Sino-Japanese War Prints (Senso-e)

The historian Donald Keene has estimated that an average of ten new prints were created every day during the ten months (July 1894 - April 1895¹) of the Sino-Japanese War, amounting to around 3000 different images.  Woodblock publishers recognized the opportunity for revitalizing flagging sales of prints and pushed production of war related prints.  As stated in the literary journal Waseda bungaku in its November 1894 issue, "The nishiki-e, formerly devoted chiefly to actor portraits and the depiction of mores, now treat almost nothing but the Sino-Japanese war or related persons and incidents.^"2

Immense Popularity

In May 1895, Lafcadio Hearn wrote, "The announcement of each victory resulted in enormous manufacture and sale of colored prints, crudely and cheaply executed, and mostly depicting the fancy of the artist only."  It seemed that "[a]ny thing having to do with the war would sell" and it was only the government "censors who were slow to clear works for printing" that slowed down sales.³  "Great crowds gathered before the print shops, and pickpockets thrived.”⁴

The famous author Tanizaki Jun'ichirō (1886-1965) remembers his excitement over the war prints:
¹ The final subjugation of Taiwan would extend into October 1895.
² "Crows, Cranes & Camellias. The NaturalWorld of Ohara Koson 1877-1945. Japanese Prints from the Jan PerreeCollection", Amy Reigle Newland, Jan Perree & RobertSchaap, Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2001, p. 15.
³Professor Edward Seidensticker as quoted by Robert Vergez in his article "Images of the Sino-Japanese War – A Book Review," Ukiyo-e Art: A Journal of the Japan Ukiyo-e Society, No. Vol. 79, 1983, p. iii.
⁴ Ibid.

⁵ "Prints of the Sino-Japanese War," Donald Keene, appearing in Impressions of the Front: Woodcuts of the Sino-Japanese War, Okamoto, Shumpei, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1983, p. 10.

Collecting  Prints of the Sino-Japanese War

Source: "Prints of the Sino-Japanese War," Donald Keene, appearing in Impressions of the Front: Woodcuts of the Sino-Japanese War, Okamoto, Shumpei, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1983, p. 10
"It is difficult to evaluate the artistic importance of the Sino-Japanese War prints.  The Japanese critic Yoshida Susugu enthusiastically proclaimed Kiyochika's works to be at the very summit of the art of the wood-block print as developed in Japan, but surely no one would prefer to own one than a ukiyo-e by Utamaro, for example.  In any case, they are not what most Westerners turn to when they begin to collect Japanese art.  I began to collect them some fifteen years ago, when all other prints had soared in price beyond my range, although my taste for them had to be acquired.  I have gradually come to savor these last manifestations of a great tradition.... The wartime prints, quickly made and inexpensively sold, represent a Japanese ideal, now all but lost, of making beautiful even the least expensive and least obviously artistic objects."

Comic Prints of the Sino-Japanese War

Artists, particularly Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), created numerous comic prints mocking the enemy during the war.  For the most famous series of these comic prints (manga or giga) see the article The Series “One Hundred Victories, One Hundred Laughs.”

Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) - A Summary

Source: "Images of the Sino-Japanese War – A Book Review," Robert Vergez, Ukiyo-e Art: A Journal of the Japan Ukiyo-e Society, No. Vol. 79, 1983, p. ii.
The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 was a result of Japan's emulation of the Western imperialism which sought to establish spheres of influence and seek territorial gain throughout Asia. The murder of Kim Ok-kyun, a pro-Japanese Korean leader, and Japan’s refusal to recognize China’s alleged suzerainty over the Korean Kingdom, provided the pretext for the one-sided Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.  With three columns of army troops originating from, respectively, Seoul, Sak-ryong and Gen-san, and converging on Pyong-yang, Japan won a succession of decisive battles, and subsequently invaded the Liaotung peninsula in South Manchuria.  However, the victory was largely determined by sea power.  The vessels of the Ch’ing empire were no match for the modern Japanese fleet.  In the major engagement off the Yalu River (also known as the Battle of the Yellow Sea), the Japanese navy virtually decimated the Peiyang (Northern) squadron, and thereafter took control of North China waters.  Port Arthur, at the extreme end of the Liaotung peninsula, was captured from the landward side.  Whatever was left of the Chinese fleet was bottled up at Weihaiwei in Shantung Province, south of Port Arthur across the Gulf of Pechili.  The Japanese army surrounded the harbor by land, captured the forts, and bombarded the Chinese fleet which was sunk ingloriously in February 1895, essentially ending the war. 

                        Japanese lines of attack

                    MIT Visualizing Cultures website

Japan's Involvement in Korea

Source :Glimpses of the Sino-Japanese War in Korea, 1894-5, Beth McKillop and Hamish Todd, curators in theOriental and India Office Collections at The British Library, published on theFathom Knowledge Network website http://www.fathom.com/feature/122225/
The 1894-5 war in Korea between China and Japan wasa key event in defining the politics of south Asia at the end of thenineteenth century.  Japan'smilitary intervention in Korea was certainly not a sudden decision: itrepresented the culmination of more than a decade of pressure byadvocates of foreign expansion to mount a military campaign in Korea.Pro-war sentiment in Japan was fueled by a desire to secure Japan'sstrategic borders, which were defined in relation to the expansionistaims of Russia and the Western powers. Depending on the sympathies ofthe historian, Japan's Korean policy of the 1880s and 1890s has beenvariously interpreted as a classic example of aggressive imperialistexpansion, or as a sincere but misguided attempt to extend to theKoreans the benefits of reform and economic development that Japan hadenjoyed since the Meiji restoration of 1868 opened the country to theoutside world.