Un Artiste Du Monde Flottant

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"Gisaburo," he says, after a long silence, "didn't have a funny life. His talent completely faded away. The people he loved died a long time ago or abandoned him. Even when we were young, he was already a sad, lonely guy." Morisan paused. "But sometimes we drank and had fun with the women in the pleasure districts. That's what people call the floating world: it was a world, Ono, that Gisaburo knew all about." The painter Masugi Ono, an old master of official Japanese art, reflects on his bohemian youth and remembers this "floating world" that he frequented so much. Faced with the emergence of a new society open to the West, he questions his past and tries to give meaning to his life in post-war Japan. An evocation of a bygone life and world, and a nuanced reflection on the purpose of the work of art, Un Artiste du Monde Flottant is a spellbinding book.