From the Notebooks Mourning for Butterflies 1906

Fujishima Takeji created this image of butterflies and insects in Japan, though the exact date is unknown. Insects are frequently depicted in Japanese art, and here we see them in minute detail, each one carefully observed. The artist would have been trained to reproduce such images with scientific accuracy, but we see the hint of something else here too. In Japan, the butterfly is seen as a symbol of transformation, resurrection, and immortality. In this image, the butterflies and insects are highly stylized, and it is hard to read it as simply a scientific study. Perhaps it reflects the great transformation that Japan was undergoing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as it modernized and opened itself up to the West. As art historians, our task is to carefully examine the circumstances of the creation of an image like this, to look into the cultural and social conditions that shaped it. In this case, we could ask what kind of training the artist had, what role Japanese art played in the Meiji restoration, and how such images were perceived at the time.