KJCKorea
Journal Central

The drawings introduced Western medical images to the Edo era Japan. This encounter of art represented through medicine allowed Japan to show its admiration for American civilization during early Japanese modern times. It may be said that a sense of impending crisis between the west and the Orient stimulated their productive will. On the other hand, only a small area of Japan, principally the Dejima section of Nagasaki was opened to the West during the Edo period. However this small opening to the West succeeded in allowing the people of Edo to absorb western culture and knowledge. For example, Kyoden Santo who was a painter during Edo drew ghost like images pests such as mosquitoes or fleas while looking through a microscope <松梅竹取談>seemingly a parody of Western anatomy. Similarly <The skeleton island> drawings by Kyosai Kawabe and Hiroshige Andou drawings are wonderful. The device of parody,which was inherent to western culture, was vulgar but was accepted as advanced knowledge.

dissection, Edo period, skeleton, microscope, eyeball, typology, physiognomy