Edoardo Chiossone

By Haruka Sato

Edoardo Chiossone

First, I will introduce background of Edoardo Chiossone. He was born in Italy as a son of printer in 1833. He started to learn copper-plate engraving at Academic Ligustica aged 15, graduated the institution aged 22 and then he got special prize at competition, so he became a printing instructor from 1857. He started to work at Italian national bank in 1867. 1 year later, he was sent to Dondorf-Nauman company where made Japanese banknotes in Germany. In 1875 he was invited to and arrived in Japan as a leader at Japanese National Print Bureau. He died in 1898 in Tokyo.

He made portraits of Meiji emperor and Saigo Takamori. He made over 500 products which are banknotes, postage stamps, portraits and so on in Japan.

Secondly I would like to summarize discussion. One group member mentioned that Chiossone had high potential skills for painting and making postage stamps because he was a son of printing family. That means his youth influenced his work. When he was young, he could learn many printing skills and was able to experience printing technology at his home because of son as a printing. I agree with the idea. Another said his youth was not so important for him because he just only learned printing. I was not able to understand the idea little bit, however that was very important opinion because before I heard the opinion, I only thought his youth influenced to his work, so this opinion let me notice there is another side’s opinion. When I led the discussion, it felt hard for me because sometimes my group members did not answer my question because my questions were unclear. I know that was my fault of this discussion however I wanted a little help from group members if they was not able to understand the meaning of my questions. I had to think of more specific and clearer answers and lead the discussion.

Finally, in my opinion, Edoardo was an important person for Japan because he was one of the pioneers of printing, especially postage stamps and banknotes. If he had not brought the skills to Japan at that time, we might not be able to send letters today. He was also popular as a collector of Japanese arts, so he loved Japan. I concerned he had close Japanese feelings. He could understand Japanese feeling and culture because he was collector of Japanese arts. That is why he was able to succeed in Japan. He had talent to make and lead Japanese national printing Bureau.

As I mentioned when I asked group members two questions, at first my group members did not answer them. That showed my questions were not clear to answer and not specific. When I led actually the discussion I really noticed the position of leader is difficult and hard. I had to prepare for the presentation and discussion. If I researched Edoardo Chiossone before presentation and discussion, I might come up with specific ideas. On the other hand, I thought that I could do my best to my power point. Through this project I learned the difficulty of leading members in case of discussion. I had many faults in this project, so I learned many things from these faults and I will try to be good leader next time.

<Reference>

Edoardo Chiossone Wikipedia. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edoardo_Chiossone

Edoardo Chiossone http://www.photo-make.jp/hm_2/ma_21.html

Meiji gingu Q and A http://www.meijijingu.or.jp/qa/gosai/10.html