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War Stories
Across time and regional boundaries, art has been used to alternately vilify and glorify. Utagawa Kuniyoshi was among Japanese artists known for dramatic musha-e or warrior pictures. Here, he depicts samurai Saga Gorō Mitsutoki delivering a report to his emperor during the Battle of Dannoura, though wounded by multiple enemy arrows. Sixty years later, Ōkura Kōtō evoked a similar spirit in his Russo-Japanese War scene in which Japanese Imperial Navy officers engage the Russian fleet at Port Arthur (now Lüshun) in southern Manchuria. |