The samurai rulers of the Edo period in Japan (1615-1868) were catalysts of change as well as being cool looking swordsmen in robes with a code of conduct that makes everyone who has existed since look like children. No wonder they must be some of the most obsessed over people in history; when men aren’t thinking about the Romans, they’re thinking about the Samurai.
We know them, and their Japan, through countless films and TV shows - from Kurosawa to the recent Shogun - but what’s clear from this remarkable exhibition at the British Museum, is that a great deal of the visual language we see on our screens in general, came from the work of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858).
