Gyokusho Original Woodblock Print Yalu River Pontoon Bridge Russo Japanese War 1904 LS#204

Kawabata Gyokushō (川端玉章) — 鴨緑江の架橋 (Ōryokkō no Kakyō, "Bridge Construction on the Yalu River") — 1904

A quietly powerful and unusually lyrical woodblock print by Kawabata Gyokushō, depicting Japanese troops crossing a pontoon bridge over the Yalu River during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. Where most war prints of the period favored dramatic combat scenes, Gyokushō brings the sensibility of a trained painter to the subject: the composition is dominated by the vast, mist-softened river and the bare, snow-dusted mountains of the far bank, rendered in a restrained palette of grey-green and pale ochre. Three soldiers in full field kit — orange-banded caps, blue backpacks, rifles at shoulder — stand at the near end of the pontoon bridge amid the lashed boats, gazing across toward the distant shore. A gnarled pine at right anchors the foreground. The mood is contemplative rather than triumphant, the scale of the landscape dwarfing the human figures in a way more reminiscent of classical Japanese landscape painting than of battle journalism.

• Title: 鴨緑江の架橋 (Ōryokkō no Kakyō — "Bridge Construction on the Yalu River")
• Artist: Kawabata Gyokushō (川端玉章, 1842–1913)
• Date: 1904
• Format: Oban — approximately 14" × 9.5" (36 × 24 cm)

Good; some discoloration to paper consistent with age. No tears or creases noted. Colors retain good intensity particularly in the soldier figures and foliage.

A distinguished example of Russo-Japanese War print production from one of the Meiji period's foremost painters — the landscape-painter's eye Gyokushō brings to this subject sets it apart from the period's typical battle imagery.