The Meiji Restoration/Fall of the Samurai Era (Questions About the Hakuoki Time Period)

Those are watercolor, right? Japanese traditional landscape painting is fascinating in terms of how stark and minimalist it is, especially when you compare it to the lush and overflowing oil landscapes of Renaissance Europe.

If you're looking for any information on the Shinsengumi, you can always ask or check out Ochimizu's blog on ochimizu.tumblr.com. She's also the Big Name Fan for the Hakuoki series along with Sapphylicious (who's also on Tumblr), so information and backstory on the characters can be found in abundance!

I'm afraid all I know about those images is that they're ukiyo-e woodblock prints. My knowledge of art begins and ends at "ooh, pretty!", sorry. :( That said, I do also love European landscape art --- Constable, Turner, Claude.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constable#section_2
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Lorrain#section_3
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner#section_2