Featuring 14 artists and one artist-collaborative duo, What About the Art?: Contemporary Art from China examines the contributions of Chinese artists to the international canon of contemporary art, focusing on their innovations. Hu Xiangqian, Hu Zhijun, Xu Bing, Jenova Chen, Li Liao, Jennifer Wen Ma, Zhou Chunya, Yang Fudong, Liang Shaoji, Xu Zhen, Liu Xiaodong, Liu Wei, Wang Jianwei, Huang Yong Ping and Sun Yuan and Peng Yu all have their works showcased in this book.

Ancient Chinese architecture is not only a source of reference for modern Chinese design, it has also had an international influence and attracted global attention. Moreover, architectural remains in China reveal much about the history of this ancient civilisation. The palaces, gardens, temples, tombs and dwellings of the Chinese people reflect, for example, the military achievements of the Qin emperor, the spirit of the Tang Dynasty, the palace intrigues of the Ming Dynasty, the diversity of Chinese culture through the ages and the skill of countless generations of craftsmen and labourers. Chinese Architecture provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to this essential part of China's cultural heritage.

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.

An illustrated guide to one of the most enduring masterworks of world literature Written in the eleventh century by the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji is a masterpiece of prose and poetry that is widely considered the world's first novel. Melissa McCormick provides a unique companion to Murasaki's tale that combines discussions of all fifty-four of its chapters with paintings and calligraphy from the Genji Album (1510) in the Harvard Art Museums, the oldest dated set of Genji illustrations known to exist. In this book, the album's colorful painting and calligraphy leaves are fully reproduced for the first time, followed by McCormick's insightful essays that analyze the Genji story and the album's unique combinations of word and image. This stunning compendium also includes English translations and Japanese transcriptions of the album's calligraphy, enabling a holistic experience of the work for readers today. In an introduction to the volume, McCormick tells the fascinating stories of the individuals who created the Genji Album in the sixteenth century, from the famous court painter who executed the paintings and the aristocrats who brushed the calligraphy to the work's warrior patrons and the poet-scholars who acted as their intermediaries. Beautifully illustrated, this book serves as an invaluable guide for readers interested in The Tale of Genji, Japanese literature, and the captivating visual world of Japan's most celebrated work of fiction.

The use of pictures to communicate a story has a long tradition in Japanese culture that dates back more than a thousand years. Such narrative illustrations draw on Buddhist texts, classic literature, poetry, and theatrical scenes to create rich visual imagery realised in a wide range of media and format. Quotations from and allusions to heroic epics and romances were disseminated through exquisite paintings, woodblock prints, and in pieces of applied arts such as lacquer ware or ceramics, thus becoming anchored in the collective consciousness. As story-telling art found expression in a variety of materialities, it became an integral part of daily life. A fascinating narrative space evolved that combined artistic excellence and aesthetic pleasure. Love, Fight, Feast features some one hundred paintings, woodblock prints, illustrated woodblock-printed books, as well as lacquer and metal objects, porcelain, and textiles from the 13th to the 20th century, alongside scholarly essays on a range of aspects of Japanese narrative art. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the renowned Museum Rietberg in Zurich, the book offers a unique survey of the multifaceted, colourful, and imaginative world of Japanese narrative art across eight centuries.

Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting is the first US exhibition focusing on the art of Sakaki Hyakusen (1697-1752), the founding father of the Nanga school of painting in Japan. The exhibition, together with a fully illustrated catalog and extensive public programs, will demonstrate Hyakusen's pivotal role as a key figure in the transformation of Japanese painting of the eighteenth century. Highlighting the recent conservation of Mountain Landscape, a rare pair of six-panel landscape screens by Hyakusen, alongside Chinese landscape paintings by traditional masters and works by influential Nanga school painters, the exhibition promises to add significantly to public understanding of the art of conservation and important crosscultural and artistic connections emerging in Japan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With an introductory essay by curator Julia M. White, the fully illustrated catalog will include approximately fifty images, and three additional essays. A special chapter on conservation techniques and best practices in East Asian painting adds essential information on a contemporary area of interest. Published in association with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Exhibition dates: UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA): October 2, 2019-February 2, 2020

From approximately the third century BCE through the thirteenth century CE, the remote mountainous landscape around the glacial sources of the Ganga (Ganges) River in the Central Himalayas in northern India was transformed into a region encoded with deep meaning, one approached by millions of Hindus as a primary locus of pilgrimage. Nachiket Chanchani's innovative study explores scores of stone edifices and steles that were erected in this landscape. Through their forms, locations, interactions with the natural environment, and sociopolitical context, these lithic ensembles evoked legendary worlds, embedded historical memories in the topography, changed the mountain range's appearance, and shifted its semiotic effect. Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains also alters our understanding of the transmission of architectural knowledge and provides new evidence of how an enduring idea of India emerged in the subcontinent. Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/mountain-temples-and-temple-mountains

