Bunmei Kaika: Political Landscape in Early Modern and Modern Japan

Abstract

A fascinating and accessible introduction to political prints from Edo- and Meiji-period Japan. Organized thematically, this catalog explores the connection between government and landscape imagery from the late Edo period (1615-1868) to the Meiji period (1868-1912). The motto bunmei kaika, meaning 'civilization and enlightenment,' was used during the latter period to celebrate Western ideas and industrialization as marks of a cultured society. Woodblock prints made throughout the nineteenth century and early twentieth century reveal how both the Tokugawa shogunate and subsequent Meiji government influenced Japanese social order through propaganda, censorship, and Westernization. Featuring works largely drawn from Vassar College's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center alongside select loans, the publication includes such celebrated artists as Hiroshige, Hokusai, Kunisada, Yoshitoshi, and Kiyochika. Bunmei Kaika illuminates a thriving print culture whose clever navigation of government regulations and prohibitions, playful and daring rendering of current events, and feeding of public interest cultivated the national imagination of a modernizing Japan.

Contents

Foreword -- Aknowledgments -- Political Landscape in Edo- and Meiji-Period Japanese Prints -- On the Road: Tōkaidō and Beyond -- Plates -- Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: Urban Planning in Edo -- Plates -- Changing Landscapes: Foreign Affairs at the Conclusion of the Edo Period -- Plates -- Religion and Nationalism: Meiji and the Imperial Family's Image -- Plates -- A City Transformed: Tokyo -- Sensō-e and the Concept of News: Colonization, Propaganda, and Censorship -- Plates -- Exhibition Checklist -- Further Reading.