• The Age of the Samurai (1185-1868) [Asia for Educators]
An introductory outline, with discussion questions.
Lesson Plan • A Case Study of Tokugawa Japan through Art: Views of a Society in Transformation [Program for Teaching East Asia, Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado]
"For many years, Western scholarship presented a narrative of Tokugawa Japan as a sdiv, but also stagnant society. More recent scholarship identifies the Tokugawa period, 1603-1868, as a time when Japan experienced significant social, economic, and political changes that laid the groundwork for modernization. In this lesson, students consider a major art form of the period — woodblock prints — as historical documents providing a visual record of a society and country in transformation. They identify specific changes Japan underwent on its early path to becoming a modern nation." With an in-depth introductory essay and lesson plan.
Lesson Plans • Teaching East and West: Establishing Historical Context Through a Comparison of Tokugawa Japan and Elizabethan England [Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, University of Maryland]
With 18 lesson plans created by the participants of "Teaching East and West," a 2004-2005 conference for K-12 teachers.
• Japan's Modern History: An Outline of the Periods [Asia for Educators]
Divides Japanese history from 1600 to the present into four periods, providing teachers with a synopsis of major events placed in the context of overall historical developments. Also includes a timeline activity for students (to be completed with information from the reading).
• Timeline of Modern Japan (1868-1945) [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
• The Meiji Restoration and Modernization [Asia for Educators]
In 1868 the Tokugawa shōgun lost his power, and the emperor was restored to the supreme position. This event was known as the Meiji Restoration. This essay examines the period during and after the Meiji restoration, discussing the new civic ideology of the time, social and economic changes of the period, and Japan's colonialism and expansion of the late 19th and early 20th century.
• The Meiji Restoration Era, 1868-1889 [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
Essay outlining "the history of the critical transition Japan underwent between 1868 and 1889, as well as providing some background about the events leading up to this period of rapid societal change."
• Meiji and Taisho Japan: An Introductory History [Program on Teaching East Asia]
“Japan underwent amazing transformations from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. In the 1850s, Japan was politically divided into many competing warlord domains. The people were socially divided into hierarchical classes. The most powerful warlord, the shogun, ruled almost as a dictator. He did not allow popular participation in government. Leaders severely limited contacts with the outside world. Japan was seen as a “closed country” that engaged in diplomacy with few of its neighbors….By the 1920s, things had changed. Japan had become a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected parliament. It had a modern military that had won two major wars overseas. Japan was an active member of the international community. It participated in the League of Nations and ruled colonies of its own. Despite these successes, Japanese leaders were frustrated. They saw signs that other world powers did not regard them as equals. They were also concerned about rising nationalism in the colonies and popular protests at home. All these factors led officials to move toward militarism and fascism in the 1930s... Along with political transformations, the Japanese experienced many changes in daily life. People began wearing Western style clothing and eating new foods. Trains, cars, and electricity came to Japan’s cities. Women became active participants in public life as workers, consumers, writers, and intellectuals. Interactions with Europeans and Americans inspired many of these changes. Some Japanese thought such moves were necessary for Japan to become part of the modern world. Others were concerned they would lose their own traditions. How could the Japanese create a shared sense of national identity? Did “modern” mean “Western”? Could Japan modernize and industrialize without losing its sense of self? These were questions Japanese of the time asked themselves. We might ask the same questions today as we think back on these decades of Japan’s history.”
• Voices from the Past: The Human Costs of Japan’s Modernization, 1880s-1930s [Program on Teaching East Asia]
In many world history curricula, the study of modern Japan moves from the Meiji Restoration (1868) directly to the beginnings of World War II. If time allows, a quick overview of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars may be included as the beginning of Japan’s trajectory towards empire and World War II. The “big idea” taught about Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is that Japan played rapid “catch up” to the West with a deep and broad transformation and modernization. The complex dynamics of this rapid modernization—both its benefits and costs—are often overlooked in a crowded curriculum, but it is an important story, paralleling the story of the costs and benefits of modernization in the Western nations that preceded Japan in this process.
