ABSTRACT
Throughout his formative period, the dominant influences on Nakano’s development were characteristic of the major centres of western Kyushu which, owing to the circumstances surrounding the overthrow of the feudal order, had seen Japan’s most serious civil disturbances during the first decade after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Although overt insurrection ended with the defeat and death of its most representative and legendary leader Saigō Takamori in the Satsuma Rebellion, resentment and frustration continued to simmer in this region. These found various modes of expression which, though far from consistent, were to affect, with changing emphases, every phase of Nakano’s career.
