Rhetorical Aesthetics approaches Chinese art and literature from a novel perspective with special interest and influence in Chinese theory since the 1990s. The author works out a practice of reading through fine literary, cinematic, and visual art examples. The monograph focuses on important literary texts from the 1950s onward, analyses Zhang Yimou's acclaimed early films, and proposes how to understand that much vaunted and maligned of attributes: Chinese creativity. It surveys artistic production in ways that provide direct access to an entirely uncharted universe for those who cannot read Chinese.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example is based on 'Plum Garden, Kamata', 1857 by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), and printed on silver.

This sumptuous slip-cased set presents the Barbier-Mueller Collection, which includes masterworks from the Aztec, Maya, and other cultures, in two magnificently illustrated books written by the greatest international specialists on the subject, and also includes Sotheby's sale catalogue. The Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian art, recently auctioned at Sotheby's, is the most comprehensive collection of its kind. Comprising some 300 works from Mexico, Central, and South America - wood and stone sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and ritual objects - it spans 1200 BC to AD 1500. The Barbier-Mueller Collection, one of the most important and wide-ranging art collections in the world, was begun by Josef Mueller in Paris in 1908 with the purchase of works by Hodler and Cezanne; the Swiss Mueller then looked beyond Western art and bought his first pre-Columbian piece, an Aztec stone water goddess, in 1920. Today, Mueller's daughter and son-in-law, Monique and Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, continue to collect Western, African, Oceanic, and Cycladic art, which is frequently on loan to museums around the world. Text in English and French.

Making Sense of Islamic Art & Architecture is designed to equip the cultural tourist and art student with the means to interpret each painting, building, or artifact in terms of the iconography and symbolism of Islam. With reference to 100 clearly illustrated and diverse historical works, readers will learn to identify the telling details that mean so much to Muslims. The book's layout is both visually striking and accessible. Each double-page spread features a full-page colour photograph of either a detail of the work or its context, depending on the subject, with a second photograph chosen to illustrate important aspects of the work. Alongside is a detailed exposition of the work's significance in Islamic art history and philosophy, with key historical facts about the work, including where it may be seen today. By tracing the paths between Islamic belief and artistic intention, this book will deepen understanding not only of Islamic art and architecture but also of Islam itself.

The rich variety of languages, religious traditions and schools of art of the Indian subcontinent are brought together in this exceptional library of Indian manuscripts. Religious and philosophical texts from Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jain, Sikh and Zoroastrian schools of thought are all represented in illustrated manuscripts. This library shows how these various faiths borrowed, interacted and influenced one another in the subcontinent. From palm leaf manuscripts of the South to pothi format manuals from the Himalayas in Nepal, to the sophisticated and highly illustrated manuscripts of the Imperial Moghul court, this catalogue takes the reader on a visual journey through great epics, charged romances and colourful cautionary tales. Highlights include an important and lavishly illustrated palm-leaf manuscript by `The Emperor of Poets', Upendra Bhanja (c. 1640-1740 ce), and a rare Bihar-I Danesh (The Springtime of Knowledge) by Shaikh `Inayatallah Kamboh of Delhi, from late 17th/early 18th century - the finest known copy of the manuscript. An exceptional album of 18th-century Indian paintings from the Liechtenstein Princely Collections offers insight into the fascination for Indian courtly life among the nobility of Europe. A number of exceptional painted scrolls are also presented here. Scroll painting has a long history in India. Story tellers would travel from village to village giving performances of well-known epics and regional stories often accompanied by musicians and with the visual aid of a painted scroll. One particularly vibrant scroll, over 15 metres in length, of the Madel Puranamu, was probably commissioned by a wealthy member of the dhobi caste to celebrate his community's origins and favour with Shiva. Among the many intruiging maps and manuals - on art, astrology, omens, divination and auspicious symbols - is an 18th-century Nepalese sorcer's manual, which contains instructions for protective and exorcistic Shaiva rituals, mantras and sacrificial blood-offerings. Its binding includes feathers and traces of blood and skin, which by tradition are fragments of the `five beasts' - buffalo, chicken, dog, goat and cow.

