Great Fierce Battle in the Snow near Niuzhuang 1895

Kobayashi Kiyochika made this woodblock print titled "Great Fierce Battle in the Snow near Niuzhuang." Here we see soldiers marching through a thick forest, snow falling, the moon glowing in the sky above a distant pagoda. This image relates to a specific military event, the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. Kiyochika worked in the Meiji period, a time when Japan was self-consciously modernizing and westernizing its institutions. Woodblock prints in the ukiyo-e tradition were becoming a thing of the past. Kiyochika sought to use traditional printing techniques to document current events for a mass audience. Prints like this one served as propaganda, glorifying the modern Japanese military and its victories over Qing Dynasty China. Examining such images, one can consider the relationship between art and nationalism. By researching period newspapers and military records, one might better understand this image’s original context and purpose.