Indonesian art entered the global contemporary art world of independent curators, art fairs and biennales in the 1990s. By the mid-2000s, Indonesian works were well-established on the Asian secondary art market, achieving record-breaking prices at auction houses in Singapore and Hong Kong. This comprehensive overview introduces Indonesian contemporary art in a fresh and stimulating manner, demonstrating how contemporary art breaks from colonial and post-colonial power structures, and grapples with issues of identity and nation-building in Indonesia. Across different media, in performance and installation, it amalgamates ethnic, cultural and religious references in its visuals, and confidently brings together the traditional (batik, woodcut, dance, Javanese shadow puppet theatre) with the contemporary (comics and manga, graffiti, advertising, pop culture). Spielmann's Contemporary Indonesian Art surveys the key artists, curators, institutions and collectors in the local art scene, and looks at the significance of Indonesian art in the Asian context. Through this book, originally published in German, Spielmann stakes a claim for global relevance of Indonesian art.

Part of a series of handy, luxurious Flame Tree Pocket Books. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed then foil stamped. And they're delightfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use, handbags and make a dazzling gift. This example features one of Hiroshige's stunning views of Mount Fuji. In this artwork, we see Mount Fuji as viewed across the slopes of a small-scale replica of the mountain. These mini-Fujis were quite a common feature as they enabled the pious-but-busy to make at least an approximation of the great pilgrimage up Mount Fuji and derive some of the same spiritual benefits.

Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots―which are then sold, collected, and handed on―he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive.

And so begins The Hare with Amber Eyes, this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the story of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations.

A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

Whether painted by artist-warriors depicting their feats in battle or by other Native American artists, 19th and 20th century ledger drawings--drawn on blank sheets of ledger books obtained from U.S. soldiers, traders, missionaries, and reservation employees--provide an excellent visual source of information on the Great Plains Native Americans. An art form representing a transition from drawing on buffalo hide to a paper medium, ledger drawings range in style, content, and quality from primitive and artistically poor to bold and sharp with lavish use of color. Although interest in ledger drawings has increased in the last 20 years, there has never been a guide to holdings of these drawings. By bringing together the diverse and scattered institutions that hold them, this book will make finding the drawings quicker and easier. Illustrated with examples of ledger drawings, the guide identifies the libraries, archives, historical societies, and museums that hold ledger drawings. The institutions listed range from those with large collections, such as the Smithsonian, Yale, and Oklahoma museums, to institutions with only a few drawings. The book also includes a bibliography of books and articles about Indian pictographic art. The index will enable researchers to locate art by individual artists and tribes.

A spiritual journey in nine countries of Fareast. India, Nepal, Myanmar, Lao, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia... Everything begins with questions; travels also... The roadmap of the traveler who starts his spiritual journey is different, his questions are also... Mysterious attractiveness of spiritual way of living from Hindu ashrams to Buddhist monasteries, from Muslim dargahs to Christian churches... Legendary atmosphere of hippies' ultimate destination, Kathmandu... Tears falling down in the cemetery of WW1 in a remote village of Northern Myanmar... Long river journeys in legendary Mekong River... Majestic Angkor Wat Temple and Killing Fields of Cambodia... Tragedy of longneck Karen women living in Northeastern Thailand... Unique piece of mind moments that loneliness and silence turns into a magnificent meditation in lovely Koh Phangan Island and mystical ceremonies in the Island of Gods, Bali... ... These are just some titles to give an idea about breath-taking manner of journey... ... Detailed information and impressive comments about all special places from UNESCO World Heritage List of nine countries of Fareast, interesting details about lifestyles, cultures, beliefs, rituals, geographical information and descriptions like a pastoral symphony of national parks, mountains, volcanoes, towns, cities, human stories from the journey and so many details for those who are waiting to be encouraged to be "on the road..". The guide of this breath-taking long journey is just dreams. Dreams draw the itinerary step by step. Dreams cross the realities, Physical journey combines with spiritual journey, and the mission is being completed. The journey attains its goal...