First published in 1976, People of the Eland was the first major step away from the outsider's view upon San rock art that had dominated studies of rock art for nearly a century. The title, an account of the rock art of the San of the Drakensberg Range, was also about the mountain San themselves: their lives, their beliefs, their culture and their history during colonisation. The book not only brought an extraordinary and dynamic body of art to the attention of a global audience, but also helped to lay the foundations for a new generation of research into the meaning of prehistoric art. People of the Eland aimed to gain an insider's view of the rock art using San understandings of the world. While following this approach, it quickly became clear to Vinnicombe that the art was very far from simple depictions of daily life as had once seemed likely, but instead reflected the most deeply held San beliefs and symbols. This approach and this understanding has now become the standard for all those working with San rock art. Whilst this early knowledge of San art has been built upon considerably since 1976, People of the Eland remains a cornerstone of our current understanding. Reprinted here in full colour, with the original artwork and photographs, People of the Eland remains a seminal work, the impact of which cannot be underestimated.

"Early Art of the Southeastern Indians" is a visual journey through time, highlighting some of the most skillfully created art in native North America. The remarkable objects described and pictured here, many in full color, reveal the hands of master artists who developed lapidary and weaving traditions, established centers for production of shell and copper objects, and created the first ceramics in North America.

Presenting artifacts originating in the Archaic through the Mississippian periods--from thousands of years ago through A.D. 1600--Susan C. Power introduces us to an extraordinary assortment of ceremonial and functional objects, including pipes, vessels, figurines, and much more. Drawn from every corner of the Southeast--from Louisiana to the Ohio River valley, from Florida to Oklahoma--the pieces chronicle the emergence of new media and the mastery of new techniques as they offer clues to their creators' widening awareness of their physical and spiritual worlds.

The most complex works, writes Power, were linked to male (and sometimes female) leaders. Wearing bold ensembles consisting of symbolic colors, sacred media, and richly complex designs, the leaders controlled large ceremonial centers that were noteworthy in regional art history, such as Etowah, Georgia; Spiro, Oklahoma; Cahokia, Illinois; and Moundville, Alabama. Many objects were used locally; others circulated to distant locales.

Power comments on the widening of artists' subjects, starting with animals and insects, moving to humans, then culminating in supernatural combinations of both, and she discusses how a piece's artistic "language" could function as a visual shorthand in local style and expression, yet embody an iconography of regional proportions. The remarkable achievements of these southeastern artists delight the senses and engage the mind while giving a brief glimpse into the rich, symbolic world of feathered serpents and winged beings.

In spring of 1960, Japan's government passed Anpo, a revision of the postwar treaty that allows the United States to maintain a military presence in Japan. This move triggered the largest popular backlash in the nation's modern history. These protests, Nick Kapur argues in Japan at the Crossroads, changed the evolution of Japan's politics and culture, along with its global role. The yearlong protests of 1960 reached a climax in June, when thousands of activists stormed Japan's National Legislature, precipitating a battle with police and yakuza thugs. Hundreds were injured and a young woman was killed. With the nation's cohesion at stake, the Japanese government acted quickly to quell tensions and limit the recurrence of violent demonstrations. A visit by President Eisenhower was canceled and the Japanese prime minister resigned. But the rupture had long-lasting consequences that went far beyond politics and diplomacy. Kapur traces the currents of reaction and revolution that propelled Japanese democracy, labor relations, social movements, the arts, and literature in complex, often contradictory directions. His analysis helps resolve Japan's essential paradox as a nation that is both innovative and regressive, flexible and resistant, wildly imaginative yet simultaneously wedded to tradition. As Kapur makes clear, the rest of the world cannot understand contemporary Japan and the distinct impression it has made on global politics, economics, and culture without appreciating the critical role of the "revolutionless" revolution of 1960-turbulent events that released long-buried liberal tensions while bolstering Japan's conservative status quo.

