We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Warding off Calamity in Japan: A Comparison of the 1855 Catfish Prints and the 1862 Measles Prints.
- Authors
Smits, Gregory
- Abstract
The article compares the 1855 Catfish Prints, or namazu-e, and the 1862 Measles Prints, or haskika-e, focusing on the iconography of the prints, produced in response to the Edo (Toyko), Japan earthquake of 1855 and the nation-wide measles epidemic of 1862 in Japan. The works represent a 19th-century Japanese genre of art in which abstract causes of disasters were given concrete representations. Some of the subjects considered include how depictions of catfish in Japanese art became associated with earthquakes, superstitious beliefs behind the reasons for earthquakes, government censorship of publications, and Japanese representations of divinities, especially Mugi-dono Daimyōjin, or Lord Wheat.
- Subjects
TOKYO (Japan); JAPAN; ART; DISASTERS in art; MEASLES; EARTHQUAKES; NATURAL disasters; SYMBOLISM in art; JAPANESE history -- 1787-1868; JAPANESE history -- To 1868; PICTURES
- Publication
East Asian Science, Technology & Medicine, 2009, Vol 30, p9
- ISSN
1562-918X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1163/26669323-03001003