• Imperial Japan: 1894-1945 [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
Essay providing "an overview of Japanese political history during this period" and "situating it within the larger context of East Asia and Japan's views towards East Asia."
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Throwing Off Asia I: Woodblock Prints of Domestic "Westernization" (1868-1912) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
"The remarkably swift 'Westernization' of Japan in the late-19th and early-20th centuries was most vividly captured in popular woodblock prints. [These i]mages ... illustrate the great political, social, cultural, and industrial transformations that took place." A teaching unit richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and featuring essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes eight lesson plans related to the unit.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Imperial Democracy and Colonial Expansion, 1890-1945 [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
Teaching unit with five lesson plans, two of which are relevant to this time period: "Realizing the Meiji Dream, 1890-1905" and "After the Meiji Light: The Transition to Taisho, 1905-1912." Unit goals for students: 1) describe reasons why the political transition of the Japanese state from its Meiji founders to its Taisho and early Showa successors was a time of ambiguity and uncertainty accompanied by significant political and social challenges; 2) list major attempts by Japanese people from all social classes to achieve not only government recognition of their concerns but also greater participation in Japanese political life and in Japanese society, as well as demonstrating their understanding of the pluralistic and often chaotic nature of these attempts; and 3) articulate that the gradual, evolutionary nature of Japan’s imperialist expansion beginning in the 1890s was due to strategic and security concerns rather than a premeditated, pragmatic attempt to rule first Asia and then the world.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Japan’s Rapid Rise and Fall, 1868-1945 [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"In five activity and primary source-intensive lessons that address the major social and political shifts of the period from 1890 to 1945, the authors emphasize that these shifts were interdependent forces that operated on both international and national levels."
Lesson Plan • Shifting Perceptions: Japan and the World in the Late 19th Century [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"This lesson concentrates on enhancing students’ ability to utilize documents such as maps, artwork and primary source materials to interpret history. This is accomplished via an investigation of changing perceptions of Japan by Asia and the international community as a result of Japan’s changing political and social landscape following the First Sino-Japanese War."
Video • The Meiji Revolution [Annenberg/CPB – Pacific Century Series]
Aizawa Seishisai, 1781-1863
Primary Source w/DBQs • Excerpts from Shinron (New Theses): "The Barbarians' Nature" [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Fukuzawa Yukichi, 1834-1901
Primary Source w/DBQs • Excerpts from The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • The Charter Oath (of the Meiji Restoration), 1868 [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Primary Source w/DBQs • The Meiji Constitution of 1889 [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
Lesson Plan • The Nature of Sovereignty in Japan, 1870s-1920s [Program on Teaching East Asia]
From the 1870s through the 1920s, Japan underwent rapid and widespread modernization and nation-building. In the Meiji period, Japanese leaders looked to European models of constitutional monarchy, adopting a system of imperial government modeled most closely on the Prussian model. As Japan transitioned from the Meiji to the Taishō periods, government and politics were increasingly influenced by Western liberal ideas. Tensions arose between the growing interest in liberal political thinking and the established political context, established through the Meiji Constitution of 1889, of a constitutional monarchy, headed by a hereditary emperor. This lesson looks at those tensions through close reading of historical texts.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Throwing Off Asia II: Woodblock Prints of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
Featuring propaganda prints illustrating Japan's victory in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). A teaching unit richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and featuring essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes eight lesson plans related to the unit.
Lesson Plan • The Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895: Japan is Victorious on the Battlefield and the Baseball Diamond [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"How was Japanese national pride encouraged on the battlefield as well as on the baseball field during the Sino-Japanese War? This lesson suggests ways for educators to address issues of imperialism, colonialism, propaganda, and national identity, using Japan as an example, and particularly the construction of “nationhood” through popular modes such as baseball."
