Attack on Port Arthur in the Moonlight (Ryōjunkō gekka no kōgeki)

This 1894 triptych by Shinohara Kiyooki, held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (accession sc131795, object 129949), depicts a night attack on the harbor of Port Arthur (Lüshun) during the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. The Japanese title Ryōjunkō gekka no kōgeki ("attack on Port Arthur in the moonlight") locates the action at the Liaodong Peninsula naval base that had become a central objective of the Japanese campaign against Qing China, and the moonlit-night setting belongs to the established senso-e convention of using dramatic nocturnal lighting to heighten the visual impact of naval engagements. Kiyooki's composition deploys the panoramic three-sheet format that defined the genre, with the moon hanging over the harbor, the silhouettes of warships rendered against the night sky, and the bright aniline reds of muzzle flashes and signal lamps providing color accents within the predominantly cool tonal scheme. The Sino-Japanese War triptychs of 1894-1895 were Japan's principal popular medium for visualizing the conflict that established the country as a modern imperial power, and Kiyooki's contribution belongs to the most active phase of the senso-e tradition. A decade later he would return to the night-attack subject for his Russo-Japanese War triptych of 1904.