This lushly illustrated book examines the cross-cultural influences and unique artistic dialogue between Hispano and Native American arts in the Southwest over the past 400 years since Spanish colonization. Insightful essays by historians, artists, and scholars including Estevan Rael-Galvez, Lane Coulter, Enrique R. Lamadrid, Marc Simmons, and others, explore the impact of cultural interaction on various art forms including painting, sculpture, metalwork, textiles, architecture, furniture and performance and ceremonial arts. Over 150 art works and photographs gathered from museums across the country are testimony to the unique Southwestern aesthetic that developed from this dynamic cultural exchange. Published as companion to an exhibition at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico on display through September 30, 2010.

A unique and visionary generation of young Chinese artists are coming to prominence in the art world - just as China cements its place as the second largest art market on the planet. Building on the new frontiers opened up by the Chinese artists of the late 1980s and 1990s, artists such as Ai Wei Wei who came to the West and became household names, this new generation are provocative, exciting and bold. But what does it mean to be a Chinese artist today? And how can we better understand their work? Here, renowned critic Barbara Pollack presents the first book to tell the story of how these Chinese millennials, fast becoming global art superstars, negotiate their cultural heritage, and what this means for China's impact on the future of global culture. Many young Chinese artists have declared they are "not Chinese, but global" - this book investigates just what that means for China, the art market, and the world. Brand new Art from China is the first collection to showcase the dynamic new art coming from Chinese artists, and features full-colour photos and video stills throughout - with many works being published in book-form for the first time. Featuring an in-depth interview with Zhang Xiaogang, probably the most well-known artist in China itself, whose sombre portraits of Chinese families during the Cultural Revolution sell for as much as $12 million at auction, alongside unparalleled access to the tastemakers of today's art scene, Brand New Art from China is the essential guide to Chinese contemporary art today - its vision, values and aesthetics.

The Chinese are famed as the first to have discovered and mastered the techniques needed to produce porcelain. Yet carefully crafted ceramics are valued not only for their beauty, but also as precious cultural artifacts shedding light on the period in which they were produced. Chinese ceramics represent works of art both in themselves and as a medium for painting, poetry, calligraphy and sculpture. This accessible, introductory survey takes the reader through the rich history of Chinese ceramics from primitive pottery to delicate porcelain, complemented by full-color illustrations throughout.

Buddhism is the single common thread uniting the Asian world, from India to South-East Asia an through Central Asia to China, Korea and Japan. To guide and inspire believers, innumerable symbols and images were made, beginning in India in the third century BC. This phenomenally diverse tradition includes not only frescoes, relief carvings, colossal statues, silk embroideries and bronze ritual objects but also rock-cut shrines with a thousand Buddhas, the glorious stupas of South-East Asia and the pagodas of the far East, the massive 'mandala in stone' of Borobudur in Java and entire thirteenth-century temple complexes at Angkor in Cambodia. Robert E. Fisher concisely describes all the Buddhist schools and cultures, and explains their imagery, from Tibetan cosmic diagrams and Korean folk art to early Sri Lankan sites and Japanese Zen gardens.

Available in a limited print run of 1,000 sets-the stunning nine-volume presentation of the incredible Buddhist caves at Dunhuang in northwestern China Situated at an important juncture within the network of silk routes from China through central Asia, the oasis city of Dunhuang was an ancient site of Buddhist religious activity. Southeast of the city, the Mogao Caves, also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, are an astonishing group of hundreds of caves-carved in the cliffs between the fourth and fourteenth centuries-containing sculptures and paintings. Further east sit the Yulin Caves, another critical and richly decorated site. Featuring some of the finest examples of Buddhist imagery to be found anywhere in the world, these caves have enticed explorers, archaeologists, artists, scholars, and photographers since the early twentieth century. Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves presents for the first time in print the comprehensive photographic archive-created in the 1940s by James C. M. Lo (1902-1987) and his wife, Lucy L. Lo (b. 1920)-of the remarkable Buddhist caves at Dunhuang. This extraordinary nine-volume set features more than 3,000 of the original black-and-white photographs that provide an indispensable historical record. Invaluable for their documentary worth and artistic quality, and thorough in their coverage and clarity, the images represent a rare perspective on significant monuments, many now irretrievably changed. The Lo Archive serves as a treasure trove of historical, cultural, and artistic information for researchers, art historians, and conservators. The introductory volume includes an essay about the formation and history of the Lo Archive, as well as maps, diagrams, photographs of the Mogao site, and concordances. The central volumes contain photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves, collaged photographs, several hundred newly created diagrammatic plans, and English and Chinese captions. The final volume is a collection of essays that addresses the complexity and richness of the Lo Archive, and how Dunhuang has been viewed from ancient times to the present. Contributors include Neville Agnew, Dora Ching, Jun Hu, Annette Juliano, Richard Kent, Wei-Cheng Lin, Cary Liu, Maria Menshikova, Jerome Silbergeld, Roderick Whitfield, and Zhao Shengliang. Exquisitely produced, this monumental set's abundant photographs have been lavishly printed as tritones, allowing for the closest possible match to James Lo's original black-and-white photographs, and for the clearest, richest images possible. With numerous silk-screened pages and an eight-page double-sided gatefold, Visualizing Dunhuang stands as a definitive reference for scholars, collectors, and libraries in art history and Asian studies. Published in association with the Tang Center for East Asian Art, Princeton University

