The fifth in a five volume series. Volume V deals with small collections of ivories found at Fort Shalmaneser and tries to place them in their positions before the final assault and looting on the palace.

The Reception of Chinese Art Across Cultures is a collection of essays examining the ways in which Chinese art has been circulated, collected, exhibited and perceived in Japan, Europe and America from the fourteenth century to the twenty-first. Scholars and curators from East Asia, Europe and North America jointly present cutting-edge research on cultural integration and aesthetic hybridisation in relation to the collecting, display, making and interpretation of Chinese art and material culture. Stimulating examples within this volume emphasise the Western understanding of Chinese pictorial art, while addressing issues concerning the consumption of Chinese art and Chinese-inspired artistic productions from early times to the contemporary period; the roles of collector, curator, museum and auction house in shaping the taste, meaning and conception of art; and the art and cultural identity of the Chinese diaspora in a global context. This book espouses a multiplicity of aesthetic, philosophical, socio-cultural, economic and political perspectives, and encourages academics, students, art and museum practitioners to re-think their encounters with the objects, practices, people and institutions surrounding the study of Chinese art and culture in the past and the present.

"Plunder and pleasure" is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth study of the role played by dealers and collectors of art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Western craze for East Asian art was at its peak. The book comprises an overview of Japonisme and the translation into English of two important French texts detailing the trade in Asian art at this time: "Notes d'un Bibeloteur au Japon" by the art dealer Philippe Sichel (1839/40-99) and "Souvenirs d'un vieil Amateur d'Art de l'Extreme-Orient" by the collector Raymond Koechlin (1860-1931). Both translations are extensively annotated. A discussion of the content and significance of the translations as well as short biographical sketches of Sichel and Koechlin are also included. "Plunder and Pleasure" casts new light on the subject of Western tastes for East Asian art during this period and furthers our understanding of the cultural relations between the Far East and the West that were going on at this time.

Images of Thought is an entirely new approach to understanding non-Western art. Supported by a wide reading in anthropology, theology and philosophy, it provides an intellectual context for reading the visual language of Indian and Persian miniature art. By decoding artistic conventions, and with searching visual analyses, the book attempts to transform our understanding of art as an illustration of history to art as a reflection of the intellect. Images of Thought should be of interest to the general reader, students and scholars of art and critical theory, as it shows that one of the world's richest painting traditions can offer important insights into issues of visual perception and intellectual production generally.

"In praise of Prambanan" is devoted to the Hindu-Javanese temple complex of Candi Prambanan, also known by its locally more popular name of Candi Loro Jonggrang.

This book offers an inquiry into the ways in which entertainment discourse extends beyond entertainment and its initial humorous function due to its political and ideological underpinnings. Rather than considering entertainment discourse as "just for fun", this book justifies the importance of taking it seriously. Humorous features in entertainment discourses can trivialize some stereotypical moments, and, in doing so, encourage viewers to downplay the seriousness of the events they are watching. In other words, these stereotypical images are camouflaged and mitigated by the inclusion of humorous elements and imaginative images, which can lead the audience to perceive them as natural scenes that do not deserve criticism. Embedding banalities within entertainment discourses remains an effective strategy that drives the audience to laugh, meaning that they fail to detect the embedded ideologies regarding different cultures and identities. This confirms the fact that "small talk" can often become "big talk".

Closely examining staged images of Japanese femininity, this study centers on the mid-Meiji souvenir photography of Kusakabe Kimbei, approaching from the artist's perspective while referencing his culture's visual and traditional practices. The analysis attempts to construe visual material in its original context using various points of departure, including the sociocultural significance of the staged models, the visual display of the photographic models in relation to the visibility problem of Japanese women in Meiji visual media, and Kimbei's visual encodings of Japanese femininity. By means of contextualized analysis, this survey seeks to illuminate the intricate structure of significations embedded on the visual plane, ultimately demonstrating how Kimbei's female images present a locus of multilayered meanings.

Amongst most other forms of Tibetan literature, the genre of "mgur" (songs of spiritual realization) stands out for their startingly and unusually sincere descriptions of inner thoughts, feelings and experiential knowledge. This book is the first commentary in Western literature on the collected "mgur" of one of the still largely unknown masters, the Tibetan scholar and siddha Skal ldan rgya mtsho (1606-1677). Dr. Sujata convincingly deals with Skal ldan rgya mtsho both as a distinctive figure in religious history and as an author, illustrating her points with numerous translations given alongside the original Tibetan of his "Mgur 'bum (Collected Songs of Spiritual Experience)," She also provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of his "Gsung 'bum (Collected Writings)," extensive bibliographies and a discography. With a unique CD containing the author's own recordings of his songs as they are still sung today.

Liu Kang (1911-2004) and Ho Ho Ying (1936-) are important painters in Singapore's art history. But along with their creative practices, they also played key roles as art writers and critics. Their opposing positions on modernism and abstraction, and the debate and discussion generated between them, both shaped and reflected Singapore's art scene through the 1950s, 60s and 70s and well into the 1980s. These selected writings, mostly drawn from the Chinese-language press, and now translated into English, vividly document important phases in Singapore's art history. The editorial team of T. K. Sabapathy, and Cheo Chai-Hiang has an unparalleled understanding of the critical landscape in which Singapore's art has developed over the years. Cheo's introduction of Liu Kang and Ho Ho Ying as writers establishes certain key themes in the relationship between art and criticism in Singapore and Southeast Asia, with its many artist-writers and artist-critics. Those in Singapore's art world often assume that they work, write and read in a critical vacuum, but as this book shows, this conclusion is far from the truth.

Every year, the coastal cities of Taiwan and Southern China witness colorful parades and processions in honor of the sea goddess Mazu. On occasion of the 1000th anniversary of her cult in 1987, the Taiwanese artist Lin Chih-Hsin created a series of wood cuts 136 m long, which shows the parade route in 68 individual panels. German text.

This catalogue includes works from 36 artists, from avant-garde pioneers Gu Dexin, Geng Jianyi, Chen Zhen and Xu Bing, to those at the forefront of the younger generation like Liu Wei, Yang Fudong, Li Songsong, Cao Fei and Wang Du.