Explore the history and tradition of Wabanaki art.

This book offers an in-depth description and analysis of Chinese coin-like charms, which date back to the second century CE and which continued to be used until mid 20th century. This work is unique in that it provides an archaeological and analytical interpretation of the content of these metallic objects: inscriptive, pictorial or both. As the component chapters show, these coin-like objects represent a wealth of Chinese traditional folk beliefs, including but not limited to family values, social obligations and religious desires. The book presents a collection of contributed chapters, gathering a diverse range of perspectives and expertise from some of the world's leading scholars in the fields of archaeology, religious studies, art history, language and museology. The background of the cover image is a page from Guang jin shi yun fu , a rhyming dictionary first published in the ninth year of the Kangxi Reign (1652 CE). The metal charm dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), depicting two deities traditionally believed to possess the majic power of suppressing evil spirits. The stich-bound book in the foreground is a collection of seal impressions from the beginning of the 20th century. Its wooden press board is inscribed da ji xiang by Fang Zhi-bin in the year of bing yin (1926 CE).

Sketching and carving both visualize and memorize a given image, but within Nowau culture the manner in which this is achieved in a canoe prowboard is entirely different than in a conventional drawing. When studying the impressive ceremonial canoes of Kitawa, in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea, G.M.G. Scoditti became struck by the absolute predominance of the artist's mind in the process of creating images: all its stages, its uncertainties and experimentation, must unfold within its silent, rarefied space. Only once fully formed can the image be revealed to the village in material form. Reflecting on the absence of orthographic writing within Nowau culture, and finding parallels with poetic and musical composition, Scoditti gained further insight into the Nowau processes of creation through the critiques the Kitawan carvers made of his own fieldwork sketchbooks. Spurred on by their curiosity, the anthropologist handed over his art materials to the master carvers to make their own drawings on paper or cardboard. Traditional pigments used on the polychrome canoe prowboards were added to the unfamiliar media of watercolour, acrylic, coloured pencils and ballpoint pen. Three-dimensional ornamentation became two-dimensional as images of self-decoration and huts were added to those of prowboards. This exercise was all the more fascinating given the prohibition of drawing on the surface of the wood before carving. On return to Italy, further graphic dialogues unfolded when an architect and an artist from the tradition of Italian Abstraction responded with their own intriguingly different interpretations of the canoe prowboard and its relationship to the Nautilus shell. All these drawings are brought together in this book, along with Scoditti's own sketches from fieldwork and ethnographic collections in Newcastle upon Tyne and Rome. 'The fieldworker's or museum ethnographer's sketches are never going to be quite the same. Through the double filter of Kitawan philosophy and Scoditti's ruminations, the apparently simple triad of sketch - drawing - carving opens out into a discourse on the creative mind. The Kitawan creator - here primarily the male carver - does not have to demonstrate how he creates, and what springs from these pages have a fascination of their own. Several distinctive hands, Kitawan and Italian, reflect from different interpretive and professional vantage points on the very process of drawing through doing exactly that, drawing. The result are images that delight and challenge, sensitively assembled, beautifully reproduced. An extraordinary record of creativity, and a rare corpus of visual memorials.' - Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

River-cane baskets woven by the Chitimachas of south Louisiana are universally admired for their beauty and workmanship. Recounting friendships that Chitimacha weaver Christine Paul (1874-1946) sustained with two non-Native women at different parts of her life, this book offers a rare vantage point into the lives of American Indians in the segregated South. Mary Bradford (1869-1954) and Caroline Dormon (1888-1971) were not only friends of Christine Paul; they were also patrons who helped connect Paul and other Chitimacha weavers with buyers for their work. Daniel H. Usner uses Paul's letters to Bradford and Dormon to reveal how Indian women, as mediators between their own communities and surrounding outsiders, often drew on accumulated authority and experience in multicultural negotiation to forge new relationships with non-Indian women. Bradford's initial interest in Paul was philanthropic, while Dormon's was anthropological. Both certainly admired the artistry of Chitimacha baskets. For her part, Paul saw in Bradford and Dormon opportunities to promote her basketry tradition and expand a network of outsiders sympathetic to her tribe's vulnerability on many fronts. As Usner explores these friendships, he touches on a range of factors that may have shaped them, including class differences, racial attitudes, and shared ideals of womanhood. The result is an engaging story of American Indian livelihood, identity, and self-determination.