One of the largely untold stories of Orientalism is the degree to which the Middle East has been associated with "deviant" male homosexuality by scores of Western travelers, historians, writers, and artists for well over four hundred years. And this story stands to shatter our preconceptions of Orientalism. To illuminate why and how the Islamicate world became the locus for such fantasies and desires, Boone deploys a supple mode of analysis that reveals how the cultural exchanges between Middle East and West have always been reciprocal and often mutual, amatory as well as bellicose. Whether examining European accounts of Istanbul and Egypt as hotbeds of forbidden desire, juxtaposing Ottoman homoerotic genres and their European imitators, or unlocking the homoerotic encoding in Persian miniatures and Orientalist paintings, this remarkable study models an ethics of crosscultural reading that exposes, with nuance and economy, the crucial role played by the homoerotics of Orientalism in shaping the world as we know it today. A contribution to studies in visual culture as well as literary and social history, The Homoerotics of Orientalism draws on primary sources ranging from untranslated Middle Eastern manuscripts and European belles-lettres to miniature paintings and photographic erotica that are presented here for the first time.

Qu'est-ce qu'un visage ? Qu'une tete ? C'est a ces questions que Marwan (1934-2016) s'est confronte dans sa demarche artistique en commencant par la figure humaine pour explorer inlassablement le visage. Si ce dernier, traite horizontalement, est reconnaissable dans ses traits, la tete, effigie verticale, s'efface. Le present livre s'appuie sur la biographie du peintre dont le langage artistique s'est elabore entre Damas et Berlin, et sur une etude transculturelle qui questionne le theme du visage dans son oeuvre. L'acces a sa problematique picturale a ete rendu possible grace aux sources premieres: dessins preparatoires, ecrits et entretiens entre l'auteure et l'artiste durant les dix dernieres annees de sa vie. Nourri de la double culture orientale et occidentale, Marwan participe au questionnement du visage humain dans ses metamorphoses par rapport a l'absence, a l'inanime, au voilement-devoilement, au meme et a l'autre, au singulier et a l'universel.

Puja and Piety celebrates the complexity of South Asian representation and iconography by examining the relationship between aesthetic expression and the devotional practice, or puja, in the three native religions of the Indian subcontinent. This stunning and authoritative catalogue presents some 150 objects created over the past two millennia for temples, home worship, festivals, and roadside shrines. From monumental painted temple hangings and painted meditation diagrams to portable pictures for pilgrims, from stone sculptures to processional bronzes and wooden chariots, from ancient terracottas to various devotional objects for domestic shrines, this volume provides much-needed context and insight into classical and popular art of India. Featuring an introduction by the eminent art historian and curator Pratapaditya Pal; accessible essays on each religious tradition by Stephen P. Huyler, John E. Cort, and Christian Luczanits; and useful guides to iconography and terms by Debashish Banerji, this richly illustrated catalogue will provide a lasting resource for readers interested in South Asian art and spirituality. Published in association with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Exhibition organized by Susan S. Tai, Elizabeth Atkins Curator of Asian Art Exhibition dates: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, April 17-July 31, 2016.

Featuring over 100 rare Japanese woodblock prints and thoughtful commentary, The Printer's eye paints a vibrant and fascinating picture of Japan's Uikoyo-e or "floating world." Edwin Grabhorn (1889-1968), co-founder of the Grabhorn Press, Northern California's premier letterpress printer, was a pioneer American collector of Japanese prints. The Grabhorn prints in the collection of the Asian Art Museum comprise the upper echelons of the original collection. The collection includes a superb selection of early monochrome and hand-colored ukiyo-e prints by Sugimura Jihei, Torii Kiyonobu, Okumura Masanobu and others, from the seminal decades of the woodblock print production in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Japanese Prints from the Grabhorn Collection marks the first time these prints are being published in quantity for a wide audience. Leading scholars David Waterhouse and Julia Meech provide in-depth looks at the prints in their Japanese contexts and at Grabhorn's role as a print collector. Large full-color reproductions all 140 of the Grabhorn prints in the Asian Art Museum's collection are accompanied by entries by Laura Allen and Melissa Rinne.

As its teachings spread from the Indian subcontinent in all directions across Asia, Buddhism influenced every culture it touched--from Afghanistan to Korea, from Mongolia to Java. Buddhist art is a radiant reflection of the encounter of the Buddha's teachings with the diverse civilizations that came under their sway. It is also an intriguing visual record of the evolution of Buddhist practice and philosophy over a period of more than two millennia.
More than two hundred photographs provide the visual context for this tour of the world of Buddhist art. Included in the rich variety of forms are architecture and monumental art, statuary, paintings, calligraphy, fresco, brushwork, and textile arts. Denise Leidy's guide is the perfect introductory text for all those intrigued by this splendid aesthetic tradition. It also an essential resource for all who seek to understand Buddhist art as teaching.

This ground breaking study examines decorative Chinese works of art and visual culture, known as chinoiserie, in the context of church and state politics, with a particular focus on the Catholic missions' impact on Western attitudes toward China and the Chinese. Art-historical examinations of chinoiserie have largely ignored the role of the Church and its conversion efforts in Asia. Johns, however, demonstrates that the emperor's 1722 prohibition against Catholic evangelization, which occurred after almost a century and a half of tolerance, prompted a remarkable change in European visualizations of China in Roman Catholic countries. China and the Church considers the progress of Christianity in China during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, examines authentic works of Chinese art available to the European artists who produced chinoiserie, and explains how the East Asian male body in Western art changed from "normative" depictions to whimsical, feminized grotesques after the collapse of the missionary efforts during the 1720s.

