772
the fi nal acceptance of the dry-plate process in Japan.
Several attempts were made by domestic manufacturers
to produce dry plates, but by the end of the nineteenth
century most Japanese photographers still preferred to
use imported plates.
In other respects, Japanese photography made quick
progress following the overthrow of the Tokugawa
shogunate and the establishment of a new government
in the name of the Meiji Emperor (the so-called ‘Meiji
Restoration’) in 1868.
Several branches of the new Japanese government
showed an interest in the medium of photography.
The Imperial Household Offi ce commissioned Uchida
Kuichi in January 1872 to take the fi rst offi cial photo-
graphic portrait of the Emperor Meiji (the resulting por-
trait, which showed the Emperor in traditional Japanese
court dress, was subsequently deemed inappropriate to
the image of Japan as a modern country and a second
sitting had to be arranged with Uchida in October 1873,
this time with the Emperor wearing a Western-style
uniform). Uchida’s favored position with the imperial
household was further confi rmed in May 1872 when he
was ordered to accompany the Emperor on his seven-
week tour of Western Japan, and photograph the places
visited by the imperial party. By the time of Uchida’s
untimely death in February 1875, the court’s patronage
of photography had declined and remained low-key
for the remainder of the Meiji Era, and although later
photographers such as Maruki Riyô received occasional
commissions from the imperial household, none were
able to repeat Uchida’s success, and the Emperor Meiji
was never offi cially photographed again.
The offi cial patronage of photography was more con-
spicuous and consistent among those departments most
closely connected with Japan’s modernization during
the nineteenth century. The Kaitakushi, or Hokkaidô
Colonization Offi ce, began employing photographers
after 1871 to document the development of Japan’s
northernmost island, and the fi rst to benefi t from this
government largesse were Tamoto Kenzô, who had
opened a studio in the treaty port of Hakodate in 1866,
and the Yokohama-based photographer Baron Raimund
von Stillfried, whose portfolio of photographs taken in
Hokkaidô in the fall of 1872 was included among the
exhibits sent to Austria in the following year as part of
Japan’s offi cial contribution to the Vienna International
Exposition. The Kaitakushi continued to allocate a large
part of its budget to photographic commissions until
its affairs were wound up in 1882 following a fi nancial
scandal.
After a slow start, the Army Ministry also took a
regular interest in photography. In 1874, the Tokyo
photographers Matsuzaki Shinji and Kumagai Shin
were permitted to accompany the army on its fi rst
overseas expedition to Taiwan, and in 1876, Yokoyama
Matsusaburo was appointed lecturer in photography
at the Military Academy in Tokyo. Initially, the army
used photography mainly as an adjunct to map-making
and the documentation of Japan’s nineteenth century
confl icts was entrusted instead to civilian photographers
who had either been specifi cally contracted for the pur-
pose, such as Ueno Hikoma and Tomishige Rihei during
the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, or who had volunteered
for the task, as was the case with Matsuzaki and Kum-
agai during the Taiwan Expedition of 1874 and Count
Kamei Koreaki at the outbreak of war with China in- This latter confl ict gave rise to a proposal within
the General Staff for the creation of a dedicated unit of
army photographers, and both the Sino-Japanese War
(1894–95) and Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) were
documented by a combination of an army photographic
unit and teams of civilian photographers authorized by
the General Staff.
Although offi cially supported documentary photog-
raphy served largely to record Japan’s present, the Min-
istry of Education showed itself to be just as concerned
in recording the past. In 1872, Yokoyama Matsusaburô
conducted a survey across western Japan, photographing
temples and their treasures.
A signifi cant step towards the creation of a photogra-
phy community in Japan took place in June 1889 when
the fi rst Japanese photographic association, the Nihon
Shashinkai (‘Photographic Society of Japan’) was estab-
lished in Tokyo, with the Shashin Shimpô functioning
as its offi cial organ. Within four years, its membership
had grown from its original 56 founding members to 171
professional and amateur photographers. In May 1893
the Society hosted the fi rst international photographic
exhibition in Japan. The exhibition, at which 296 art
photographs by members of the London Camera Club
were displayed, was organized by William K. Burton, a
professor of sanitary engineering at the Imperial Univer-
sity in Tokyo, who was serving as the Society’s secretary
and was himself a member of the Club. The exhibition
attracted numerous visitors, including the Empress
Haruko, and had enormous impact, introducing both
Japanese photographers and the Japanese public at large
to the best amateur photographic work being produced
in the West at that time, and some historians date the
beginning of geijutsu shashin, the Japanese equivalent of
Pictorialism, from this event. Despite its role in popular-
izing photography, the Nihon Shashinkai by no means
monopolized the subsequent wave of amateur interest. In
June 1893, disagreements within the Nihon Shashinkai,
fueled by the excitement generated by the exhibition, led
a trio of photographers consisting of Ogura Kenji, Aritô
Kintarô and the fl amboyant Kajima Seibei to establish
a rival association, the Dai Nihon Shashin Himpyôkai
(‘Greater Japan Photographic Critique Society’). The
organization held regular bimonthly meetings, at which