The Monkey King Songokū, from the Chinese novel Journey to the West

Yashima Gakutei depicted the Monkey King Songokū in 1824, drawing his subject from the great Chinese vernacular novel Journey to the West (Xiyouji), which by the early nineteenth century had a sizeable Japanese readership through translation and adaptation. The print is preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Songokū — known in Chinese as Sun Wukong — appears in the trickster guise that delighted East Asian audiences for centuries. Gakutei renders him in his distinctive monkey attributes, often shown wielding his iron staff and adopting an alert, agile posture. The figure occupies the sheet with characteristic dynamism, while the surimono's restrained color palette and accents of metallic pigment emphasize the mythical, almost talismanic quality of the hero.