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JAPANESE WAR PRINTS -- FIRST SINO-JAPANESE CONFLICT, 1894-1895
A collection of 35 late-19th century Japanese hand-coloured woodblock prints depicting scenes from the First Sino-Japanese Conflict, 9 of naval actions, 26 of the Japanese army's offensive, comprising multiple sheets joined, one on six joined sheets, 14½ x 56¼in. (36.8 x 142.8cm.) overall, and smaller
Conflict began in July 1894 with skirmishes between the Japanese fleet and a Chinese cruiser near Asan Bay, south of Seoul. The war saw the Japanese First and Second Armies invade Korea and the Liatong Peninsula, the first naval battle between steam-powered fleets in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, fought by the Japanese Combined Fleet and Chinese Peiyang (Northern) Fleet in September 1894, and the invasion of Taiwan by the Japanese Imperial Guard in May-October 1895. The Japanese were subsequently forced to withdraw from the Liatong Peninsula by the Triple Intervention, but the war established Japan as the oppressor of the Far East and was a precursor to the Japanese military imperialism of the following fifty years.
'With respect to art, the Sino-Japanese War, which saw a flood of prints created depicting its battles, also marked the end of the Ukiyoe print, which had been particularly popular with Japanese people for over two hundred years. ... The Sino-Japanese War, which lasted less than a year, stimulated a final spurt of intense printmaking activity; during this time over three thousand prints were published .. Only a few artists actually went to the front, and most of the prints were drawn with inadequate information about the appearance of heroes and landscapes depicted ... The lack of factual information actually benefited some of the artists, especially the best ones. Free to imagine scenes and to invent people and details of landscape without fear of contradiction, they created works of art, which, though false in their ostensible subjects, displayed the artists gifts of composition, coloring, or illumination.' (S. Okamoto, Impressions of the Front: Woodblocks of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95, Philadelphia Museum of Art, April-June 1983). The numerous 'war artists' included Toshihide, Einen, Gekko, Chikanobu, Kobayashi Kiyochika, Nobukazu, Ginko, Mizuno Toshikata, Kuniomi and others.
A collection of 35 late-19th century Japanese hand-coloured woodblock prints depicting scenes from the First Sino-Japanese Conflict, 9 of naval actions, 26 of the Japanese army's offensive, comprising multiple sheets joined, one on six joined sheets, 14½ x 56¼in. (36.8 x 142.8cm.) overall, and smaller
Conflict began in July 1894 with skirmishes between the Japanese fleet and a Chinese cruiser near Asan Bay, south of Seoul. The war saw the Japanese First and Second Armies invade Korea and the Liatong Peninsula, the first naval battle between steam-powered fleets in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, fought by the Japanese Combined Fleet and Chinese Peiyang (Northern) Fleet in September 1894, and the invasion of Taiwan by the Japanese Imperial Guard in May-October 1895. The Japanese were subsequently forced to withdraw from the Liatong Peninsula by the Triple Intervention, but the war established Japan as the oppressor of the Far East and was a precursor to the Japanese military imperialism of the following fifty years.
'With respect to art, the Sino-Japanese War, which saw a flood of prints created depicting its battles, also marked the end of the Ukiyoe print, which had been particularly popular with Japanese people for over two hundred years. ... The Sino-Japanese War, which lasted less than a year, stimulated a final spurt of intense printmaking activity; during this time over three thousand prints were published .. Only a few artists actually went to the front, and most of the prints were drawn with inadequate information about the appearance of heroes and landscapes depicted ... The lack of factual information actually benefited some of the artists, especially the best ones. Free to imagine scenes and to invent people and details of landscape without fear of contradiction, they created works of art, which, though false in their ostensible subjects, displayed the artists gifts of composition, coloring, or illumination.' (S. Okamoto, Impressions of the Front: Woodblocks of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95, Philadelphia Museum of Art, April-June 1983). The numerous 'war artists' included Toshihide, Einen, Gekko, Chikanobu, Kobayashi Kiyochika, Nobukazu, Ginko, Mizuno Toshikata, Kuniomi and others.
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