An inkstone, a piece of polished stone no bigger than an outstretched hand, is an instrument for grinding ink, an object of art, a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states, and a surface on which texts and images are carved. As such, the inkstone has been entangled with elite masculinity and the values of wen (culture, literature, civility) in China, Korea, and Japan for more than a millennium. However, for such a ubiquitous object in East Asia, it is virtually unknown in the Western world. Examining imperial workshops in the Forbidden City, the Duan quarries in Guangdong, the commercial workshops in Suzhou, and collectors' homes in Fujian, The Social Life of Inkstones traces inkstones between court and society and shows how collaboration between craftsmen and scholars created a new social order in which the traditional hierarchy of "head over hand" no longer predominated. Dorothy Ko also highlights the craftswoman Gu Erniang, through whose work the artistry of inkstone-making achieved unprecedented refinement between the 1680s and 1730s The Social Life of Inkstones explores the hidden history and cultural significance of the inkstone and puts the stonecutters and artisans on center stage.

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a clerk in the Paris customs service who dreamed of becoming a famous artist. At the age 49, he decided to give it a try. At first, Rousseau's bright, bold paintings of jungles and exotic flora and fauna were dismissed as childish and simplistic, but his unique and tenacious style soon won acclaim. After 1886, he exhibited regularly at Paris's prestigious Salon des Independants, and in 1908 he received a legendary banquet of honor, hosted by Picasso. Although best known for his tropical scenes, Rousseau, in fact, never left France, relying on books and magazines for inspiration, as well as trips to natural history museums and anecdotes from returning military acquaintances. Working in oil on canvas, he tended toward a vibrant palette, vivid rendering, as well as a certain lush, languid sensuality as seen in the nude in the jungle composition The Dream. Today, "Rousseau's myth" is well established in art history, garnering comparison with such other post-Impressionist masters as Cezanne, Matisse, and Gauguin. In this dependable TASCHEN introduction, we explore the makings of this late-blooming artist and his legacy as an unlikely hero of modernism. "Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see." - Henri Rousseau

This beautifully produced, richly detailed, and comprehensive survey of fifty influential women artists from the Renaissance to the Post-Modern era details their vast contributions to the art world. From the Early Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi and the seventeenth-century illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian to Impressionist Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, and to modern icons such as Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois, the most important female artists are profiled in this book in chronologically arranged double-page spreads. There is a succinct biography for each artist, together with information outlining her accomplishments and influence, additional resources for further study, and, best of all, brilliant full-color reproductions of the artist's works. Packed with information, this stunning and absorbing book showcases the remarkable artistic contributions of women throughout history

Assembly of the Exalted presents some 50 pieces from the remarkable collection of Alice S. Kandell. The works, dating from the late 13th century to the early 20th, include great masterpieces and emblematic examples of Tibetan Buddhist art. They are all presented here as the constituents of a Tibetan Buddhist shrine. Shrines, both modest and grand, are the primary sites of Tibetan Buddhist practice, whether it be reciting scriptures, performing rituals, saying prayers, or engaging in meditation. The introductory essays thus focus on the Tibetan Buddhist shrine, describing its evolution over the history of Buddhism, its special role in Tibet, and how the pieces in the Kandell Collection came to be assembled and displayed in shrines at institutions across America. Illustrated with vivid photography, forty short essays, each centered on a single work or set of objects, describe the pieces in terms of their importance for the practice of Buddhism, highlighting the many essential functions of Tibetan Buddhist art within the space of a shrine.