The essays in this book trace a rich continuum of artistic exchange that occurred between successive Islamic dynasties from the twelfth through nineteenth centuries as well as the influence of Islamic art during that time on cultures as far away as China, Armenia, India, and Europe. Taking advantage of recent technologies that allow new ways of peering into the pasts of art objects, the authors break new ground in their exploration of the art and architecture of the Islamic world. The essays range across a variety of topics. These include a look at tile production during the reign of the Qaytbay, the book bindings associated with Qansuh al-Ghuri, and the relationship between Mamluk metalwork and that found in Rasulid Yemen and Italy. Several essays examine inscriptions found on buildings of the Fatimid, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods, and others look at the debt of European lacquer works to Persian craftsmen, the Armenian patrons of eighteenth-century Chinese exports, and the influences of Islam on art and architecture found all across India. The result is a sweeping but deeply researched look at one of the richest networks of artistic traditions the world has ever known. "

J. A. Green (1873-1905) was one of the most prolific and accomplished indigenous photographers to be active in West Africa. This beautiful book celebrates Green's photographs and opens a new chapter in the early photographic history of Africa. Soon after photography reached the west coast of Africa in the 1840s, the technology and the resultant images were disseminated widely, appealing to African elites, European residents, and travelers to the region. Responding to the need for more photographs, expatriate and indigenous photographers began working along the coasts, particularly in major harbor towns. Green, whose identity remained hidden behind his English surname, maintained a photography business in Bonny along the Niger Delta. His work covered a wide range of themes including portraiture, scenes of daily and ritual life, commerce, and building. Martha G. Anderson, Lisa Aronson, and the contributors have uncovered 350 of Green's images in archives, publications, and even albums that celebrated colonial achievements. This landmark book unifies these dispersed images and presents a history of the photographer and the area in which he worked.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. * This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur * Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span * The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions * The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question * The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

A comprehensive exploration of the rich visual culture inspired by the exceptional 11th-century literary masterpiece, from early screen paintings through contemporary manga With its vivid descriptions of imperial society, gardens, and architecture in early 11th-century Japan, The Tale of Genji-recognized as the world's first psychological novel-has captivated audiences around the globe and inspired artistic traditions for 1,000 years. This handsomely designed and illustrated book explores the outstanding art associated with Genji through in-depth essays and discussions of nearly 120 works. TheTale of Genji has influenced all forms of Japanese artistic expression, from intimately scaled albums and fans to boldly designed hanging scrolls and screen paintings by the most esteemed artists and calligraphers of every school and era. Scenes from the tale adorn decorative objects used in everyday life, including robes, lacquer boxes, containers for grooming tools and writing implements, incense burners, and even palanquins for transporting young brides to their new homes. The authors, both art historians and Genji scholars, discuss the tale's transmission and reception over the centuries; illuminate its place within the history of Japanese literature and calligraphy; highlight its key episodes and characters; and explore its wide-ranging influence on Japanese culture, design, and aesthetics into the modern era.

Over the centuries, the elegance of Asian art has been a source of fascination and inspiration for artists and art lovers worldwide. This beautifully illustrated book, returning after some time out of print explores the diversity of art and artefacts from around Asia, detailing the subjects, the materials used in their making, and the lives of the artists and artisans who created them.