Gathering oral stories and visual art from both sides of the Atlantic, Istwa across the Water stitches together fragmented parts of the African diaspora. Toni Pressley-Sanon challenges the tendency to read history linearly and recovers the submerged histories of Haiti through alternative methods rooted in the island's spiritual and cultural traditions. Using the Vodou concept of marasa, or twinned entities, this book takes parts of Dahomey (the present-day Benin Republic) and the Kongo region-from where many Haitians are descended-as Haiti's twinned sites of cultural production. It draws on poet Kamau Brathwaite's idea of tidalectics, the back-and-forth movement of ocean waves, as a way to look at cultural exchange. Above all, it searches out the places where history and memory intersect, expressed by the Kreyol term istwa, offering a bold new approach for understanding Haitian histories and imagining Haitian futures.

This book demonstrates how Japanese Americans have developed traditions of complex silences to survive historic moments of racial and religious oppression and how they continue to adapt these traditions today. In order to examine Japanese Americans' complex relationship to silence, Brett Esaki offers four case studies of Japanese American art-gardening, origami, jazz, and monument construction-and examines how each artistic practice has responded to a historic moment of oppression. In doing so, he finds that these artistic silences incorporate and convey obfuscated religious ideas from Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Shinto, indigenous religions, and contemporary spirituality. While silence is often thought of as the binary opposite and absence of sound, this book provides a non-binary theory of silence that articulates how multidimensional silences are formed and how they function. Brett Esaki argues that non-binary silences have allowed Japanese Americans to disguise, adapt, and innovate religious resources in order to negotiate racism and oppressive ideologies from both the United States and Japan. Drawing from the fields of religious studies, ethnic studies, theology, anthropology, art, music, history, and psychoanalysis, this book highlights the ways in which silence has been used to communicate the complex emotions of historical survival, religious experience, and artistic inspiration.

'A truly transformative read' Sunday Times STYLE 'More than ever, we need books like this' Jessica Seaton, Co-Founder of Toast and author of Gather, Cook, Feast A whole new way of looking at the world - and your life - inspired by centuries-old Japanese wisdom. Wabi sabi ("wah-bi sah-bi") is a captivating concept from Japanese aesthetics, which helps us to see beauty in imperfection, appreciate simplicity and accept the transient nature of all things. With roots in zen and the way of tea, the timeless wisdom of wabi sabi is more relevant than ever for modern life, as we search for new ways to approach life's challenges and seek meaning beyond materialism. Wabi sabi is a refreshing antidote to our fast-paced, consumption-driven world, which will encourage you to slow down, reconnect with nature, and be gentler on yourself. It will help you simplify everything, and concentrate on what really matters. From honouring the rhythm of the seasons to creating a welcoming home, from reframing failure to ageing with grace, wabi sabi will teach you to find more joy and inspiration throughout your perfectly imperfect life. This book is the definitive guide to applying the principles of wabi sabi to transform every area of your life, and finding happiness right where you are.

This text provides coverage of the history of the Japanese philosophy of art, from its inception in the 1870s to modern day. In addition to the historical information and discussion of aesthetic issues that appear in the introductions to each of the chapters, the book presents English translations of otherwise inaccessible major works on Japanese aesthetics, beginning with a complete and annotated translation of the first work in the field, Nishi Amane's ""Bimyogaku Setsu"" (""The Theory of Aesthetics""). The text is divided into four sections: the subject of aesthetics; aesthetic categories; poetic expression; postmodernism; and aesthetics. It examines the momentous efforts made by Japanese thinkers to master, assimilate and originally transform Western philosophical systems to discuss their own literary and artistic heritage.

