Yan Che: The U.S.S. Columbus and Vincennes in Japan

Depiction of Commodore Biddle's ships in Edo Bay, 1846

This lithograph (1848), based on sketches by John Eastley and depicting Commodore Biddle’s 1846 expedition to Edo Bay in Japan[1], is the attempt of an uninformed American perspective in making sense of the hitherto unknown land of Japan. The image was intended for wide public consumption, given its medium – lithography was the foremost method of mass distribution of an image[2]. Because Japan was so mysterious, the image heavily relies upon assumptions of the superiority of Western technology in its portrayal of Japan, and serves to further reinforce that stereotype.

The image features two large ships drawn in great detail, the U.S.S. Columbus and Vincennes, surrounded by a large number of smaller boats, all located in a nondescript expanse of water with rolling hills in the background; as Biddle was not permitted to disembark[3], it makes sense that the setting of the image would be generic. However, Edo was, at this time, one of the most populous cities in the world, with over 500,000 inhabitants,[4] and comparable in size to New York. Even being in Edo Bay on a ship would reveal the size of such a city. Thus the hills in the background imply a backwardness of the Japanese; indeed, if Edo bay is barren hills, where did all the Japanese people and boats come from?

To further this point, while it makes sense that the American ships are drawn in great detail – an American artist would have a good idea of what such ships look like, perhaps even the very ships depicted - the Japanese ships are much smaller, and powered by oar rather than wind – a further implication of the inferiority of Japanese technology, even though Japan clearly had large sailing vessels (e.g. the amphibious Korean invasions of the 1590s)[5]  long before the 1800s.

By looking at the crewmen of the Japanese boats, we see they are homogenously attired in suspiciously Chinese-looking clothes, including straw hats, robes, and, looking closely at the standing figure in the Japanese boat in the foreground, Qing dynasty ponytails. Naturally the artist of the lithograph had no idea what the Japanese actually looked like, but after China’s humiliating defeat in the First Opium War of 1839, a clear association between the Chinese and backwardness was established in the West, so perhaps that association is further applied into this image. In fact, Sinicization of the Japanese was typical of this era[6].