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- began to use woodblock prints to illustrate certain exciting news events. All the most notorious crimes of the period became material for the print artist, many of which involved women as murderesses or victims of murder. Woodblock prints were also utilized to illustrate novels and short stories which were printed in the newspapers; some of the longer stories were published as serializations.
The newspapers commissioned several skilled print artists, in particular Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku, to produce supplemental images for reproduction in large numbers. These prints became an important source of income for the artists as well as contri�buting to their fame. By the early 20th century photographs would supplant woodblock prints in popularity for newspaper illustrations.
Painting
Painting also underwent a transformation influenced by West�ern European art currents. However, it was much slower to adapt initially. Before 1868 Japan had several well-established traditional schools of painting. During the Meiji period the two oldest, the Tosa and Kano schools, lost their originality and inspiration as well as their patronage from the feudal clans. Since the decorative Rimpa schools, the ukiyo-e genre painting schools, and the Nagasaki school of bird and flower painting had no great exponents, they remained sterile and lacking in vitality. Two other traditions, the Nanga (literati painting) and Maruyama-Shijo schools fared much better in the new age, largely due to the fact that they had many outstanding artists among their ranks.
The greatest and best known Meiji period artists of the tradi�tional schools were Kawanabe Gyosai (1831-1889), Kano Hogai (1828-1888) and Hashimoto Gaho (1835-1908) of the Kano school; Shibata Zeshin (1807-1871), Watanabe Seitei (1851-1918) and Kawabata Gyokusho (1842-1913) of the Maruyama-Shijo school; and Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924) of the Nanga school.
Initially, all the traditional painting schools were hit hard by the early Meiji fad for Western art and many were forced to adapt to the changing styles. Traditional painting was found to be unsuitable to meet the new challenge. Many Japanese
26/ MEIJI
Portrait of Emperor Meiji ^ by Soemoto, late 19th century calligraphy by Sato Morinari;
hanging scroll; Tsuda Family Collection.
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