Why censor a nude painting? Kuroda Seiki and the nude painting controversy

T his paper will examine perhaps the most famous or rather the most notorious case of censoring a nude painting during the Meiji period in Japan. This is the so-called Nude Painting Controversy (rataiga ronsō), when whether one should censor a nude painting or not was hotly debated. This case represents a seminal moment in the development of modern Japanese painting and also shows the complex nature of the impact of European ideas on Japanese culture. I should like to sketch the story of the controversy surrounding Kuroda Seiki’s nude paintings f irst, then discuss the development of the ideology of and the practice of law enforcement in the Meiji period (1868-1912), and finally examine the context of the debate within the Meiji art.