Browse Items (24 total)

Surrealist landscape with an eye

A self-portrait of Aimitsu wearing glasses next to some tree tops

Aimitsu's self-portrait at 37 years old. The unique characteristic of his self-portraits is how he tend to paint himself squinting his eyes, looking intently into the distant, as if transfixed at a point.

Unlike Fujita's other action-packed war paintings, this one is more tranquil. It shows a Japanese soldier entering the house of a luxurious Dutch-owned house in Indonesia, whose owners have tied up their black servant and abandoned her while they…

A painting that depicts the bloody battle between Japanese and American troops during the Guadalcanal campaign. Fujita captures the chaotic and terrifying atmosphere of the battle with the distorted bodies being nearly indistinguishable from the…

This oil painting depicts the final banzai charge of Japanese soldiers against American troops during the Battle of Attu island, one of bloodiest battles in the Pacific War. The word "Gyokusai" in the title roughly translates to "smashed jewel", and…

A painting showing two women clad in kimono enjoying
a cool evening by the lakeside. Back then, paintings showing Japanese women in kimono were popular and touted as an exemplar of Japanese feminine beauty.

Side-profile of a woman in traditional Chinese dress and attire holding an orchid. Through this painting, Fujishima aims to create his idealized portraiture of "oriental beauty." For such an image, he proposes three crucial components: Chinese…

A painting of a sailboat at sea in front of a rising sun. This seemingly tranquil image hides a subtle message of Japanese hegemony and ambitions across the Pacific.

"Refugees" is a life-sized scroll that portrays the suffering of Chinese denizens during the Sino-Japanese war. It came out near the end of the war in 1943, and is an artistic plea for a ceasefire between China and Japan. One of Jiang's best skills…