About This Print
Source: Kiyochika Artist of Meiji Japan, Henry D. Smith II, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1988, p. 92Pacifying the Taiwanese (Mopping Up Native Rebels near Hsinchu in Taiwan; August 1895)
The island of Taiwan (Formosa) was ceded to Japan by the Treaty ofShimonoseki, but the Japanese met with strong resistance when theyattempted to occupy their new colony. The Imperial Guard was sent inlate May of 1895 to put down the resistance, and became involved in aprotracted war of pacification that would take almost five months andcost many lives on both sides.
Kiyochika designed three prints illustrating the pacification ofTaiwan, all of them marked by a distinct sense of tropical fantasy. Japanese soldiers dressed in white uniforms with the distinctive kepiof the French Foreign Legion are led by officers wearing pith helmets. The lush landscape is accented with palm trees and the sky is paintedin tropical tones of orange and purple. They are the most romantic andexotic of all Kiyochika’s landscapes. They also reveal considerablewishful thinking on the part of the artist.
The reality of the subjugation of Taiwan was otherwise. According toJames Davidson, an American who accompanied the Japanese troops duringparts of the campaign and later became American consul to Taiwan, theJapanese troops were totally unprepared for the tropical climate,“unaccustomed to the heat of the Formosan sun, and dressed as they werein the winter uniform, with headgear affording absolutely no protectionagainst the sun.” As the summer passed, the most formidable foe wasnot the Taiwanese resistance, but tropical disease. By the time thelast rebel stronghold at Tainan fell on October 21, the Japanese hadlost 164 men in combat and 4,642 to disease; these statistics onlyheighten the irony of Kiyochika’s idyllic landscapes. (One of theJapanese casualties was the leader of the Imperial Guard, PrinceYoshihisa, who died of Malaria.)
Source: In Battle's Light: Woodblock Prints of Japan's Early Modern Wars, Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, Worcester Art Museum, 1991, p. 51
Kiyochika designed three prints illustrating the pacification of Taiwan, which was ceded to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. His conception was inspired more by British illustrations of their war in Egypt and the Sudan (1882-1898) than by history. Unlike the real Japanese soldiers, who were dressed in winter uniform, Kiyochika's soldiers wear pith helmets and summer whites. The exotic tropical landscape and the very compositional scheme are also inspired by British illustration. In Kiyochika's print the army is looking at the burning city of Xinzhu, which, according to contemporary accounts, surrendered on June 23 with little resistance and no mention of fire. To suggest the intense light of the tropical setting he used muted pastel colors and substituted true-red and blue-red for the oranges and yellow-red of his usual representations of fire.
Kiyochika designed three prints illustrating the pacification of Taiwan, which was ceded to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. His conception was inspired more by British illustrations of their war in Egypt and the Sudan (1882-1898) than by history. Unlike the real Japanese soldiers, who were dressed in winter uniform, Kiyochika's soldiers wear pith helmets and summer whites. The exotic tropical landscape and the very compositional scheme are also inspired by British illustration. In Kiyochika's print the army is looking at the burning city of Xinzhu, which, according to contemporary accounts, surrendered on June 23 with little resistance and no mention of fire. To suggest the intense light of the tropical setting he used muted pastel colors and substituted true-red and blue-red for the oranges and yellow-red of his usual representations of fire.
The Battle for Taiwan
Source: Japan at the Dawn of the Modern Age – Woodblock Prints from the Meiji Era, Louise E. Virgin, Donald Keene, et. al., MFA Publications, 2001, p. 106.The Japanese navy was particularly pleased by the annexation of Taiwan,but the Taiwanese fiercely fought the occupation. In May 1895, Japanhad to send in 60,000 men of the Imperial Guard. Japanese troopsquelled the resistance in smaller cities like Xinzhu before occupyingthe largest city, Tainan (now Taipei), on October 21. The battle atXinzhu took place in what a reporter described as a beautiful valleywith green rice paddies surrounded by bamboo- and willow-coveredmountains. Looking at Kiyochika’s triptych, Illustration of (Japanese Forces) Driving Away Taiwanese Bandits near Xinzhu,one imagines that it was inspired by such descriptions of lush,mountainous scenery. Clear pastel colors, palm trees, soldiers wearingkepis in the style of the French Foreign Legion, and officers wearingpith helmets indicate that Kiyochika was influenced by Europeanmagazine illustrations of North African battle sites when describingthe tropical atmosphere of Taiwan. Nearly five thousand Japanese diedin Taiwan in combat and because of tropical diseases, but the Japanesewon a major market as well as a source of rice and raw materials.
