series One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo in the Showa Era (Showa dai Tokyo fukei hyaku zue hanga). The print, documented through ukiyo-e.org, depicts the famous Saruhashi or 'Monkey Bridge' in Yamanashi prefecture, an ancient cantilevered bridge that crosses a deep gorge of the Katsura River. Koizumi shows the structure in winter, with snow piled along its handrails, on the surrounding rocks, and clinging to the steep evergreen slopes that rise on either side of the chasm. The bridge's distinctive bracketed construction — projecting beams without central piers — is carefully rendered, and the dark void of the gorge below contrasts strongly with the chalky tonalities of the snow. As a sosaku-hanga artist working within the period of the One Hundred Views of New Tokyo project, Koizumi cut and printed the work himself. He uses simple but emphatic contours for the bridge timbers, juxtaposed with softer bokashi gradations for the snowy slopes and overcast sky. The choice of Saruhashi, long celebrated in earlier ukiyo-e (notably by Hokusai), allows Koizumi to engage in a sosaku-hanga reworking of a classic landscape motif. He retains the dramatic perspective traditional to the subject while filtering it through his own restrained palette and personal carving style, producing an image that pays homage to earlier woodblock practice while remaining recognisably an early-Showa creative print.