Ukiyo 浮世 is the floating, fleeting, transient world: the world of earthly pleasures. “Pictures of the floating world”, ukiyo-e, was the dominant movement of early modern Japanese art. This exhibition of books from the Athenæum Library illustrates some of the ways Europeans have engaged with and understood Japan from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The Club’s collection tells a story of intercultural exchange: from early encounters to imperial engagements, both appreciation of and influence on Japanese art and society, and the evolving European understanding of Imperial Japan’s place in the world order.
