Sacred Soldier to the Rescue

Sacred Soldier to the Rescue

神兵の救出到る (Shinhei no Kyushutsu itaru)

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 ran. The propagandist painting convey a message of Japanese soldiers rescuing other ethnicities from white men, and expressing a sense of moral superiority of the Japanese. Despite this, it still falls into the same tendency of Western paintings where other ethnicities and cultures are feminized and exoticized. For example, the breasts of the female is pronounced while the rifle of the soldier is placed near the figure's crotch, almost like a phallic symbol.

藤田嗣治 (Fujita Tsuguharu)

Shōwa 19 (1944)

192 x 257 cm

Oil on Canvas