Kobayashi Kiyochika
Last ukiyo-e master of Meiji modernization
Kobayashi Kiyochika was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his ukiyo-e colour woodblock prints and newspaper illustrations. His work documents the rapid modernization and Westernization Japanese underwent during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and employs a sense of light and shade called kōsen-ga [ja] inspired by Western art techniques. His work first found an audience in the 1870s with prints of red-brick buildings and trains that had proliferated after the Meiji Restoration; his prints of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 were also popular. Woodblock printing fell out of favour during this period, and many collectors consider Kobayashi's work the last significant example of ukiyo-e.
Artworks by this artist (120 total)
- Itsukushima Shrine 1897
- Shinkyō, Sacred Bridge at Nikkō 1897
- Sumida River 1897
- Great Fire at Ryōgoku Sketched from Hamachō 1881
- Fireworks At Ikenohata 1881
- A Shock for Chanchan, from the Series, from the Series ‘Long Live Japan! One Hundred Selections, One Hundred Laughs’ 1894
- Inner Valley at Tsukigase 1897
- Engineer Lieutenant Onoguchi Tokuji, from the Series ‘Mirror of Famous Army and Navy Men’ 1895
- Matsushima 1896
- Great Fierce Battle in the Snow near Niuzhuang 2 1895
- The Taro Inari Shrine In The Rice Fields At Asakusa 1877 - 1882
- A Scouting Party of the Japanese Army Observing the Movements of Russian Cossack Soldiers across the Daedong River 190
- Bombarding the Enemy Camp as Our Second Army Lands at Jinzhou Fortress 1894
- Breakwater Stakes and Ryōgoku Bridge 1840
- Tsukuba Mountain Seen from Sakura River at Hitachi 1897
- Yōmeimon Gate at Nikkō Tōshōgū Shrine 1897
- Manufacturing Pots and Kettles in Kawaguchi 1879
- Snow at Soto-Sakurada, Kasumigaseki circa 1884
- Captain Higuchi, Company Commander in the Sixth Division, from the Series ‘Mirror of Famous Army and Navy Men’ 1895
- Hurrah for the Great Empire of Japan; Fierce Battle of Captain Matsuzaki at Anseong Crossing 1894