There is something bizarre about looking at 18th century Japanese pottery and turning the corner to be confronted with the bold, flat graphics of Julian Opie’s paintings. However Tokyo is notoriously defined by these bizarre . Below: This trio of figure groups are the work of JJ Kaendler, left to right “The Goose Seller”, young lovers in 18th century dress, and “Harlequin & Columbine”. The first dates from circa 1870, the other two from 1950, but I defy you . The exhibition, traces, through a selection from the British Museum collection, the story of a country’s industrialisation and rise to world power in an era of rapid globalisation - Britain in the 18th century Instead we hung around a bookshop full of unattended books and browsed through a coffee table book of the 18th century Venetian paintings. Our disappointment at not being able to get into the one of the galleries was somewhat assuaged A beautiful vase is round so we can wander around it forever is a maxim from Onda, the 18th century pottery community on the island of Kyushu. American poet John Tagliabue employs it as we eavesdrop on an imaginary group of Chinese . . that Nicholas Mosse trained in England and Japan and made it his mission to produce beautiful, functional pottery in the style of Irish Spongeware. Irish spongeware was the traditional pottery of Ireland used in the 18th Century Nearly every building in the small and faded yellow. the sealed-off old town is from the 18th century, an interesting mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and French architecture. At night hundreds of Chinese lanterns glow under . . suspension bridges existed in the third century BC The first of the modern versions was erected in Britain in the late 18th century, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The longest one today connects two islands in Japan, . Here you can see a crucifix dating back to the 17th century, the 68 choir seats carved in molave with fine inlays, the big lectern with cantorals and the 18th century pipe organ to which is attached the composes of such renown as the . Markley uses the incident to put together an over-view of travel writing about Japan in the period, but it’sa rather tenuous link. Swift only devotes part of a short chapter to Gulliver’s Japanese sojourn — the passage covering his stay . Art de la table