Wagyoku Yogetsu was a monk painter active in the 15th and 16th centuries. Monkey paintings were introduced to Japan from China during the Kamakura period.
A representative example is the “Kannon with Monkey and Crane” (owned by Daitokuji Temple), painted by the monk painter Muxi, who lived at the end of the Southern Song dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan dynasty. This painting is in the so-called Muxi style, painted with soft brushstrokes without outlines. One of the monkey paintings features the theme of “Monkey Catching the Moon,” in which a monkey gazes at the moon reflected on the water’s surface or reaches out for the moon, and the monkey in this work may also be gazing at the moon on the water’s surface.