Korean painters participated in two major cultural trends of the late Choson period in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: inquiry into things Korean and investigation of things Western. Departing from Chinese sources long considered authoritative, they developed the distinctly Korean mode known as "true-view" landscape painting for depicting the scenery of their own country. Rooted in the documentary painting of the early Choson period and displaying special techniques developed to describe distinctive features of Korea's topography, true-view paintings portray the most exemplary and ideal landscapes of Korea, such as those of Mount Kumgang (Diamond Mountain).

The same painters also drew on Western painting methods, which they?learned from descriptions of Western paintings seen and recorded by Korean emissaries to Beijing as well as from actual paintings brought back. This knowledge inspired them to produce not only landscapes but also portraits, images of animals and other paintings?based on firsthand observation of nature. Both trends, looking inward to Korea and outward to the West, represented Korean aspiration for something new--for "modernity." Deftly weaving these two strands together as the unifying theme of "Searching for Modernity," Yi Song-mi?expands on her pioneering work on true-view landscape painting to reveal even more of the depth and complexity of this mature and fully Korean form of artistic expression.

The history of ceramics is rooted in the history of mankind. Jamaican Ceramics: A Historical and Contemporary Survey is a comprehensive examination of the development of ceramics from pre-history to the present day. This visually rich, exciting and authoritative book is an unprecedented survey which sheds light on the fascinating historical and modern contemporary Jamaican ceramics. Norma Rodney Harrack, herself a practicing ceramic artist, offers an expert's insight and provides a valuable resource to ceramists, students, collectors, enthusiasts and users of ceramics. The chapters each focus on key thematic areas - from early ceramic history to the influence of European ceramic practices to the syncreticism and continuity of African Jamaican pottery traditions - with full discussions on how the canon of Jamaican ceramics has developed over centuries. Harrack's many years of teaching and investigation have guided much of the primary research for this project.

Research outside Japan on the history and significance of the Japanese visual arts since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868) has been, with the exception of writings on modern and contemporary woodblock prints, a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In recent years, however, the subject has begun to attract wide interest. As is evident from this volume, this period of roughly a century and a half produced an outpouring of art created in a bewildering number of genres and spanning a wide range of aims and accomplishments. Since Meiji is the first sustained effort in English to discuss in any depth a time when Japan, eager to join in the larger cultural developments in Europe and the U.S., went through a visual revolution. Indeed, this study of the visual arts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests a fresh history of modern Japanese culture--one that until now has not been widely visible or thoroughly analyzed outside that country. In this extensive collection, which includes some 190 black-and-white and color reproductions, scholars from Japan, Europe, Australia, and America explore an impressive array of subjects: painting, sculpture, prints, fashion design, crafts, and gardens. The works discussed range from early Meiji attempts to create art that referenced Western styles to postwar and contemporary avant-garde experiments. There are, in addition, substantive investigations of the cultural and intellectual background that helped stimulate the creation of new and shifting art forms, including essays on the invention of a modern artistic vocabulary in the Japanese language and the history of art criticism in Japan, as well as an extensive account of the career and significance of perhaps the best-known Japanese figure concerned with the visual arts of his period, Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913), whose Book of Tea is still widely read today. Taken together, the essays in this volume allow readers to connect ideas and images, thus bringing to light larger trends in the Japanese visual arts that have made possible the vitality, range, and striking achievements created during this turbulent and lively period. Contributors: Stephen Addiss, Chiaki Ajioka, John Clark, Ellen Conant, Mikiko Hirayama, Michael Marra, Jonathan Reynolds, J. Thomas Rimer, Audrey Yoshiko Seo, Eric C. Shiner, Lawrence Smith, Shuji Tanaka, Reiko Tomii, Mayu Tsuruya, Toshio Watanabe, Gennifer Weisenfeld, Bert Winther-Tamaki, Emiko Yamanashi.

