Bombarding the Enemy Camp as Our Second Army Lands at Jinzhoucheng (Waga dainigun Kinshû tekiei hôgeki no zu)

A triptych-format senso-e from the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), this print records the Japanese Second Army's landing operations on the Liaodong Peninsula and its subsequent bombardment of Chinese positions at Jinzhou (Kinshū). Kiyochika's war prints for publisher Matsuki Heikichi combined topographic legibility — maps and battle dispositions frequently appeared in borders or inset panels — with dramatic pictorial staging. The landing composition would place warships in the background firing salvos whose smoke and muzzle flash Kiyochika renders with the chiaroscuro techniques developed in his earlier light pictures, now applied to the chaos of modern warfare. Troops deploying from landing boats in the foreground establish human scale against naval artillery. The print belongs to Kiyochika's approximately one hundred senso-e from the 1894–95 conflict, which constituted the most extensive visual chronicle of that war produced in the woodblock medium.