A beautifully illustrated study of the caves at Dunhuang, exploring how this important Buddhist site has been visualized from its creation to today Situated at the crossroads of the northern and southern routes of the ancient silk routes in western China, Dunhuang is one of the richest Buddhist sites in the world, with more than 500 richly decorated cave temples constructed between the fourth and fourteenth centuries. The sculptures, murals, portable paintings, and manuscripts found in the Mogao and Yulin Caves at Dunhuang represent every aspect of Buddhism. From its earliest construction to the present, this location has been visualized by many individuals, from the architects, builders, and artists who built the caves to twentieth-century explorers, photographers, and conservators, as well as contemporary artists. Visualizing Dunhuang: Seeing, Studying, and Conserving the Caves is a paperback edition of the ninth volume of the magnificent nine-volume hardback set, and examines how the Lo Archive, a vast collection of photographs taken in the 1940s of the Mogao and Yulin Caves, inspires a broad range of scholarship. Lavishly illustrated with selected Lo Archive and modern photographs, the essays address three main areas-Dunhuang as historical record, as site, and as art and art history. Leading experts across three continents examine a wealth of topics, including expeditionary photography and cave architecture, to demonstrate the intellectual richness of Dunhuang. Diverse as they are in their subjects and methodologies, the essays represent only a fraction of what can be researched about Dunhuang. The high concentration of caves at Mogao and Yulin and their exceptional contents chronicle centuries of artistic styles, shifts in Buddhist doctrine, and patterns of political and private patronage-providing an endless source of material for future work. 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. Published in association with the Tang Center for East Asian Art, Princeton University

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.

With essays on sojourning artists like Situ Qiao and local artists such as Tchang Ju Chi, Singaporean scholar and educator Yeo Mang Thong demonstrates how Singapore was an important hub for artists who travelled to and lived in Singapore. Yeo's research, originally in Chinese, lls a gap in scholarship on the pre-war visual arts scene in Singapore; this English translation aims to bring his research to a broader audience.

A collection of patterns that can be used for drawing Rangoli

These are exciting times for Japanese bamboo art. May 2017 saw the opening of Japan House Sao Paulo, whose inaugural exhibition 'Bamboo: The Material That Built Japan' drew over 300,000 visitors. From June 2017 to February 2018 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York mounted another bamboo show that was seen by about 400,000. From 27 November, the Musee du quai Branly in Paris will present the largest-ever exhibition on the subject. This authoritative catalogue of 323 works from the Naej Collection thus appears at a moment when a new global audience has emerged. The Naej Collection is especially strong in works by leading artists from 1850 to 1950, when great craft dynasties were established and first Osaka and then Tokyo emerged as major centres of artistic basketry. The catalogue breaks new ground by combining dramatic photography with precious documentary information drawn from signatures and inscriptions, making it not merely the visual record of a great collection but the essential reference work for a developing field of connoisseurship. Text in English, Japanese and simplified Chinese.

The Oriental Obsession begins in the early sixteenth century with Cardinal Wolsey waiting two years for the delivery of sixty rare Turkey carpets from Venice, and ends in the age of the great exhibitions and emporia on both sides of the Atlantic, before and after 1900, when Islamic objects were seen, appreciated, and bought by millions of the public. The book is concerned with a subject which has not been treated before - the history over four centuries of Islamic artistic traditions and European ideas of Islam as they affected the visual arts of the west and particularly the English-speaking peoples. Studies of individual aspects have been made previously, but this is the first time that an attempt has been made to consider the subject as a whole. The geographical purview extends from Moorish Spain in the west to British India in the east and, besides architecture, the activities that are involved include painting, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, furniture and bookcrafts.

Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s-1930s is a study of formal and informal meanings of Haipai ("Shanghai School" or "Shanghai Style"), as seen through the paintings of the Shanghai school as well as other media of visual representation. The book provides us a point of entry into the nexus of relationships that structured the encounter between China and the West as experienced by the treaty-port Chinese in their everyday life. Exploring such relationships gives us a better sense of the ultimate significance of Shanghai's rise as China's dominant metropolitan center. This book will appeal not only to art historians, but also to students of history, gender studies, women's studies, and culture studies who are interested in modern China as well as questions of art patronage, nationalism, colonialism, visual culture, and representation of women. "This book constitutes a significant contribution to the literature about a period and a city that were pivotal to the emergence of modern China." -Richard K. Kent, Franklin & Marshall College. "This book navigates the complexity of Chinese modernity.. It bridges, conceptually and visually, the China of the past to present-day Shanghai, the symbol of the urban economy of 21st-century China." -Chao-Hui Jenny Liu, New York University. "Shanghai was the rising and dynamic metropolis, where many aspects of modernity were embraced with enthusiasm. Pictorial art was no longer the domain of the elite, but professionalization, commercialization, popularization, and Westernization contributed to the dissemination of images to a larger and diverse audience." -Minna Torma, University of Helsinki.