There Are People Who Can See and Others Who Cannot Even Look

The greatest early photographer's portraits of Hugo, Manet, Dumas, and more

In 1862, Japanese travelers arrived in Europe for the first time in 240 years. Their nation, isolated from the rest of the world for so long, was reluctantly opening to the outside world.

Imagine being a member of this group — 40 men, many of them samurai, venturing out into a world full of technologies and cultures with which they had minimal experienc…