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War has been the subject many works of art. Patriotic military art is on display in places like Yushukan, the museum in Yasukuni Shrine.
The gallery Mugonkan (lit. “Building Without Words”) in Ueda city, Nagano, displays the works of art students who fell in the war.
One of the most famous pieces of war-related art is the statue Wadatsumi no Koe by Hongo Shin (see the photo above). It is displayed at the entrance to the Kyoto Museum for World Peace in Ritusmeikan University. But there are replicas in Sapporo at the Hongo Shin Memorial Museum of Sculpture in Sapporo and other locations.
Another famous work is The Hiroshima Panels by husband and wife artists Iri and Toshi Maruki. They are housed at the Maruki Gallery in Saitama.
Many witnesses to war and amateur artists have testified through painting. Local peace museums often exhibit such art as testimony. See for example the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Peace Database. See also Sumida Local Culture Resource Center “That Unforgettable Day–The Great Tokyo Air Raid through Drawings”.
Young artists in the postwar generations are also encourage to use art within peace education, as at the Motomachi Senior High School art club in Hiroshima.
Michael Lucken has published extensively on both war memories and art, and is a leading researcher in this area, although little of his work is open access online.
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