View of the Monkey Bridge

Totoya Hokkei's 1824 surimono View of the Monkey Bridge, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts the celebrated Sarubashi spanning a deep gorge in the mountainous Kai province, one of Japan's most famous landscape sites. The bridge was renowned for its ingenious cantilevered construction and for the dramatic scenery in which it stood, qualities that made it a favored subject in painting, poetry and print. As a senior pupil of the Hokusai school, Hokkei drew on Katsushika Hokusai's keen interest in topographical subject matter, and he was capable of translating such a landscape into the small, deluxe format of an Edo kyoka-e surimono. Surimono of this period were printed in small editions on thick hosho paper, with techniques including graded color, mica, metallic pigments and karazuri embossing reserved for private commissions. These finishes would have lent atmospheric depth to the cliffs, vegetation and structural timbers of the bridge. Kyoka verses inscribed alongside the image would have elaborated the scene with literary references — the monkey bridge had inspired classical poetry as well as Edo writing — and personalized the print for its original recipients. The Art Institute of Chicago's impression anchors Totoya Hokkei's design within an institutional collection where it can be studied as a representative example of the Hokusai school's contribution to landscape surimono in the 1820s.