This is the companion volume to the authors' groundbreaking Symmetries of Culture, the classic reference for symmetry analysis of pattern for anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, mathematicians, and designers. Central to symmetry analysis is the use of symmetry in the more precise sense of its geometrical isometries in contrast to its everyday meaning of balance. For this volume, Donald Crowe and Dorothy Washburn invited colleagues from several disciplines to apply the method of symmetry analysis to actual case studies from cultures around the world. The essays compiled here explore how cultural information is embedded in the symmetrical structure of pattern. From descriptions of patterns on objects as diverse as Nasca embroideries, Ica Valley ceramics, Quechua textiles, Yombe mats, and Zulu beadwork, as well as from Amazonian shamanic therapy, ceramic design among the Shipibo, and Turkish Yoeruk weaving, the contributors reveal how the symmetrical structures in the patterns describe aspects of each culture's fundamental principles for living in the world. This approach offers a profoundly fresh way to read the meaning in pattern by arguing that pattern communicates through the structural metaphors embedded in the symmetrical relationship of the pattern parts. The two volumes together offer readers a revolutionary new window into the communicative importance of design.

Renowned photographer Jonathan M. Singer presents his striking black-and-white images of Chinese ornamental rocks from a leading collection. Shaped by nature and selected by man, scholars' rocks, or gongshi, have been prized by Chinese intellectuals since the Tang dynasty, and are now sought after by Western collectors as well. They are a natural subject for the photographer Jonathan M. Singer, most recently acclaimed for his images of those other remarkable hybrids of art and nature, Japanese bonsai. Here Singer turns his lens on some 140 fine gongshi, ancient and modern, from the world-class collection of Kemin Hu, a recognized authority on this art form. In his photographs, Singer captures the spiritual qualities of these stones as never thought possible in two dimensions. He shows us that scholars' rocks truly are, in Hu's words, "condensations of the vital essence and energy of heaven and earth." Hu contributes an introductory essay on the history and aesthetics of scholars' rocks, explaining the traditional terms of stone appreciation, such as shou (thin), zhou (wrinkled), lou (channels), and tou (holes). She also provides a narrative caption for each stone, describing its history and characteristics. Spirit Stones forms a trilogy with Singer's two previous books, Botanica Magnifica and Fine Bonsai. In these volumes, he has established a new style of photography that blends the tonal richness and chiaroscuro of Old Master painting with a scientific clarity of detail; they represent a lasting achievement.

Taking an approach that is equal parts anthropological and art historical, this lavishly illustrated volume offers a rare look at the art, artifacts, and culture of the Naga people, an ethnic group spanning several tribes native to northeastern India and northwestern Myanmar. The book seeks to shed light on this geographically isolated and historically insular people, identifying cultural aspects and artistic traditions that are common among all Naga tribes, as well as ways in which the tribes differ. The works featured include textiles, baskets, wood carving, pottery, metalwork, jewelry, and beadwork, and make use of a wide range of materials such as glass, stone, metal, wood, shell, seeds, bone, and hair. Archival photography is used to place clothing, accessories, and ornaments within the cultural practices of the Naga. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

This richly illustrated book provides an anthology and summation of the work of one of the world's leading historians of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Wen Fong helped create the field of East Asian art history during a distinguished five-decade career at Princeton University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Few if any other writers in English have such a broad knowledge of the history and practice of calligraphy and Chinese painting. In this collection of some of his most recent essays, Fong gives a sweeping tour through the history of Chinese painting and calligraphy as he offers new and revised views on a broad range of important subjects.

The topics addressed include "art as history," in which each art object preserves a moment in art's own significant history; the museum as a place of serious study and education; the close historical relationship between calligraphy and painting and their primacy among Chinese fine arts; the parallel development of representational painting and sculpture in early painting history; the greater significance of brushwork, seen abstractly as a means of personal expression by the artist, in later painting history; the paradigmatic importance of the master-to-follower lineage--of genealogy as a social force--in shaping the continuity and directing the subtle changes in Chinese painting history; the role of collectors; and the critical necessity of authenticated works for establishing an accurate art history.

Throughout the book, Fong skillfully combines close analysis and detailed contextualization of individual works to reveal how the study of Chinese painting and calligraphy yields deep insights about Chinese culture and history.

SHO : to write, writing, calligraphy. DO : the path, the way or the Tao, the path of life Ancient Japanese calligraphy, known as Shodo, is more than just a decorative art; it is a revolutionary approach to mindfulness. This beautiful introduction to Shodo shows how the movement of a brush channels energy through the body and mind, uniting both in harmony. In this book Rie Takeda, world-renowned Shodo artist and expert shares: the history, philosophy and spirituality of Shodo the craft of calligraphy from the basic brushstrokes up to complete kanji practical guidance on which inks, pens and brushes to use, how to prepare your space, how to sit and breathe spiritual insight into Shodo, including the concept of Mushin (an undisturbed mind), Qi energy, and how to discover and channel your unique inner quality. You will discover that what results on the paper during Shodo is a true depiction of the present moment, a movement toward a more peaceful mindfulness.