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Throwing Off Asia III: Woodblock Prints of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
Featuring photographs and rare war prints illustrating the "titanic war against Tsarist Russia that stunned the world and established Japan as a major imperialist power with a firm foothold on the Asian mainland." A teaching unit richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and featuring essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes eight lesson plans related to the unit.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Asia Rising: Japanese Postcards of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
"Imperial Japan’s 1904-05 war against Tsarist Russia changed the global balance of power. The first war to be widely illustrated in postcards, the Japanese view of the conflict is presented in images..." A teaching unit richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and featuring essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes five lesson plans related to the unit.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Yellow Promise/Yellow Peril: Foreign Postcards of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
"Imperial Japan’s 1904-05 war against Tsarist Russia changed the global balance of power. The first war to be depicted internationally in postcards is captured here in dramatic images..." A teaching unit richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and featuring essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes five lesson plans related to the unit.
Lesson Plan • The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905: A Turning Point in Japanese History, World History, and How War is Conveyed to the Public [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"Students will examine the significance of the Russo-Japanese War as a critical event in Japanese, as well as world history through comparisons of the events’ portrayal in contemporary traditional and emerging media; from woodblock prints, to photographs and film."
• Portsmouth Peace Treaty, 1905-2005 [Japan-America Society of New Hampshire]
"The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 was fought between Russia, an international power with one of the largest armies in the world, and Japan, a tiny nation only recently emerged from two and a half centuries of isolation. These Web pages explore the causes of the war, the military conflict on land and sea, President Theodore Roosevelt's back channel diplomacy, and the peace negotiations hosted by the United States Navy and the State of New Hampshire."
Primary Source w/DBQs • The Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) [Asia for Educators]
• Russo-Japanese War [Stanford History Education Group]
• Looking East: William Howard Taft and the 1905 Mission to Asia (The Photographs of Harry Fowler Woods) [University of Cincinnati]
This assessment gauges whether students can identify the historical event or development depicted in a photograph from the past and evaluate the historical significance of the event. Successful students will draw on their knowledge of the past to explain that this is a photograph of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and then explain how the event was historically significant.
"On July 8, 1905, one of the first and largest U.S. foreign diplomatic delegations to Asia embarked from San Francisco for a three-month goodwill tour, stopping in Japan, the Philippines, and China. Under the leadership of Secretary of War, William Howard Taft... The 1905 voyage carried two serious diplomatic purposes: to assist with peace negotiations in order to end the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05); and to demonstrate American accomplishments in the Philippines." Includes a 25-page curriculum guide providing extensive historical background information, plus primary-source documents and map activities.
Primary Source + DBQs + Map Exercise + Lesson Plans • Paper Trails: Deshima Island: A Stepping Stone between Civilizations [World History Connected]
"Deshima ... was a small artificial island in Nagasaki Bay ... on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu. From 1641 to 1845, Deshima served as the sole conduit of trade between Europe and Japan, and during the period of self-imposed Japanese seclusion (approximately 1639-1854) was Japan's only major link to the European world." An excellent overview, with primary sources, discussion questions, document and map-based exercises, plus links to relevant lesson plans.
Millard Fillmore, 1800-1874; Matthew Perry, 1794-1858
Primary Source w/DBQs • Commodore Perry and Japan (1853-1854) [Asia for Educators]
On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy, commanding a squadron of two steamers and two sailing vessels, sailed into Tōkyō harbor aboard the frigate Susquehanna and forced Japan to enter into trade with the United States. This unit examines that historical exchange with an introductory essay and an examination of the three letters that President Fillmore and Commodore Perry wrote to the Japanese emperor [PDF].
