Elvehjem displays Japanese prints

Now on view through June 17 at the Elvehjem Museum of Art is a selection of woodblock prints from the museum’s famed Van Vleck collection.

Edward Burr Van Vleck, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin from 1906 to 1929, began collecting Japanese woodblock prints in 1916. The high point of his activities came in 1928, when he purchased from a local bank about 4,000 prints that had belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright.

Van Vleck subsequently sold some of the Wright group as a means of recouping his initial investment, but he retained the majority to become the nucleus of his collection. When Van Vleck died in 1943, his collection passed to his son John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, who bequeathed the bulk of it to the Elvehjem Museum of Art in 1980. Hasbrouck’s widow Abigail Van Vleck donated the remainder in 1984.

Because these images are printed in inks far too delicate to be on long-term view, the Elvehjem presents an annual highly popular exhibition of selected Van Vleck collection prints.

The exhibition this year will provide glimpses of the “floating world” or ukiyo. The prints depict the actors, courtesans and wrestlers who make up the demimonde of the pleasure quarters. They capture the scenes of flower and foliage in the four seasons and the annual celebrations of Edo.

It is perhaps fitting that the prints themselves were objects of fleeting beauty; their colors fade when exposed to light and dissolve when dampened. The museum’s good fortune in having a collection of such great depth and good condition makes it possible for us to glimpse this extraordinary cultural efflorescence in full bloom.

Most prints are called ukiyo-e. “-E” is a suffix that usually means picture, while the root of the word “ukiyo” translates as “floating world.” This term, first used in Buddhist teachings, describes a world that is deceptive and fleeting and must be transcended to comprehend the eternal and true nature of the world.

Through time and usage ukiyo came to be associated with all those pleasures that distract one from the pursuit of higher things, particularly, as one can imagine, the pleasures of the flesh.

Consequently, ukiyo-e pictures celebrate transitory pleasures of youth, fame, fashions and the seasons; they are about as far from the original intent of the Buddhist teaching as can be imagined.

The museum is open Tuesdays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free.