Landscape and Legend

Utagawa Hiroshige

The Monkey Bridge in Kai Province

c. 1841–42

Vertical diptych of woodblock prints, mounted as a hanging scroll; print 73 × 24.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A bridge spans a deep gorge, with a village, far hills and a rushing river below.

• Look for travelers crossing the bridge, tiny against cliff and sky.
• Look at the moon, framed between the bridge and the cliff.
• Two sheets joined top to bottom let landscape run vertically, from treetops to the gorge floor.

Monkey Bridge, Kai Province

Saruhashi, a famous bridge in Kai, a mountainous old province west of Edo (today Yamanashi Prefecture).

Image: The Met Open Access · Public domain (Met Open Access)