Throughout history, we experienced ever-changing landscapes, journeying far and wide to witness nature’s seasonal changes. Since the Middle Ages, we have also strived to reconstruct and recreate these sceneries through various means of reproduction—from illuminated manuscripts to modern photographs. This exhibition invites you on a journey to discover ‘portable landscape’, through a curated collection of manuscripts, rare books, prints, photographs, postcards, and various artifacts related to travel. Our journey spans from late medieval manuscripts to the rise of the Picturesque, encompassing travel writings, ideal landscapes of the Grand Tour, and postcard sceneries.

Exhibition overview

1．Prehistory of Landscape – As Backgrounds in Illuminated Manuscripts

We explore the emergence of landscape in the ‘occupations of the months’ decorating calendars in late medieval Books of Hours.

2．From Topography to Maps – Enclosed Landscapes

Through early modern travel writings with woodcut illustration, engraved sceneries of the 17th and 18th centuries, and detailed city maps, we examine the relationship between environment and landscape.

3．Bringing Italy Home – The Grand Tour and Ideal Landscapes

‘Ideal landscapes’, featuring natural scenery with ruins, flourished in the 17th-century Italy and were eagerly sought after by British and German Grand Tourists.

4．Taking Home the Countryside – The Picturesque and British Nature

In the late 18th-century Britain, ‘Picturesque Tours’ became popular, with the travellers seeking the landscape suitable for a picture across the country.

5．Tourism and Nostalgia – 19th-Century Scenery

As mass tourism emerged in the 19th-century Britain, the invention of photography made landscapes of tourist sites and scenic locations more readily available and portable.

6．Capturing Landscapes – Tools for Landscape Sketching

The practice of landscape sketching which became fashionable in Britain after the late 18th century, can be seen from drawing manuals and tools for outdoor sketching.

7．Landscapes Brought Home – Postcards as Portable Landscapes

After the late 19th century, tourists could send favourite landscapes worldwide using postcards. To conclude the exhibition, this final chapter focuses on picture postcards related to figures associated with Keio University.

Main exhibits

1. Book of Hours in Latin (Calendar of October, the Scorpion), c. 1500, Private Collection
2. George Sandys, A relation of a journey … Containing a description of the Turkish Empire, of Ægypt, of the Holy Land, of the remote parts of Italy, and llands adioyning, 1627, Private Collection
3.John Rocque, A Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark; with the Contiguous Buildings; from an Actual Survey, Taken by John Rocque, Land-Surveyor, and Engraved by John Pine, Engraver of Seals, &c. to His Majesty, 1746, Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)
4.Claude Lorrain, Liber Vetritati. Or, a Collection of Two Hundred Prints, after the Original Designs … executed by Richard Earlom, 1777, Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)
5.Vedute fotografiche italiane, 1882, Private Collection
6. A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water-colour Pigments, 1887, Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)
7. William Gilpin, Observations on the River Wye, and several parts of South Wales, &c. relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the summer of the year 1770, 1789, Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)
8. Sleeping Car Berth Ticket (from the collection of Kyuzaburo Yamamoto), 1913, Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)
9. Landscape postcard addressed to Eikichi Kamata, Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)

Related event

Symposium: “Portable Landscape”

Dates：19 October (Sat) 2024, afternoon
Venue：Mita Campus, Keio University
Overview：A symposium featuring the exhibition curators (Takami Matsuda and Miho Kirishima) and guest speakers.
Speakers:
Kazuyoshi Oishi (Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo)
Hiroya Sugimura (Director, Tochigi City Art Museum)
Takami Matsuda (Professor Emeritus, Keio University)
Miho Kirishima (Curator, Keio University Art Center)

*Registration will be started on September 27. More information will be available on this exhibition website.

Flyer

Organized by Keio Museum Commons
Cooperated by Keio University Art Center, Keio University Mita Media Center (Keio University Library)