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was a pioneering
was a pioneering Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
photographer and artist. He was born in modern-day Tochigi Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,943,886 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,408 Square kilometre, km2 (2,474 Square mile, sq mi). Tochigi ...
. Possibly inspired by his father, who was an avid painter, in 1847 he entered an art school in Edo (now Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
) where he met Ryū (surname unknown; 1823–1900), a fellow student. The two married in 1855 and soon began moving about the Kantō region
The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...
, possibly exhibiting their works along the way. At this time Shima seems to have had some pictures published as book illustrations. At some point the couple learned photography, and in the spring of 1864 Ryu photographed Kakoku, thereby creating the earliest known photograph by a Japanese woman. A wet-plate print of this portrait remains in the Shima family archives. The Shimas operated a photographic studio
A photographic studio is often a business owned and represented by one or more photographers, possibly accompanied by assistants and pupils, who create and sell their own and sometimes others’ photographs.
Since the early years of the 20th ce ...
in Edo in about 1865 to 1867, until Kakoku accepted a teaching position at Kaiseijo. Later, Shima worked at ''Daigaku Tōkō'' (, the predecessor of the School of Medicine, University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
), and while there invented the first Japanese movable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
, for the printing of medical textbooks. Shima Kakoku died in 1870, and his wife returned to Kiryū where she opened her own photographic studio.
Notes
References
* Bennett, Terry. ''Photography in Japan: 1853–1912'' Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 2006. (hard) *''Nihon no shashinka'' () / ''Biographic Dictionary of Japanese Photography.'' Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2005. . Pp. 208–209. Despite the English-language alternative title, all in Japanese. 1827 births 1870 deaths Pioneers of photography Portrait photographers People of Meiji-period Japan Artists from Tochigi Prefecture Japanese photographers {{Japan-photographer-stub