Monkeys Playing on a Stone Lantern

A lantern becomes a jungle gym for these monkeys. Some peek through the firebox while one climbs the post, and still others congregate at the base as they study a wasp and its nest. The word for “monkey” in Japanese is saru, a homophone with saru, which means to go away; monkeys were believed to make bad luck go away. Early in his career, Mori painted monkeys based on live specimens caught by hunters; later in life, he studied them in nature in the mountains.