In tenth-century Iraq, a group of Arab intellectuals and scholars known as the Ikhwan al-Safa began to make their intellectual mark on the society around them. A mysterious organisation, the identities of its members have never been clear. But its contribution to the intellectual thought, philosophy, art and culture of the era - and indeed subsequent ones - is evident. In the visual arts, for example, Hamdouni Alami argues that the theory of human proportions which the Ikwan al-Safa propounded (something very similar to those of da Vinci), helped shape the evolution of the philosophy of aesthetics, art and architecture in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE, in particular in Egypt under the Fatimid rulers. With its roots in Pythagorean and Neoplatonic views on the role of art and architecture, the impact of this theory of specific and precise proportion was widespread. One of the results of this extensive influence is a historic shift in the appreciation of art and architecture and their perceived role in the cultural sphere. The development of the understanding of the interplay between ethics and aesthetics resulted in a movement which emphasised more abstract and pious contemplation of art, as opposed to previous views which concentrated on the enjoyment of artistic works (such as music, song and poetry). And it is with this shift that we see the change in art forms from those devoted to supporting the Umayyad caliphs and the opulence of the Abbasids, to an art which places more emphasis on the internal concepts of 'reason' and 'spirituality'.Using the example of Fatimid art and views of architecture (including the first Fatimid mosque in al-Mahdiyya, Tunisia), Hamdouni Alami offers analysis of the debates surrounding the ethics and aesthetics of the appreciation of Islamic art and architecture from a vital time in medieval Middle Eastern history, and shows their similarity with aesthetic debates of Italian Renaissance.

The vast spaces of the Karoo abound with images pecked, incised or engraved onto rock surfaces. These landscape markings, generally known simply as 'rock engravings', were created in the pre-colonial period by San hunter-gatherers who roamed this land in search of sustenance and water. Their engravings most commonly (though not always) depict animals such as eland, quagga or elephant, and reflect, in fascinating and unusual ways, the relationship of the San to the harsh environment of the Karoo. San Rock Engravings explores the visual legacy of these ancient artists, the signs they left on the land and the meanings that could be attached to them.

An anthology of essays and reviews by the eminent art historian and writer, Edward Lucie-Smith. The articles cover a broad span, from the Italian Renaissance of Giotto and Antonello da Messina, Leonardo and Michelangelo, progressing to Rubens, Velazquez and Ingres, with essays on William Hogarth, John Constable and John Everett Millais for British Art. With the experience of his landmark publications on modern art, which remain in print; the author sweeps the reader on a fabulous journey of perception, disclosing the strands that bind the continuum of classic and contemporary art.

Superb Yokai images from the world's leading museums and private collections! Japan's vast pantheon of supernatural creatures includes demons (yokai), monsters, ogres (oni), ghosts (yurei) and magicians--mythical beings from folklore and popular culture which continue to thrill readers of traditional stories and manga today. This richly illustrated book by Andreas Marks, the leading authority on Japanese woodblock prints, presents authentic illustrations and descriptions of 100 different creatures, including: Bakeneko: Monster cats in human form who lick lamp oil and prey on humans born in the year of the Rat Han'nya: Female demons with sharp and pointed horns, metallic eyes and a smirking smile Hihi: Large ape-like monsters who live in the mountains and have superhuman strength, enabling them to kidnap and kill humans Mikoshi-nyudo: Yokai with an enormously extended necks who appear only at night And many more! The striking visual examples in this book are drawn from the rich canon of early Japanese prints, books, and paintings--sourced from leading museums, libraries and private collections worldwide. They show the "original" forms and appearances of the creatures which form the basis for all subsequent depictions. Also included are two long handscrolls from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (A Collection of Monsters and Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) which are reproduced here for the very first time. Prints and Paintings sourced from the following list of museums, libraries and private collections: Art Institute of Chicago Christie's, London & New York The Cleveland Museum of Art Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University Kyoto University, Main Library Library of Congress Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Minneapolis Institute of Art National Museum of Japanese History Princeton University Library Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Smithsonian Libraries

