Attack at the Site of the Hundred Foot Cliff (Hyakusekigaisho kôgeki no zu)

This battle print documents a military engagement from the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), in which Japanese forces attacked a fortified position at a site described as the Hundred Foot Cliff, likely referencing steep terrain near the Liaodong Peninsula. Kiyochika produced an extensive series of war prints for publishers during this conflict, applying his facility with dramatic lighting to military subjects. Gunsmoke, muzzle flashes, and the harsh light of battlefield conditions translate naturally into his kosen-ga vocabulary of illuminated atmosphere against dark grounds. The composition would follow conventions established in Meiji war print publishing: advancing Japanese infantry in Western-style uniforms, enemy fortifications under assault, and kinetic energy conveyed through diagonal lines and billowing smoke. Such prints served both as news media and nationalist propaganda, disseminated rapidly to an eager domestic audience following telegraph dispatches from the front.