Bridge

The slug suggests this print depicts Saruhashi, the Monkey Bridge that spans the Katsura River gorge in Yamanashi Prefecture. Saruhashi has a long pedigree in the meisho-e tradition: Hokusai included it in his series of remarkable bridges, and Hiroshige treated the same subject in vertical format, both emphasizing the cantilevered timber structure projecting from sheer rock walls high above the water. A twentieth-century woodblock treatment of this motif would typically translate the steep gorge geography into a vertical oban or tate-e composition, using bokashi gradation in the cliffs and water to suggest depth, and reserving fine keyblock lines for the bridge's stacked beams and the textured pines clinging to the rockface. Without firm biographical data on Nakagawa Isaku, this print is best read as part of the broader twentieth-century continuation of landscape printmaking that revisited classical meisho subjects through the technical vocabulary of mokuhanga — multiple woodblocks, hand-burnished impressions on washi, and a restrained palette favoring blues, greens, and earth tones.