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15. Jacques Callot (1592-1635) Les Martyrs du Japon (The Martyrs of Japan)
Etching, 1628, 168 x 115 mm., Lieure 594 ii/ii. A good but later impression, probably of the 18th century, on laid paper with small margins. Callot was never one to eschew a bizarre image, or even a ghoulish one. On February 5, 1697, twenty-three (modern studies say twenty-six) Catholic missionaries and converts were executed by crucifixion in Japan, on orders of the Shogun, who saw in their work the danger of a take-over of the country by European powers (as had happened in the Philippines). Callot’s image, of course, is imaginary as he had never been to Japan and had no drawing by an eye-witness on which to base his print. But there are precisely twenty-three crosses and though most of the soldiers, with helmets, chain-mail armor and flowing draperies, look totally European, the grisliness of the scene is amply conveyed. Angels, of course, are the same everywhere. If the representation of one crucifixion can be tragic, that of twenty-three of them, all together, is bizarre. |
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