Like England's Arthur and France's Charlemagne, the Cid is Spain's national hero, and for centuries he has served as an ideal model of citizenship. All Spaniards are familiar with the story of the Cid and the multifarious ways in which he is visualized. From illuminations in medieval manuscripts to illustrations in twenty-first-century editions, depictions of the Cid vary widely, revealing just how much Spain's national identity has transformed throughout the centuries. Uncovering the racial, gendered, and political impacts of one of Spain's most legendary heroes, Illustrating El Cid, 1498 to Today traces the development of more than five centuries of illustrations and problematizes their reception and circulation in Spain and abroad. By documenting the evolution of visual representations of the Cid, their artists, and their targeted readerships, Lauren Beck also uncovers how his legend became a national projection of Spanish identity, one that was shaped by foreign hands and even manipulated into propaganda by the country's most recent dictator, Francisco Franco. Through detailed analysis, Beck unsettles the presumption that chivalric masculinity dominated the Cid's visualization, and points to how women were represented with increasing modesty as readerships became younger in modern times. An unprecedented exploration of Spanish visual history, Illustrating El Cid, 1498 to Today yields thought-provoking insights about the powerful ways in which illustration shapes representations of gender, identity, and ethnicity.

The first in-depth exploration of the artistic and cultural achievements of China's "classical" era Age of Empires presents the art and culture of China during one of the most critical periods of its history - the four centuries from 221 B.C. to A.D. 200-- when, for the first time, people of diverse backgrounds were brought together under centralized imperial rule that fostered a new and unified identity. The Qin and Han empires represent the "classical" era of Chinese civilization, coinciding in both importance and timing with the Greco-Roman period in the West. Under the short-lived Qin and centuries-long Han, warring principalities were united under a common emperor, creating not only political and intellectual institutions but also the foundation for a Chinese art, culture, and national identity that lasted over two millennia. Over 150 works from across the full breadth of Chinese artistic and decorative media-- including ceramics, metalwork, textiles, armor, sculpture, and jewelry - are featured in this book and attest to the unprecedented role of art in ancient Chinese culture. These stunning objects, among them soldiers from the renowned terracotta army of Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor, are drawn from institutions and collections in China and appear here together for the first time. Essays by leading scholars, accompanied by dazzling new photography of the objects, address the sweeping societal changes underway, and trace a progression from the early, formative years through unprecedented sophistication and technical accomplishment-embodied in an artistic legacy that reverberates in China's national identity to this day.

The first full-length critical analysis of the paintings of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, this book focuses on Smith's role as a modernist in addition to her status as a wellknown Native American artist. With close readings of Smith's work, Carolyn Kastner shows how Smith simultaneously contributes to and critiques American art and its history.

Smith has distinguished herself as a modernist both in her pursuit of abstraction and her expressive technique, but too often her identity as a Native American artist has overshadowed these aspects of her work. Addressing specific themes in Smith's career, Kastner situates Smith within specific historical and cultural moments of American art, comparing her work to the abstractions of Kandinsky and Miro, as well as to the pop art of Rauschenberg and Johns. She discusses Smith's appropriation of pop culture icons like the Barbie doll, reimagined by the artist as Barbie Plenty Horses. As Kastner considers how Smith constructs each new series of artworks within the artistic, social, and political discourse of its time, she defines her contribution to American modernism and its history. Discussing the ways in which Smith draws upon her cultural heritage--both Native and non-Native--Kastner demonstrates how Smith has expanded the definitions of "American" and "modernist" art."

This comprehensive view of carvings and paintings on stone by Native Americans from 200 B.C. through the nineteenth century surveys the rock art of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, northern Mexico, and west Texas, providing an incomparable visual record of Southwest Indian culture, religion, and society.

Rock carvings and paintings are important sources in the archaeological and historical interpretation of Southwest Indians. Rock art reflects the cosmic and mythic orientation of the culture that produced it, and understanding of prehistoric peoples, both hunters and gatherers and the Hohokam, Anasazi, Mogollon, and Fremont cultures, and the Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache Indians. Culturally significant events such as the shift in prehistoric times from spear and atlatl to the bow, or, in the historic period, the introduction of the horse into the Southwest, are recorded in rock art.