With the help of scholars, historians and artists, and through a range of diverse media, this book sets out to follow in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad (*), retracing his movements during the famous Hijrah 'migration', from Makkah to the oasis town of Yathrib soon to become Madinat an-Nabi, the ''City of the Prophet". Situating the Hijrah firmly within the geography in which it unfolded, the book uses the sacred landscape of the Hijrah as a receptacle for its stories, memories and the events that took place along the route, thus providing tangible links between us and this momentous journey as never before experienced. For over fourteen hundred years, al-Hijrah, the famous story of the Prophet Muhammad's (*) 'migration' from Makkah to Madinah, has been told and retold by generations of Muslims throughout the world. This story, one of endurance overcoming adversity in pursuit of religious freedom to establish a nation united by bonds of brotherhood and faith, has continued to be an inspiration from which renewed meanings have been drawn. This book follows in the footsteps of the Prophet (*), retracing his movements during this crucial journey, and examining what occurred as he left his home in Makkah to the oasis town of Yathrib soon to become the "City of the Prophet". However, unlike anything seen before, this book anchors the Hijrah firmly within the geography in which it unfolded. Acting as a receptacle for its stories, memories and the events that took place along the route, the sacred landscape of the Hijrah provides tangible links between us and this momentous journey as never before, bringing a greater appreciation of the Hijrah story.

Cemeteries are the repositories of history and personal narrative, places of comfort and beauty. Beginning in 1994, photographer and installation artist Kathy T. Hettinga began a fourteen-year project to document an unknown body of funerary folk art displayed in the cemeteries of the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. The book begins with the author's story of death and loss as a young widow living in the San Luis Valley. Years later, the beauty of the valley was relentless in calling her back to document the places and the ways people honor those that have died. Grave Images recounts Hettinga's spiritual and artistic journey to find meaning in the cemeteries of rural and largely Hispanic communities of the San Luis Valley. Her photographs of unique grave markers made of wood, concrete, metal, sandstone, glass and other materials by individuals or families to commemorate the passing of loved ones capture the ethereal beauty of the cemeteries and serve as a touchstone for our common understanding of loss, grief, and the need to memorialize and pay tribute. Hettinga's illuminating narrative articulates the meaning of this visual record from the perspective of an artist and provides religious and historical perspectives on the San Luis Valley as final resting place. This book will appeal to artists, art historians, ethnographers, historians, scholars of religion and general audiences interested in photography, folk art, and the history of the San Luis Valley.

A celebration of artworks featuring books and readers from throughout history, for the delight of art lovers and bibliophiles

As every book tells a story, every book in art is part of an intriguing, engaging, and relatable image. Books are depicted as indicators of intellect in portraits, as symbols of piety in religious paintings, as subjects in still lifes, and as the raw material for contemporary installations. Reading Art spotlights artworks from museums and collections around the globe, creating a gorgeous, inspiring homage to both the written word and to its pivotal role in the visual world.

The Admonitions scroll is an internationally recognized masterpiece of narrative painting and is arguably the earliest surviving Chinese painting. Painted in ink and colour on silk and traditionally attributed to the 'founding figure' of Chinese painting, Gu Kaizhi (c.345-c.406), the scroll entered the British Museum in 1903 and has become one of its most famous objects. The scroll illustrates a poem written in AD 292 by the poet-official Zhang Hua (232-300), who was reprimanding Empress Jia (257-300) who had wantonly abandoned the Confucian-based ethical behaviour expected of court ladies, including personal sacrifice to save the emperor should he be in danger. The Admonitions scroll was painted centuries later in order to admonish a different wayward ruler - this time an emperor himself. While didactic and morally instructive, the painted scenes also reveal deep psychological insights into some of the figures as well as offer touching glimpses of court life, including in the bedchamber and a grooming session with the children. Modern scholarship holds that the Admonitions scroll dates from the sixth to eighth century AD. While it may or may not be a copy of an original work by Gu, without doubt it accurately represents a style current in his lifetime and as such represents the seminal development of the features that came to distinguish Chinese ink painting as a distinctive world tradition. The Admonitions scroll has been held in many prestigious Chinese private and imperial collections, as well as having been copied by other Chinese artists, before arriving in London over a century ago. The story of the scroll is of fascinating historical interest and this accessible and beautifully illustrated book really gets to the heart of it.