In a wider context, however, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 came to be identified with the subsequent era of major political, economic, and social change-the Meiji period (1868-1912)-that brought about the modernization and Westernization of the country. Oil painting was introduced to Japan in the Meiji Period and practised by Kawakami Togai and Takahashi Yuichi, ironically at a time when Western appreciation of Japanese traditional art was very high. The Meiji Era was also a period of profound change diplomatically for a country that had spent over two centuries ensuring national isolation ( sakoku ) and the new nation-building was to lead Japan into a period of foreign expansion overseas. The Meiji Period of Japanese history saw great change in the decades following the decisive defeat of the Tokugawa regime by pro-imperial forces at the Battle of Toba-Fushimi and the short Boshin War that followed as anti-Tokugawa forces pushed up from Kyoto to Edo and beyond. Another area of change and modernization in the Meiji Period was the press which grew out of Western initiatives in the treaty ports of Yokohama and Kobe. Prior to the concluding assessment activity, have students read and analyze written primary sources regarding various Japanese groups in terms of continuity and change in the Meiji period and the impact (both negative and positive) of modernization on their lives. Japanese people were both inspired and forced to change their way of life during the Meiji Period. As for eating habits, the Meiji period saw a wider diffusion of changes in Japanese people's diets begun in Tokugawa times with increases in the consumption of polished rice, tea, fruit, sugar and soy sauce.
Economic and social changes paralleled the political transformation of the Meiji period. (More.)įrom the multitude of political, economic, social, intellectual, technological, institutional, and cultural changes of Meiji Japan’s encounter with modernity, this lesson focuses on material culture.