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Image Not Available for Text and Illustrations of The Classic of Filial Piety
Text and Illustrations of The Classic of Filial Piety
Image Not Available for Text and Illustrations of The Classic of Filial Piety

Text and Illustrations of The Classic of Filial Piety

Artist (Japanese, 1858–after 1939)
Date1939
MediumHandscroll: ink and colors on paper
Dimensions12 11/16 x 148 3/4 inches (32.2 x 377.8 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineGift of Marjorie Henricksen
Terms
  • Paintings
  • Confucianism
  • Japanese
Object number2008.100.002
Label CopyKameda Kitsushi, known by his go Unpo, was the fourth generation of the family of the famous Edo period Confucian scholar Kameda Bosai (1752-1826). Carrying on in this tradition is the subject of this handscroll. The Classic of Filial Piety is an ancient Chinese text associated with Confucius that gives examples of sons’ devotion to parents, often in psychological excess. In this scroll, each fan-shaped outline contains illustrations and text conveying the biography of one of the twenty-four filial sons. The year 1939 was not one that any Japanese student of Chinese art and ideas would have felt auspicious. After the incident in July of 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge, the Japanese army continued to push into China proper. The infamous “Rape of Nanjing” occurred in December 1937, the expansion of Japanese control of the mainland through 1938. Little information on atrocities or battlefield losses would have reached the public; the the very idea of Japan attacking its “older brother” China must have horrified a scholar steeped in the principles of Confucianism. At the time, any overt criticism of military policy would have been crushed with an iron glove, but there can be no doubt that his painting was a low-key criticism of the war.
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