Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 - 5 September 1905) was a conflict between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Korea.

After more than 19 months of almost unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces with the Russian loss of its Far East and its Baltic Fleets and loss of Port Arthur and Mukden - the capital of Manchuria, the two sides agreed to a peace treaty 5 September 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth, brokered by the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.

The war was perceived in many quarters as a war between the "Yellow Peril" and White Christianity with the hopes or fears of the Asian masses directed by the Japanese.

However, the Treaty of Portsmouth was viewed by many ordinary Japanese as cheating Japan of its victory and rightful spoils of war - the ordinary Japanese were much more belligerent than the leadership - and this would later lead to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945) and the Pacific War (1941 - 1945).

The woodblock prints depicting this war fall between the great masters Hiroshige and Hokusai and others at the end of the Tokugawa Period and those of the Shin hanga - new print period and thereby cast important light on the artistic development of woodblock printing in Meiji Japan and thus complement the authors´ previous books. They are war prints, nishiki-e, a new and special category of ukiyo-e prints that really started with the First Sino-Japanese War, see authors´ book on this conflict with a selection of these prints.

The prints are important documentation of this military conflict and of how the Japanese artists viewed it, how they presented it to the public. Due to the development of newspapers and photography there are less prints than from the first Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1859).

The prints are by a diverse number of artists with different styles.

Some of these artists appear only to have been active during the conflict while others were already either established painters or print artists.

Others would later appear in the shin-hanga movement, creating wonderful prints of landscapes, beauties - bijin-ga, actors , birds and flower prints or sumo prints. The reader is referred to authors´ books on these artists.

The authors hope the reader will enjoy the selection of artists and their works and thank readers for their support.