We think we know books, and the imposing entrance of the New York Public Library reminds us of their weighty and solemn importance. In the great traditions of the West, the book is a foundation upon which mighty edifices of knowledge are constructed. But if you pass through the lobby to the library’s main exhibition hall and gallery, something else is revealed.

They aspire not to disclose the timeless, but to discern the transient, to clasp the texture of experience — a passing moment, an instant’s glimpse, a sensation as compressed and meticulously evoked as a haiku.

In so many of the ehon, when the evanescent is carefully contemplated, something timeless is revealed.