Teppotai Hanga

Teppotai Hanga

Teppotai Hanga depicts a female gunner in the service of the Oda clan, her kote carrying the Oda emblem and her matchlock held almost like a badge of victory.

I posed her with her chin deliberately raised. There is an arrogance to the expression, and that is central to the image. The great Takeda army, celebrated for its mounted warriors and battlefield reputation, was not brought down by some heroic duel between famous samurai. At Nagashino it was disciplined gunfire that helped tear through their attacks, delivered in large part by men of far more ordinary status.

That contrast interested me. The firearm had begun to alter the hierarchy of the battlefield. Skill, discipline and organised fire could now give a comparatively low-ranking gunner the means to destroy a warrior whose social position and military reputation stood far above his own.

The female figure is not intended as a portrait of a specific historical individual. She represents the teppotai, the gun troops whose presence transformed warfare in sixteenth-century Japan. The Buddhist image behind her adds another layer to the composition, while the armour, weapon and Oda insignia anchor the work firmly within the world of the Sengoku period.

Her expression is therefore not accidental. She knows what has just happened.