The Unofficial History of Japan
About This Series
The Unofficial History of Japan (Nihon gaishi or a closely related title) belongs to the historical-didactic strand of Kobayashi Kiyochika's late print production and takes its rubric from the celebrated nineteenth-century historical work of Rai San'yo, whose narrative of the Japanese military past became one of the foundational reading texts of the late Edo and early Meiji periods. The Nihon gaishi, written in literary Chinese and circulated in countless reprints across the post-Restoration decades, supplied an unofficial counter-history to the orthodox dynastic chronicles and became a principal vehicle through which Meiji-era readers encountered the great cycles of medieval and early-modern Japanese warfare. Kiyochika's series translates episodes from that text into print form, joining a wider Meiji industry of visual companions to Rai San'yo that ranged from school illustrations to elaborate woodblock cycles. The artist had by this point moved well beyond the celebrated kosen-ga Tokyo views with which he had launched his career in 1876 into a varied output of historical, didactic and journalistic subjects, and the Nihon gaishi prints exemplify his treatment of the national military past in the firm contour and reserved color of his mature style. The compositions draw on the iconography of the late-Edo musha-e tradition but recast it for the new audience that was being trained to read its history through the lens of post-Restoration scholarship. Impressions are held in the Kiyochika collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Sackler in Washington and the Edo-Tokyo Museum, and the series belongs alongside his other late historical cycles in the documented record of his work.
Prints in This Series (2)
Frequently Asked Questions
The Unofficial History of Japan (Nihon gaishi or a closely related title) belongs to the historical-didactic strand of Kobayashi Kiyochika's late print production and takes its rubric from the celebrated nineteenth-century historical work of Rai San'yo, whose narrative of the Japanese military past became one of the foundational reading texts of the late Edo and early Meiji periods. The Nihon gaishi, written in literary Chinese and circulated in countless reprints across the post-Restoration decades, supplied an unofficial counter-history to the orthodox dynastic chronicles and became a principal vehicle through which Meiji-era readers encountered the great cycles of medieval and early-modern Japanese warfare. Kiyochika's series translates episodes from that text into print form, joining a wider Meiji industry of visual companions to Rai San'yo that ranged from school illustrations to elaborate woodblock cycles. The artist had by this point moved well beyond the celebrated kosen-ga Tokyo views with which he had launched his career in 1876 into a varied output of historical, didactic and journalistic subjects, and the Nihon gaishi prints exemplify his treatment of the national military past in the firm contour and reserved color of his mature style. The compositions draw on the iconography of the late-Edo musha-e tradition but recast it for the new audience that was being trained to read its history through the lens of post-Restoration scholarship. Impressions are held in the Kiyochika collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Sackler in Washington and the Edo-Tokyo Museum, and the series belongs alongside his other late historical cycles in the documented record of his work.
The The Unofficial History of Japan series contains 1 prints, created by Kobayashi Kiyochika.
The The Unofficial History of Japan series was created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林清親).
We currently have 2 of 1 known prints from the The Unofficial History of Japan series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
Want to rate prints from The Unofficial History of Japan?
Sign up to start rating