Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the process of how the two major figures of the Southern Court in the 14th century, Prince Moriyoshi and Kusunoki Masashige were reevaluated in the Meiji era and represented through different media with special focus on the birth of "history painting" in the 1890s.

Paper long abstract:

The so-called "history painting" (rekishi-ga) is a category of art that emerged in the dawn of the Meiji era. The birth of such a category attests to a development of a new conceptions of the historical past and the role of art in expressing, or even constructing, such views. In this paper, I will explore the process of how the two major figures of the Southern Court, Prince Moriyoshi (Emperor Godaigo's son) and Kusunoki Masashige (the fourteenth-century warrior) were represented through different media (paintings, sculpture, textbooks) in the 1890s.

Firstly, I would like to shed light on the socio-political context of the year 1889, which is known as pivotal year for history painting in Japan. As Toshio Yamanashi argues, there were two art competitions in this year: The first was a prize show sponsored by The Nippon, a major newspaper company, in which the painters were provided in advance with certain themes of 'history painting.' The second was a sculpture competition, in which the subjects included Prince Moriyoshi and Kusunoki Masashige. These public competitions contributed much to the shaping of the pictorial imagination of these historical events and figures. Secondly, I will investigate the history textbooks focusing specifically on the narrative and illustration of these two figures. Interestingly, most of the historical figures in a collection of history paintings that were purchased in the 1890s by the First Higher School in Tokyo, the top educational institution at that time, are almost identical to the illustrations in contemporary history textbooks. It is assumed that these history paintings were used for ethics class at the school. I will explore the function of textbooks and paintings in the teaching of history in classrooms. Finally, while considering the reevaluation of the two figures throughout various media in the 1890s, I will argue how the representation of the two figures, Prince Moriyoshi and Kusunoki Masashige were differentiated from the time when they actually had lived and embellished with new description based on the emperor-centered historiography.