Geisha and Samurai
Memories of Japan
Featuring the most prestigious Japanese artists of the period, the exhibition offered a complete panorama of nineteenth-century Japanese life through ukiyo-e prints, samurai armour, kimonos, objects and photographs.
The itinerary, arranged in seven sections, wound between the persuasive feminine world of the geisha and the legend of the faithful samurai warriors. The cultural world was immortalised in portraits of actors and scenes from nō and kabuki theatre, while the world of nature was idealised in paintings of flowers, birds and landscapes.
A special chapter was devoted to the ukiyo-e woodblock print itself: a collaborative art of artist, engraver and printer that spread throughout Edo-period culture and came to embellish everyday life.
