From Tokugawa to Meiji

by Chikanobu Toyohara, 1881

Meiji Era
Ueno Exposition
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This essay by Dan McKee describes the difficult transition from Edo to Meiji printmaking. Times were tough for the Japanese population during these years and for the ukiyo-e artists and artisans even more.

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Minor Changes in Subjects ...

by Sadahide Utagawa, ca. 1861

The Meiji Period
American Couple with Dog
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Examining the broad variety of the Meiji print beyond its surface, one might in fact note little change from the popular print of the Tokugawa Period. The very same genres continue to dominate the ukiyo-e form, with courtesans only different in hairstyle and dress, actors in the latest plays as well as the old classics, scenes of Edo replaced by scenes of Tokyo, with its modern buildings and railroads.

The process of production remained virtually unaltered, though the class basis of the jobs of publisher, designer, carver and printer was lost, and former samurai were able to move into these positions. Audience tastes too were much the same: the popular print remained obsessed with the moment, with what was novel and new, as it had always been.

But there was so much that was new in Meiji to depict - the fall of the bakufu and the coming of new leaders, odd-looking foreigners and Western fashion, incredible machines and architecture, a new national symbol who was frequently on display - that on the surface the Meiji print seems of another world from its Edo counterpart.

... But a Big Change in Colors Used

by Kyosai Kawanabe 1831-1889

Biography of Kyosai Kawanabe
Panoramic View of Ueno Exhibition
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The desire for the new extended into artistic techniques and the materials of the print in Meiji as well, with the introduction of bright aniline dyes from Germany, and experiments in Western techniques like shading.

From Designer to Illustrator

But this too is different only in substance, not in form, from what sustained the Edo print's popularity. The most explicit difference between Edo and Meiji prints was the ability of printmakers now to depict contemporary events, without fear of backlash.

Though as we have seen, a movement in this direction began some fifteen years before Meiji, the institutionalization of this practice ultimately transformed printmakers into something more like journalists than artists, allowing them to shape representations of current events and participate in politics in an unprecedented manner.

Surviving as a Print Artist during the Meiji Era

by Yoshitoshi Taiso 1839-1892

The Tokugawa Shoguns
Last Shogun - Tokugawa Family Annual Almanac
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For many artists, this was not only a privilege, but also a vital means of survival in the changed atmosphere of the Meiji Era. Kabuki specialists like Utagawa Kunichika, having a continuous demand with each new production, never seem to have felt such a need, but for others like Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, the opportunity to design illustrations for the new newspapers was a way out of dire poverty.

Grinding Poverty for Meiji Printmakers

Poverty was a very real threat for Yoshitoshi and other print artists like him in the early years of Meiji, both because the general populace was struggling under economic conditions too harsh to allow many of them to invest in prints, and because these artists' work was suddenly viewed as dated, part of the violent and irrational old regime that had nothing to do with the new ideals of progress and enlightenment.

Dan McKee
(July 2003, updated by Dieter Wanczura in October 2009)

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