Journey into the world of prints from the Meiji period

Brukenthal National Museum, in collaboration with the Sibiu National Theater Festival, the Embassy of Japan in Romania and the George Şerban Ukiyo-E Collection, invites the public, on February 21, 2022, at 14.00, in the Brukenthal Palace from the Grand Square to the opening of the exhibition Journey into the world of Meiji prints, an event organized on the occasion of His Majesty the Emperor's Day in Japan.Starting with 2018, Japanese prints began to be known in Romania thanks to an extraordinary exhibition program, unique in the Romanian cultural sphere, by exhibiting in exhibitions hundreds of pieces from the private collection George Şerban. Exhibited in museums in Bucharest, Sibiu, Iaşi, Braşov, Timişoara, Oradea and Buşteni, over 400,000 visitors were able to see the images of the floating world that enchanted the great artists of the world, if we were to mention here just Van Gogh or Monet.The collector George Șerban put in the exhibition market in Romania for free, more than 6oo prints from his collection, from the Edo period, promoting Japanese art. These pieces are not missing from the collections of the great museums of the world or of the great collectors.This time, the new exhibition opened at the Brukenthal National Museum, within the project Cultural Axes Brukenthal - private collections, organized in collaboration with the Ukiyo - E George Șerban Collection and the Sibiu International Theater Festival, brings a premiere in the national and eastern-European cultural sphere: the realization of an exhibition with prints from the Meiji period that covers, entirely, themes such as the emperor, theater, Bijin-ga (beautiful women) and landscapes. Compared to other exhibitions made so far with prints from the Meiji period (few in number), focused on only one theme, for example Bijin-ga or focused on an artist, the exhibition in Sibiu is a complete foray into the world of Japanese prints from the Meiji period.The Meiji period, also known as the Meiji Restoration, was at the end of the 19th century the era when Japan returned to being ruled by an emperor, known as the Emperor Meiji. In short, Japan under Emperor Meiji went from being a feudal society to a modern, capitalist society. By modernizing its government to compete from equal to equal with the great international powers, Japan adopted an imperial constitution that guaranteed unimaginable freedoms until back then. These freedoms, along with the import of foreign ideas and technology, reversed centuries of exclusion and encouraged new art forms for that era.So, we put Sibiu and Romania back on the world cultural map, organizing an exhibition dedicated to Japanese prints from the Meiji period from a private collection.