Encounters

See how advances in seafaring and a thirst for trade and exploration sent human beings around the planet. Distant and disparate cultures met for the first time, and art became the great interface by which civilizations understood each other.

As the Spanish met the Aztecs in Central America, the riches intended to buy off the Spanish only intensified their lust for gold and conquest.

In what's regarded as Maruyama Okyo's greatest work, "Cracked Ice" combines everything Okyo knew from both Eastern and Western traditions.

Through illustration, Maria Sibylla explained and painted their life cycle, their metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis, to butterfly.