Kobayashi Kiyochika

Kobayashi Kiyochika
小林清親
Kobayashi circa 1873
Born
Kobayashi Katsunosuke

(1847-09-10)10 September 1847
Edo, Japan
Died28 November 1915(1915-11-28) (aged 68)
Tokyo, Japan
NationalityJapanese
Movementukiyo-e

Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林 清親, 10 September 1847 – 28 November 1915) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his colour woodblock prints and newspaper illustrations. His work documents the rapid modernization and Westernization Japan underwent during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and employs a sense of light and shade called kōsen-ga [ja] inspired by Western art techniques. His work first found an audience in the 1870s with prints of red-brick buildings and trains that had proliferated after the Meiji Restoration; his prints of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 were also popular. Woodblock printing fell out of favour during this period, and many collectors[who?] consider Kobayashi's work the last significant example of ukiyo-e.