Ancient Patterns
About This Series
Ancient Patterns belongs to the historical and didactic strand of Kobayashi Kiyochika's later print production, in which the artist applied his draftsmanship to the cycle of figures and episodes drawn from the Japanese past that the Meiji state and the new popular press treated as exemplary material for the formation of national character. The title's reference to ancient patterns or precedents (koji or kojitsu) belongs to a Meiji vocabulary that framed the pre-modern record as a repertory of paradigms for contemporary conduct, and the series accordingly addresses subjects from the courtly, military and religious history of the older Japanese tradition. Kiyochika had moved by the 1880s and 1890s well beyond the celebrated kosen-ga Tokyo views with which he had launched his career in 1876 into a more varied output that included historical, didactic and journalistic subjects, the last aligned with the periodical press for which he produced his Kiyochika Punch caricatures. The compositions in this register characteristically retain the firm contour and reserved palette of his mature style, drawing on the iconography of the late-Edo musha-e and historical-print tradition but recasting it for the new Meiji audience that was being trained to read its national past through the lens of the post-Restoration historiography. The series belongs alongside Kiyochika's other historical and didactic cycles of the period and is best understood as part of his contribution to the visual canonization of the Japanese past for the late nineteenth century. Impressions are best documented through the Kiyochika holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Sackler in Washington and the Edo-Tokyo Museum.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Ancient Patterns belongs to the historical and didactic strand of Kobayashi Kiyochika's later print production, in which the artist applied his draftsmanship to the cycle of figures and episodes drawn from the Japanese past that the Meiji state and the new popular press treated as exemplary material for the formation of national character. The title's reference to ancient patterns or precedents (koji or kojitsu) belongs to a Meiji vocabulary that framed the pre-modern record as a repertory of paradigms for contemporary conduct, and the series accordingly addresses subjects from the courtly, military and religious history of the older Japanese tradition. Kiyochika had moved by the 1880s and 1890s well beyond the celebrated kosen-ga Tokyo views with which he had launched his career in 1876 into a more varied output that included historical, didactic and journalistic subjects, the last aligned with the periodical press for which he produced his Kiyochika Punch caricatures. The compositions in this register characteristically retain the firm contour and reserved palette of his mature style, drawing on the iconography of the late-Edo musha-e and historical-print tradition but recasting it for the new Meiji audience that was being trained to read its national past through the lens of the post-Restoration historiography. The series belongs alongside Kiyochika's other historical and didactic cycles of the period and is best understood as part of his contribution to the visual canonization of the Japanese past for the late nineteenth century. Impressions are best documented through the Kiyochika holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Sackler in Washington and the Edo-Tokyo Museum.
The Ancient Patterns series contains 1 prints, created by Kobayashi Kiyochika.
The Ancient Patterns series was created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林清親).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Ancient Patterns series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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