• Komonjo (Old Documents); Commodore Matthew Perry’s Letters [Princeton]
”This letter, one of two, deals with interactions with the Shimoda authorities, and reveals the convoluted nature of communications, as some students of Dutch, low ranking Japanese officials, translated documents to higher ranking officials. In this case, an original letter from Commander Sydney Smith Lee (S. S. Lee) to the authorities of Shimoda…. S. S. Lee’s letter was translated, and the contents verbally conveyed by interpreters in Dutch language. They then translated the letter and dispatched it to Tokugawa officials. These interpreters boarded the ship along with other Japanese officials…Perry, in his report, mentions two such buoys that were provided. One was in mid-channel, and marked “Southhampton Rock” which, in his words: “is about twenty-five feet in diameter and has two fathoms of water upon it. It is marked by a white spar-buoy. The second is the Supply Rock...with 11 feet water upon it. Its position is designated by a red spar buoy. Both of these buoys are securely moored; and the authorities promised to replace them should they, by any cause, be removed.” Perry, Expedition to Japan, vol. 1, p. 384…The second letter represents a request for both ballast and coal. Coal was one of the great requests for the fleet, as it was necessary to power the steamers, and Japanese officials acquiesced, stating that they would supply coal from Nagasaki.”
• The Case for Commodore Perry in the Classroom [World History Connected]
An excellent overview, with images, a list of related online resources, and suggested research projects for students.
Primary Source w/DBQs • The "Opening" of the East: Differing Perspectives [Education About Asia, Association for Asian Studies]
Provided with eight short primary-source selections and given only the date of the selection for reference, students are asked to provide a brief summary of the speaker’s position, to identify the nationality of the speaker, and to provide a rationale for choosing that speaker. Particularly relevant for AP World History courses. Download PDF on page.
Note to Teachers The journal Education about Asia has many excellent teaching resources on-line on all topics related to East, South and SE Asia.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Black Ships & Samurai: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (1853-1854) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
"On July 8, 1853, residents of feudal Japan beheld an astonishing sight — foreign warships entering their harbor under a cloud of black smoke. Commodore Matthew Perry had arrived to force the long-secluded country to open its doors." A teaching unit richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and featuring essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. Also featuring various versions of the Black Ship Scroll," a 30-foot long scroll (emaki) painted in Shimoda, one of two treaty ports opened in 1854 as a result of Commodore Matthew Perry's mission to long-secluded Japan. Several versions of this lively and often humorous scroll were circulated to satisfy curiosity about the foreigners." The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes eight lesson plans related to the unit.
• Foreigners in Japan, 1860-1861 [Smithsonian LearningLab]
Using the Project Zero Visible Thinking routine "What makes you say that?", students will examine Japanese artworks depicting Americans and other "westerners" in Japan to analyze Japanese views towards foreigners in the period after the signing of the Kanagawa Treaty (1854). The Kanagawa Treaty, the first treaty between the United States and Japan, ended a period of Japanese isolationism that had lasted for 220 years. Collection includes 21 woodblock prints from the years 1860-1861.
Teaching Unit w/Lesson Plans • Yokohama Boomtown: Foreigners in Treaty-Port Japan (1859-1872) [Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
"[A] window on the imagined life of foreigners in Japan at the dawn of the modern era ... " This teaching unit is richly illustrated with high-resolution images and maps and features essays by John W. Dower, MIT professor of Japanese history. The Visual Narratives section offers a shorthand view of the unit's primary themes and images; the Curriculum section includes seven lesson plans related to the unit.
Primary Source w/DBQs • Excerpts from the Letter from Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito) to President Ulysses S. Grant, on the Iwakura Mission, 1871 [Asia for Educators]
"In 1871, the fledgling Meiji government dispatched a mission [the Iwakura Mission] of almost fifty high officials and scholars to travel around the world, including extended tours of the United States... The leaders of the mission also attempted to begin the renegotiation of the 'unequal treaties' — the exploitative diplomatic and economic agreements imposed by the Western powers on Japan in the 1850s... This letter from the Emperor Meiji was presented to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant when the Iwakura Mission visited Washington, D.C."
• Japanese Segregation in San Francisco [Stanford History Education Group]
In this investigative unit, students explore discrimination against Asian immigrants at the turn of the century and examine the context of President Theodore Roosevelt’s conflicting policies regarding the segregation of Chinese students versus Japanese students in the city of San Francisco.
