Tanegashima depicted in Japanese Art

[Bugyotsuji]

Having been involved with Tanegashima for over a quarter of a century, I was naturally drawn to anything connected to this relatively unknown (at the time) weapon. 

 

Many of you here will have depictions of them in one form or another, so it seemed like a good idea to start a new thread.

 

This original woodblock print I found in London some years ago, two panels of a triptych by Kuniyoshi about the famous charge of Yamamoto Kansuke in 1561 at the Battle of Kawanakashima ("island in mid-river"), actually a series of five battles between Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin, with various well-known happenings.

 

It was the black-lacquered matchlock gun lying on the ground which caught my eye, among all the broken swords and spears etc., showing that by this relatively early timeline they were already part of the sengoku battlefield.

Couple that with the blades and the armour, and my collecting fields are (mostly) covered! 

 

Photos follow

A

 

Detail B

[Michaelr]

That’s great Piers. The prints themselves tell a great story and deserve hours of close study and appreciation. Now add the fact, as you have stated that a matchlock is seen in the foreground makes this even more fascinating. Sometimes what appears to be a simple piece can add new information for us to start down another road in our collecting   Great catch, thank you for sharing and always being there to help all of us with our questions on a subject that there is so little written information.   Thank you.   MikeR

[Bugyotsuji]

Many thanks for the kind words, Michael. It is a pleasure to be allowed some space here on the NMB, to learn and mature from the critical input of so many intelligent minds around the world.

(And a quiet word of thanks to Brian beavering away behind this massive structure, the dam of knowledge!)

 

PS Although we know from the literature that guns were used at Kawanakajima, neither Shingen nor Kenshin were yet aware of their potential influence, indeed Takeda Shingen was said to have disliked guns. It was Oda Nobunaga who had the vision to mass produce, by actively capturing and controlling centers of forges and gunsmithing like Kunitomo, Hino and Sakai.

[Matsunoki]

To me it’s interesting that right next to the gun lays a broken sword. Co-incidence?……..or suggesting the future power and dominance of guns?

or maybe just my overactive imagination🙂

…and what is the gun laying on? A shield?

[Bugyotsuji]

You could well be right Colin, but the composition is by Kuniyoshi, some 300 years later, so what was his understanding of history?

 

Yes, the gun is lying on a wooden shield. Often portrayed with stripes like that, these were self-standing, leaning on a central folding leg. As the efficiency and power of guns gradually increased, wooden shields became less effective, and it was discovered that large bundles of bamboo could do the job of absorption and deflection far better for the huddled troops. There are a couple of heavy iron shields still extant too, designed originally to be placed on the ground, or on the edge of a trench, e.g. at the sieges of Osaka, 1614-15. Although troops did not carry personal shields as in the West, their armo(u)rs gradually evolved to be able to withstand or deflect strikes by musketball.

 

*(Clint Eastwood in a Fistful of Dollars?)

[Bugyotsuji]

23 hours ago, Matsunoki said:

To me it’s interesting that right next to the gun lays a broken sword. Co-incidence?……..or suggesting the future power and dominance of guns?

or maybe just my overactive imagination🙂

Another possibility is that it alludes to Takeda Shingen whose death while advancing on Kyoto is still shrouded in mystery. Illness? Some say he was shot by a lone sniper, and that this fact was quietly covered up, his death kept secret by those around him.

[Matsunoki]

15 minutes ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Some say he was shot by a lone sniper, and that this fact was quietly covered up, his death kept secret by those around him.

Maybe his own men could keep it quiet but the guy that shot him would be shouting it from the ramparts….if he knew who he had just shot? Interesting🙂. Any idea what’s on the missing third sheet? Guy dressed all in black legging it into the woods?

[Bugyotsuji]

Need to go back and check out the story, but it may have been at night and the sniper was not sure if he had wounded him or not.

 

Quote from our friend Wiki: "Once he entered Mikawa Province in 1573, Shingen besieged Noda Castle, but on May 13, 1573, he died at the age of 51. The exact circumstances surrounding his death are unknown. Some accounts say he succumbed to an old war wound, some say a sniper had wounded him earlier, and others that he died of pneumonia."

 

There is a gun illustrated in Sawada Taira's book Nihon no Furuju which is alleged to be the gun that shot him.

