However, the novel tells us in bits and pieces about Ono’s rise to success creating art that celebrated the “new spirit” of Japan. When Moriyama discovered these, he refused to mentor Ono any longer. This ignited a political awakening in Ono, who created several explicitly political paintings. He also took Ono to poor parts of town that Ono had never visited. Matsuda, who believed that artists should engage with politics more, encouraged Ono to explore the world outside of Moriyama’s villa. While becoming one of Moriyama’s favorite students, Ono was also pulled away from him through his encounter with a man named Chishu Matsuda. Moriyama’s students lived together in a run-down villa, mimicking their teacher’s style, which emphasized aesthetics and technique and sought to portray the “floating world” of the city’s nighttime revelry. Yet Ono chose to pursue his passion, and describes his first job in a factory-like studio followed by a second, more prestigious phase of his career working under an artist named Moriyama. Ono lays the groundwork by talking about his father, who destroyed his early paintings to prevent his son from becoming an artist and to force him instead to join the family business.

The exact nature of that career occupies much of the space in the novel. Ono believes that Setsuko is politely telling him to find a way to make his past less of a problem, since his career before and during the war has destroyed his reputation. This way he can ensure that, if these acquaintances are interviewed about Ono and his family as part of the negotiation, they will provide positive testimony. In light of a failed marriage negotiation for Noriko a year before, in which the groom’s family mysteriously pulled out at the last minute, Ono’s older daughter Setsuko suggests that he visit various old acquaintances.

In the years after the war, Ono works to negotiate a traditional arranged marriage for his younger daughter, Noriko. Though the narrative leaps in and out of different periods in Ono’s life, from his first job to his childhood to his role working for the government in World-War II era Japan, the strongest linear thread revolves around the marriage of Ono’s daughter. Ono is both protagonist and narrator, and he provides a highly subjective account of the events that shaped his career, family life, and reputation, grappling with his past as he tells his story. An Artist of the Floating Worldtells the story of a former artist named Masuji Ono.

An artist of floating world