Sarutahiko, No. 2 (Sono ni) from the series "The Boulder Door of Spring (Haru no iwato)"

The second sheet in Totoya Hokkei's 1820 surimono series The Boulder Door of Spring (Haru no iwato), recorded by the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts Sarutahiko, the earthly deity who in Japanese myth guides the heavenly grandson of Amaterasu down to earth. In the narrative ordering of the series, Sarutahiko comes between the drummer and Ama no Uzume, anchoring the unfolding mythological scene with his vivid, often grotesque appearance — long nose, ruddy complexion and warrior accoutrements — as described in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. As an Edo kyoka-e commission, the sheet would have been printed in a small edition for the members of a poetry club, each impression bearing kyoka verses keyed to the figure. Hokkei was one of the most prolific surimono designers of his generation and a leading pupil of the Hokusai school, equally at home with figures drawn from native myth, Chinese legend or contemporary Edo life. Sarutahiko's vivid persona invited the deluxe technical effects characteristic of the surimono medium: burnished blacks for his hair, mica or gold for his ornaments, and embossing for the textured cloth of his costume. Within Hokkei's broader output, the print stands as evidence of the Hokusai school's role in adapting the Shinto pantheon to the literary and material refinements of nineteenth-century Edo private printing.