 

https://japanworld.info/takeda-shingen/

"Shingen withdrew toward Kai by way of Mikawa and Shinano through February and March. He stopped at Noda Castle on the Mikawa-Tōtōmi border for a brief siege — this is where the sniper-legend attaches, that a Tokugawa matchlockman shot him through the helmet while he was listening to a flute being played at night from inside the castle walls, and that the wound became the proximate cause of his death. The sniper story is almost certainly a later invention. The Japanese sources closer to the event describe a progressive pulmonary illness, with coughing fits in February and March, bed-rest from late March onward, and a final collapse in early April."

 

Whether it is true or not, the legend still somehow persists today, so most people would have heard the story..

 

As to the third sheet, I found an illustration the other day, (will try and find it again) but one sheet of mine above is also said to be a missing sheet.

 

[Baka Gaijin]

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

With this sharp reminder of the evanescence of life, (for which thank you, good sir) we must update this thread with something, anything, so starting right from the bottom up, here are some Ukiyoe hanga woodblock prints in bad condition but linked by a couple of themes.

 

The first I bought at a flea market simply because it showed a hunter’s smoothbore long gun, not for the quality of the print. I have not even spent time working out whose work it is. Is he doing something dreadful?

Unframed.

Roughly 26 x 18 cm.

 

[Bugyotsuji]

The second is from a Kanadehon Chushingura set of 12 scenes by Kochoro Kunisada.
(Well 13,  because the 12th scene is A前and B後 )

Normally these are 22.5x35cm (?) but several prints in this ‘shozuri’ set were worm-eaten or ripped, so I spent many happy hours ‘rescuing’ them.

Warning. Heavily doctored. Not really for public consumption. The right side of the page was largely missing. The character with the gun was hanging off by a thread, so I snipped him off straightened him out and pasted him on! 
 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

But then I found another single print, a partly equivalent scene by Ichiyosai Toyokuni, different border pattern, 32 x 21 cm roughly.

Notice the netsuke and firestarter kit sagemono.

 

Starting to notice some common themes?

 

Detail

 

[Baka Gaijin]

I'll cut to the chase Old Bean and go out with a Bang.....

 

Herewith:

https://ukiyo-e.org/search?q=rifle+gun

 

I'll get my coat

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Well none of mine listed there but the closest has this description:

 

”Hunter Kanpei with a rifle on his shoulder from the Chushingura at the scene of the night hunting accident. The background shows the Tokaido between Sakanoshita and Tsuchiyama.”

This is good info.

 

It cuts deep, but not to the quick.

(These are not rifles, by the way, if you’ll tell Artelino, and permit me to be a card-carrying grammar nazi.)

 

As for theme-hunting, good shot!

A typical hunter in the Edo Period (and around the time of the Ako 47 Ronin incident) would carry a smoothbore long-gun of less than 1.3 cm bore. Use of straw for mino, ajiro-gasa and waraji, as for the match cord also noted, also for the Sumo Rikishi’s skirt or loin decorations.

[Baka Gaijin]

https://ukiyo-e.org/search?q=gun

 

 

 

[Baka Gaijin]

Edited yesterday at 06:28 AM by Baka Gaijin

[Bugyotsuji]

Yoshitoshi was a bit of a handful I believe. Rebels add colour to the world

 

This may be the same subject as the one above holding the gun the wrong way round…(?)

[Shugyosha]

Matsumoto Mokusuke in a print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Apparently a noted gunner at the battle of Kawanakajima according to B.W. Robinson.

 

[Shugyosha]

Another Kuniyoshi print, this time of Saito Shimosuke no Kami Tomonobu. He was one of the three master gunners of the Uyesugi and shot the horse of Shingen's son, thereby causing the Takeda to retreat (B.W. Robinson again but he doesn't say which battle).

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Both nice finds John. Thank you. Will need to study these for a while.

(As far as I know they did not yet use or even have large Ozutsu guns like that first one at the time of Kawanakajima, but never say never! The second gun does give the correct impression of a larger-bore battlefield gun, unsual accuracy for a woodblock print.)

 

PS Usually the names and/or titles of the historical figures on these Bakumatsu prints have been altered slightly to avoid giving offence to anyone or falling fowl of some arcane Tokugawa law. Yesterday I was looking at print of Ranmaru, a famous 森Mori family figure whose name was written 保里Bori Ranmaru, changed, but instantly recognizable.