Pictures of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895

Abstract

Pictures of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5 have come down to us from China and Japan. This article shows that war pictures in both countries relied on a Western-inspired iconography. Moreover, it argues that Japan triumphed not only on the battlefield but also in the ‘picture war’, adopting more of the discourses which were important in the West at the end of the nineteenth century.