Source: Impressions of the Front: Woodcuts of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-85, Philadelphia Museum of Art, April 23 to June 26, 1983, p. 47
Takuhsuan was attacked on June 16, 1895. A few enemy soldiers werefound in this city of six hundred houses on the Takuhsuan River. Aftersome fighting, the Taiwanese militia force fled downstream. TheJapanese opened fire, killing or wounding countless resisters. Theassault platoon then burned the area.
On June 18, the Imperial Guard headquarters ordered the Second Regimentto march to Hsinchu the following day. A war correspondent reported:
This area was a vast rice paddy. Theplants were already ripe and bowing. The natives were cultivating theyoung sprouts for the second planting in this extremely fertile area,much like the vast plains outside Tokyo. The mountain range ran to thewest coast. Bamboo covered entire mountains. There were some willowtrees. The enemy took a position ahead and attacked our scouts. Oursupport company immediately spread out. Two platoons went to the mainroad and one platoon took the southern and another the westernheights. The enemy held the high ground, sounding drums, flutes, andhorns. They resisted stubbornly, but the elite Imperial Guardoverpowered them. At 6:30AM they retreated.
From here we could see the great ocean. The view was magnificent. Wealso watched our troop movements below as the rapid-firing guns echoedthrough the valley. It was thrilling and intoxicating.
From here we could see the great ocean. The view was magnificent. Wealso watched our troop movements below as the rapid-firing guns echoedthrough the valley. It was thrilling and intoxicating.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #97 |
| Title or Description | Illustration of (Japanese Forces) Driving Away Taiwanese Bandits near Xinzhu (Hsinchu) [also translated as: Native Bandits Being Swept up in the Vicinity of Xinzhu in Taiwan and Japanese Forces Overpower Taiwanese Bandits Near Xinznu] 台湾新竹附近土賊掃攘之図 Taiwan Shinchiku fukin dozoku sōjō no zu |
| Series | |
| Artist | Kiyochika Kobayashi (1847-1915) |
| Signature |  |
| Seal | kiyo 清 and chika 親 (as shown above) |
| Publication Date | August 1895 (Meiji 28) 明治廿八年 八月 日 印刷 (date of printing) 明治廿八年 八月 日 発行 (date of publishing) |
| Publisher |  from top to bottom: 臨写 (copying) 印刷兼 (printer and ) 発行者 (publisher) 日本橋区本町二丁目十番地 (Nihonbashi Honmachi Nichōme 10-banchi) 井上吉次郎 (Inoue Kichijirō) |
| Edition | likely first edition |
| Carver |  Watanabe Yatarō 彫弥太 |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | good - overall light toning; thinning at corners; small tape stains center of margins on each panel |
| Genre | ukiyo-e; senso-e |
| Format | vertical oban triptych |
| H x W Paper | 14 1/2 x 10 in. (36.8 x 25.4 cm) each sheet |
| H x W Image | |
| Literature | Japan at the Dawn of the Modern Age – WoodblockPrints from the Meiji Era, Louise E. Virgin, Donald Keene, et. al.,MFA Publications, 2001, p. 110, plate 60; Impressions of the Front: Woodcuts of the Sino-JapaneseWar, 1894-85, Philadelphia Museum of Art, April 23 to June 26, 1983,p. 47, pl 84; Kiyochika Artist of Meiji Japan, Henry D. Smith II, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1988, p. 92, pl. 101; In Battle's Light: Woodblock Prints of Japan's Early Modern Wars, Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, Worcester Art Museum, 1991, p. 51, pl. 24; Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japan, Philip K. Hu, et. al., Saint Louis Museum of Art, 2016, p. 152-153, pl. 56. |
| Collections This Print | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2000.421; Philadelphia Museum of Art 1976-75-116a--c; Santa Barbara Museum of Art Ex88.11abc; Japanese History Museum H-22-1-21-33; Östasiatiska musee OM-1994-0021; Saint Louis Museum of Art 755:2010a-c; Tokyo National Museum A-11947 |
4/15/2020
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