These fine-quality gift wrapping sheets feature 6 prints inspired by the fun and colorful technique of tie-dye! These papers are suitable for craft projects as well as for gift wrapping. The variety of designs means they are useful for any occasion--whether a holiday, birthday, anniversary or "just because." Tie-dye is making a big comeback--from clothing and home accessories to office and school supplies. Share this feel-good trend with loved ones and make them smile! Designed in a folder-style to prevent the sheets from tearing or bending, this gift wrapping set includes: 24 sheets of 18 x 24 inch (45 x 61 cm) paper 6 unique patterns Pair with the matching Tuttle note cards--Tie-Dye, 16 Note Cards--for a colorful and cohesive gift! The tradition of gift wrapping originated in Asia, with the first documented use in China in the 2nd century BC. Japanese furoshiki, reusable wrapping cloth, is still in use four centuries after it was first created. Gift wrapping is one custom that has prevailed through the ages and across the world--it should be special for both the gift giver and recipient.

This volume addresses questions of canon, value, historiographical interest, and large-scale historical structures as they apply to Chinese art history in the context of post-colonial studies. As the field of Chinese art history moves into postcolonial studies, institutional critique, and economic and social contextualization, it is especially important that questions of canon, value, historiographical interest, and large-scale historical structures not be left behind. The aim of this book is to examine critically the historiography of the field of Chinese painting, to assess what achievements have been made, and to understand what and how personal backgrounds of scholars and institutional constraints may have affected various practices in the field. "This volume is a comprehensive and critically self-aware introduction to the history of Chinese art historiography in America, and includes reflections on more general issues of the encounters between East and West. This is a timely, much-needed book." -Olga Lomova, Director, Institute of East Asian Studies, Charles University, Prague, and Dircetor, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation International Sinological Center, Prague; Editor of Recarving the Dragon: Understanding Chinese Poetics. "This volume provides a true dialogical interaction of ideas in scholarship and reveals Western, Chinese and Japanese approaches to Far Eastern artistic heritage. The mutual elucidation of pedagogical wisdoms brings about salutary heuristic lessons that help readers overcome assumptions in which Western theoretical methodology has been trapped for so long." -Shigemi Inaga, Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Kyoto, Japan); John Kluge Chair of Modern Culture in the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress; Editor of Crossing Cultural Borders: Beyond Reciprocal Anthropology; author of Kaiga no tasogare: Eduaru Mane botsugo no toso . "This volume contributes importantly toward understanding the current state of Chinese art history in the US and its complicated historiography. It is provocatively argued, engagingly written, and passionately felt." -Katharine P. Burnett, Associate Professor of Art History, University of California at Davis, has published articles in Art History, Word & Image, and Orientations and is working on a book, Dimensions of Originality: Essays in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art. "This volume is the next in Jason Kuo's long bibliography of original and important contributions to the study of Chinese painting. Each essay raises questions that draw Chinese painting into the discourse of modernism more generally." -Nancy S. Steinhardt, Professor of East Asian Art and Curator of Chinese Art at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. Author of Chinese Traditional Architecture, Chinese Imperial City Planning, and Liao Architecture. Editor and adaptor of Chinese Architecture, and co-editor of Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture.

This title records a variety of Sotho decorated huts and other structures. Decorative patterns of paint, pebbles inset into mud plaster, and incised plaster constitute the Ditema mural art tradition of the Basotho, which is similar to, but differs in many respects from, the Ndebele mural art tradition. Many of the interesting and often complex Ditema patterns made on the walls of huts appear to have been rich in symbolism relating to the culture of the Basotho, though these meanings, and the tradition itself, is fast disappearing.