Primary Source w/DBQs • Codes of Merchant Houses: The Code of the Okaya House (1836) [PDF] [Asia for Educators]
"Although merchants were accorded low social status in the Tokugawa order and the Confucian orthodoxy of the time, commerce thrived in early modern Japan. ... The Okaya house was based in Nagoya in central Japan and had its origins trading in hardware. This code was written by Okaya Sanezumi, under whose leadership the house prospered, in 1836."
More readings related to the Codes of Merchant Houses can be found under Time Period 1450-1750.
• Inventing Modern Japanese Man [Program on Teaching East Asia]
What did it mean to be modern, for nations and people, in the early 20th century? One salient aspect of modernity is the dynamic, shifting roles and identity of men and women within society, the economy, and the family. We often look at the shifting roles of women as a lens into the modernization process and experience. As one example, as women received more education in many societies in the late 19th and 20th centuries, they also sought and won greater social and economic empowerment. As women’s roles changed, men recalibrated their identities. Some recommitted to the traditional patriarchal norms while others liberated themselves from these erstwhile expectations. The shifts in gender roles and identities were no different for Japanese men and women as Japan transformed into a modern nation and society. Through the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa periods (1868-1930s), as Japan industrialized and modernized, men as well as women experienced this dynamic shift in gender identities.In this lesson, students explore images of the various “male identities” constructed beginning in the late 1800s. Some of these identities—the head of the household and the soldier—were intentional constructions of the Meiji government as part of the project of building a modern nation state.
• Moga, Factory Girls, Mothers, and Wives: What Did It Mean to be a Modern Woman in Japan during the Meiji and Taisho Periods? [Program on Teaching East Asia]
During the Meiji and Taishō periods, from 1868 to 1926, Japan underwent deep change and modernization. As with any rapid societal change, modernization of the Japanese nation and society was a complex process. Modernization included, but was not limited to, rapid industrial growth, new governmental and economic structures, transformation of economic roles and societal structures, and the forging of a national identity. Throughout, the process involved the search for and evolution of new ideas and new models of organization and function. Japan looked to some Western nations, who had embarked on modernization earlier in the 19th century, and adapted promising models, blending those with ideas and structures that would preserve the “Japaneseness” of Japan. This lesson considers the increasingly complex and differentiated society that emerged in the modern Japan of the late 1800s-early 20th century, roughly the late Meiji (1880s-1911) and Taishō (1911-1926) periods.
• Food History and National Myths [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"The Japanese absorption of Chinese food products and the remarketing of them as national Japanese dishes unlocks mysteries of Japan’s late Meiji (1868-1912) and early Taisho (1912-1926) era foreign communities and their influence on the development of the Japanese diet and national identity through food."
• East Asian Martial Arts: Historical Development, Modernization, and Globalization [ExEAS]
American students’ most common areas of contact with East Asian cultures are through martial arts, film, and food. This unit takes advantage of students’ prior interest in martial arts to teach them about East Asian history and contemporary processes of globalization. Through exploration of the historical development and spread of these practices, it seeks to develop students’ reflexivity regarding the relationships between the products (including practices and ideas) of East Asian culture that they consume, the historical processes through which these were produced, and the global processes through which they were further transformed, transmitted, and integrated into local American lives...This unit focuses on Chinese and Japanese martial arts… the two cases in conjunction provide points of interesting comparison and contrast. For example, before the mid-nineteenth century, martial arts in China were the province of lower classes and were almost universally disdained by elites. In contrast, in Japan martial arts were the exclusive domain of the samurai ruling elite.
Lesson Plan • Individual and Society: Natsume Sōseki and the Literature of the Early 20th Century [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"The place of the individual in society is a significant issue in understanding Meiji Period Japan. In reading and discussing the novel Sanshirō by Natsume Sōseki, students will consider the ways in which Japanese writers of the period reflected larger societal trends, and, more generally, how individuals react to societal change."
