Meiji-era art at Smart Museum

News Snapshot:

The West was trending in Japan 150 years ago. That might seem like a silly way to put it, but it’s also true. After two centuries of isolationist policy, Japan was forcibly opened up to foreign visitors and trade. What ensued was an era of modernization in architecture, fashion, industry, government and art like no other, gloriously evidenced in “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan,” a building-wide exhibition currently on view at the Smart Museum of Art. The Emperor Meiji, restored to power in 1868 after more than half a millennium of shogunate rule, wore radical change on his...