- Title
- Defeat at the Battle of Ueno, on the fifteenth day of the fifth month of Meiji 1.(1868)
- Date Made
- November, 1874
- Medium
- Triptych; color woodblock prints
- Dimensions
- (a) Image: 14 x 9 3/8 in. (35.6 x 23.9 cm); Paper: 14 x 9 3/8 in. (35.6 x 23.9 cm); (b) Image: 14 x 9 3/8 in. (35.6 x 23.9 cm); Paper: 14 x 9 3/8 in. (35.6 x 23.9 cm); (c) Image: 14 x 9 3/8 in. (35.6 x 23.9 cm); Paper: 14 x 9 3/8 in. (35.6 x 23.9 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.84.31.534a-c
- Collecting Area
- Japanese Art
- Curatorial Notes
Although not as graphically violent as Yoshitoshi's prints of the same subject, Kawanabe Kyōsai's "Battle of Ueno" captures the chaos of battle with similar energy and flair. Action-filled backgrounds upstaged by frenzied soldiers in the foreground lend a sense of confusion and complexity to the battlefield; figures run in all directions, and spent arrows and swords are stuck into the earth at every angle, frustrating any sense of directionality or order. In the center, samurai loyalists run frantically in disarray. One of them, Amano Hachirō, (1831-1868) died during the battle while helping his comrades escape; some of the others, including the general Ikeda Ōsumi, would later commit ritual suicide (seppuku). By placing these tragic figures in a scene of absolute tumult, Kyōsai has crafted a poignant image of a rapidly changing Japan.
