The Nine Old Men of Mount Xiang (Kozan kyuro), from the series "A Set of Ten Famous Numbers for the Katsushika Circle (Katsushikaren meisu juban)"

The Nine Old Men of Mount Xiang (Kozan kyuro), a 1823 surimono from Yashima Gakutei's series A Set of Ten Famous Numbers for the Katsushika Circle (Katsushikaren meisu juban), is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Nine Old Men of Mount Xiang were a celebrated group of Tang-dynasty retired officials and poets, led by the poet Bai Juyi, who in old age formed a literary society on Mount Xiang to drink wine, compose verse, and savor the autumn of their lives. As an embodiment of late-life cultivated friendship, the group was a perennial favorite in East Asian painting, and its inclusion in the Katsushika circle's surimono series quietly mirrors the circle's own conception of itself: a private brotherhood of poets meeting away from the urgencies of work and politics. Yashima Gakutei, a leading surimono designer within the Hokusai school under Katsushika Hokusai, arranges the nine elders with the careful Chinese-style line that the subject demanded, balancing the figural group against generous white space for the printed kyoka verses. The deluxe surimono techniques - karazuri embossing of robes and rocks, mineral pigments, and burnished metallic powders for prestige details - register the print's status as a luxury commission. As a Yashima Gakutei kyoka-e in the Hokusai school manner, the sheet allows the Katsushika circle to see itself, generations later, in a Chinese mirror.