Published 1899, Worldly Desires (#11) belongs to Gekko’s Artwork (Gekko Gahou). Gekkō gahō presents the artist’s pictorial repertory in album form. Such art books served collectors, students, and designers, circulating compositional models and displaying the breadth of a painter-printmaker’s command of figures, nature, legend, and history.

The title identifies the design’s particular figure, episode, object, or place, anchoring Gekkō’s composition in a larger network of historical narrative and cultural association. The catalog identifies horse and monkey among the principal motifs. Gekkō uses their relationship to clarify action, season, setting, and narrative emphasis rather than treating them as interchangeable decoration.

As a book or album image, the composition was designed to be encountered in sequence and in relation to text, facing pages, and the physical act of turning leaves.

Additional information

Editions

First Edition

Publisher

Daikokuya Gaho

Size

Oban

Subjects

horse, monkey

Year Published

1899

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