A Big Headache for Li Hongzhang, from the Series ‘Long Live Japan! One Hundred Selections, One Hundred Laughs’ 1894

Curator: Here we have Kobayashi Kiyochika’s woodblock print, “A Big Headache for Li Hongzhang, from the Series ‘Long Live Japan! One Hundred Selections, One Hundred Laughs’,” created in 1894. Editor: Goodness, what a vibrant depiction of turmoil! The dynamism is striking—the high contrast in colours further intensifies the emotional tone, and there seems to be an intriguing use of spatial arrangement, what’s the background behind the print? Curator: Indeed. Kiyochika, while working in the Ukiyo-e tradition, was very interested in Western art. In this print, made during the First Sino-Japanese War, we see Li Hongzhang, a Qing dynasty general, lying in bed beset by a terrible nightmare representing the Japanese military. Editor: Nightmarish indeed. We see soldiers emerging from the bedding, while what appears to be a ghostly Western doctor waves a crucifix beside the patient, which really speaks to the cultural and symbolic anxieties of the time. Is he offering a cure, or hastening the symbolic "death" of old China? Curator: Symbolism abounds. The Japanese army wears modernized uniforms and aims weapons and a cannon at the general, suggesting a forceful technological threat and their clear military advantage. Even the table beside the bed is significant; its decorative panels bear telling symbolic elements, and reinforce a mood of instability and threat. Editor: Right! A closer look reveals smaller figures beneath the bed attacking as well, as well as written script flowing down the side—this is all working to frame the central figure within an unstable and almost comically anxious mise-en-scène. The high, receding horizon line on the lower right creates a disorienting angle to make the figures looming that much more. Curator: Yes, these strategic pictorial arrangements amplify a Japanese victory narrative. Kiyochika utilizes these compositional tools— perspective and the interplay between near and far figures—to suggest an encroaching inevitability, further mocking Li’s “big headache”. Editor: So, what seems at first glance as an expressive if strange visual metaphor transforms into quite the intricate and cutting political commentary, laden with symbolic gestures that capture the cultural mood of the period. Curator: Precisely. Kiyochika deftly synthesizes formal arrangements with layered historical and political connotations in this satirical woodblock print, highlighting Japan's burgeoning power.