This installation explores how some Japanese artists of the 1700s and 1800s interpreted what it meant to embrace a lifestyle centered on a shared appreciation of learning and literature. Bunjin is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word wenren (文人), literally “person of letters.” Often translated into English as “literati,” wenren originally referred to Chinese scholars of the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) who held government positions and fostered social groups in which they could…