It is unusual but probably auspicious for an exhibition to last from January to December, as Tradition and Transformation: Japanese Art 1860–1940 does. Presenting visually compelling images and well-documented histories, the exhibition offers a revealing glimpse into the formative decades of Japan’s emergence as a modernizing nation. The Museum of Fine Arts’ collecting of Japanese art can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, and is deeply indebted to the insight and generosity of a group of Bostonians, including Edward Sylvester Morse, Ernest Francisco Fenollosa, William Sturgis Bigelow, Charles Goddard Weld, and Deman Waldo Ross, all of whom traveled to Japan after the 1868 Meiji Restoration that set the stage for Japan’s modernization. Fenollosa’s former student and later colleague Okakura Kakuzô contributed significantly to the building of the collections in 1904–13 as curator of the museum’s Department of Chinese and Japanese Art. The collections have been further expanded by other generous private donations, such as the William S. and John T. Spaulding Collection of woodblock prints and books, the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection of modern prints and photographs, and the Leonard A. Lauder Collection of postcards. Tradition and Transformation showcases MFA’s latest expansion into nineteenth- and...