Caricature of Japanese Ship (Cat) Bagging Chinese Ships (Rats), (from the series: One Hundred Victories, One Hundred Laughs)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
- Image courtesy of
- Honolulu Museum of Art
This print from the series Nihyaku tōka (One Hundred Victories, One Hundred Laughs) deploys animal allegory for satirical commentary on the First Sino-Japanese War, casting the Japanese naval fleet as a cat and the Chinese Beiyang Fleet as rats being collected in a bag. The cat-and-rat metaphor, familiar in both Japanese and Chinese visual culture, allowed Kiyochika to frame the naval engagements at Pungdo and the Yellow Sea as natural predation rather than contested warfare. The composition likely exaggerates the scale relationship between the hunting cat-ship and the scrambling rat-ships for comic effect, using the conventions of kyōga (humorous pictures) within the woodblock format. The series title itself — hyaku warai, one hundred laughs — signals the print's register as political caricature, a genre Kiyochika practiced alongside his serious war imagery, addressing the same events through mockery rather than heroism.
Hebizukai
1932
Color woodblock print; oban
1935
Color woodblock print; oban
1964
Acrylic paint and oil pastel with oiled charcoal and ink over an ink and graphite underdrawing on paper
1964
Color lithograph with relief block and hand coloring; edition 35/36
Caricature of Japanese Ship (Cat) Bagging Chinese Ships (Rats), (from the series: One Hundred Victories, One Hundred Laughs) was created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林清親).
Caricature of Japanese Ship (Cat) Bagging Chinese Ships (Rats), (from the series: One Hundred Victories, One Hundred Laughs) depicts animals.