Lesson Plan • Voices of Modern Japanese Literature [Program on Teaching East Asia]
Modern writers like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and John Steinbeck are well known in American literary circles. These writers are often included in high school English and social studies curricula because of their artistic commentary on the way in which people viewed themselves and the world during the American modern period (1915-1945). Through these authors’ voices, readers are able, for example, to consider how World War I challenged American optimism, explore how the Great Depression left many with a feeling of uncertainty, and contemplate how World War II furthered feelings of disjointedness and disillusionment in 20th-century life. Through their varied approaches, techniques, and styles, modern American writers echoed the strong sense of isolation, alienation, and uncertainty felt by many Americans of the modern period. The modernist movement was not exclusive to the United States; this literary movement extended around the world, including Japan.
Lesson Plan • The “I” Novels in the Context of Early 20th-Century Japan [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"Focusing on developing students’ understanding of how a writer's background affects the way he or she writes about personal experience, this lesson utilizes the literary works of Shiga Naoya and Hayashi Fumiko to show how 'I novels' provide insight into both the authors’ backgrounds as well as their reflections on problems of human existence and social life."
• A Brief History of Benshi (Silent Film Narrators) [About Japan: A Teacher's Resource]
"The Russo-Japanese War caused a huge upsurge in cinema attendance, as Japanese citizens rushed to see pictures of their 'heroic' soldiers battling the Russians. During the war years, 80% of the motion pictures shown in Japan were Russo-Japanese War films. Some of these films were actual news reels of the fighting. Most, however, were staged re-creations ... In front of packed houses, Benshi roused audiences into a nationalistic fervor by providing extremely patriotic and jingoistic commentaries."
• Art of the Pleasure Quarters and the Ukiyo-e Style [The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
A lengthy discussion of the social developments in the Edo period that gave rise to literary and visual arts such as kabuki theater and ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints. With five related artworks.
• The Floating World of Ukiyo-e: Shadows, Dreams, and Substance [The Library of Congress]
Online presentation of a 2003 exhibition showcasing the Library's holdings of Japanese prints, books, and drawings from the 17th to the 19th century. Images organized into the following categories: 1) Early Masters (1600-1740); 2) Major Genres: Beauties, Actors, and Landscapes; 3) Images and Literary Sources; 4) Realia and Reportage; 5) Japan and the West: Artistic Cross-Fertilization; 6) Beyond Ukiyo-e: Modern and Contemporary Japanese Prints. The EXHIBITION OVERVIEW provides historical background about ukiyo-e.
• Nagoya TV Ukiyo-e Museum [Nagoya Broadcasting Network]
A virtual museum of ukiyo-e prints from the collection of the Nagoya Broadcasting Network. "The collection not only contains prints beginning with Hishikawa Moronobu, who is considered to be the founder of Ukiyo-e, going all the way to prints from around the end of the Edo Period, but also contains local prints such as Kamigata-e, Nagasaki-e, Yokohama-e Kaika-e (blossoming prints), as well as more recent prints from the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras. As the works vary in diversity, one is able to trace the history of wood-block prints since the Edo Period." Select ENTER THE COLLECTION TO see works by a particular artist; select LIST OF THE COLLECTION to see works in a particular subject area (select from PORTRAIT, LANDSCAPE, KABUKI & SUMO, and ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS at the top of the page). With descriptions in Japanese and English.
• Japonisme [The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
A brief discussion of the influence of Japanese ukiyo-e woodcut prints on European Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters of the 19th century. With 12 related artworks.
• Monet & Japan [National Gallery of Australia]
Online archive of a 2001 exhibit with "carefully chosen works of Japanese art [that] give us the context for exploring Monet's changing perception of Japan through masterpiece after masterpiece. ... [The exhibit gives] everyone who loves Monet's paintings a chance to understand the ways in which he absorbed the lessons of Japanese art, from his first encounter in the 1860s until the final years after the First World War." Select THEMES from the gray menu at top for text discussions with related images; select COMPARE WORKS to see Monet's paintings next to Japanese prints with related composition, design, and subject elements; and select EDUCATION for information on how to teach using this website.
Find more art-related resources for Japan, 1750-1919 CE
at OMuRAA (Online Museum Resources on Asian Art)