The illustrations--thirty-two color plates, nearly 250 photographs, and numerous line drawings--bring together in one volume petroglyphs and rock paintings that are scattered over thousands of miles of desert and mesa, giving the reader an overview of Indian rock art that would be nearly impossible to achieve in the field.

"Indian Rock Art of the Southwest" examines from an archaeological perspective the rich legacy of stone drawings and carvings preserved throughout the Southwest. Professional and amateur archaeologists and historians, as well as the general reader with an interest in Indian art, will find this volume a valuable resource.

Hokusai Great Wave Wire-O Journal from Galison is the perfect companion notebook. The cover features The Great Wave, the famous woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, lined pages, and a large functional spiral binding.

What role did Chinese art play in the poetic development of Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens? How could they share Chinese artists' Dao, an aesthetic held to be beyond verbal representation? In this sequel to his critically acclaimed study Orientalism and Modernism, Zhaoming Qian investigates the ways in which these three modernist poets received Chinese artistic notions and assimilated them into their literary masterpieces. With forty rare and previously unpublished photographs presented with accompanying analysis, this study reconstructs the three poets' dialogue with the Chinese masters.

In addition to examining Canto 49, "Nine Nectarines," and "Six Significant Landscapes," by Pound, Moore, and Stevens, respectively, Qian provides indispensable historical and cultural material never before recorded in a single work. The Modernist Response to Chinese Art pays long-overdue attention to the role of several early collections of Chinese art in England and America; it clarifies some common misconceptions about Confucianism and Daoism; it identifies in the modernist poets both linkage to and revolt against their predecessors'--and peers'--hegemonic Orientalism; and it intensifies awareness of modernist Orientalism not as a monolithic and constant conception but as a slippery and shifting process.

Zhaoming Qian, Professor of English at the University of New Orleans, is the author of Orientalism and Modernism: The Legacy of China in Pound and Williams and the editor of Ezra Pound and China.

You can discover Japanese art like no other. Originally created by the artists of the ukiyo-e school of the floating world to advertise brothels in 17th-century Yoshiwara, these popular spring pictures (shunga) transcended class and gender in Japan for almost 300 years. These tender, humorous and brightly coloured pieces celebrate sexual pleasure in all its forms, culminating in the beautiful, yet graphic, work of iconic artists Utamaro, Hokusai and Kunisada. This catalogue of a major international exhibition aims to answer some key questions about what shunga is and why was it produced. Erotic Japanese art was heavily suppressed in Japan from the 1870s onwards as part of a process of cultural modernisation that imported many contemporary western moral values. Only in the last twenty years or so has it been possible to publish unexpurgated examples in Japan and this ground-breaking publication presents this fascinating art in its historical and cultural context for the first time. Within Japan, shunga has continued to influence modern forms of art, including manga, anime and Japanese tattoo art. Drawing on the latest scholarship and featuring over 400 images of works from major public and private collections, this landmark book sheds new light on this unique art form within Japanese social and cultural history. Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art is published to accompany an exhibition at the British Museum from October 2013 to January 2014.

In Termites of the Gods, Siyakha Mguni narrates his personal journey, over many years, to discover the signifi cance of a hitherto enigmatic theme in San rock paintings known as `formlings'. Formlings are a painting category found across the southern African region, including South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, with its densest concentration in the Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe. Generations of archaeologists and anthropologists have wrestled with the meaning of this painting theme in San cosmology without reaching consensus or a plausible explanation. Drawing on San ethnography published over the past 150 years, Mguni argues that formlings are, in fact, representations of fl ying termites and their underground nests, and are associated with botanical subjects and a range of larger animals considered by the San to have great power and spiritual significance. This book fills a gap in rock art studies around the interpretation and meaning of formlings. It offers an innovative methodological approach for understanding subject matter in San rock art that is not easily recognisable, and will be an invaluable reference book to students and scholars in rock art studies and archaeology. Written in an accessible style and richly illustrated in full colour, the book will also appeal to general readers and rock art enthusiasts.