An overview of Chinese culture, particularly visions of life and the afterlife, told through feast imagery from three historically transformative dynasties Feasting was an important social and ritual activity in China beginning in the Bronze Age, and cuisine retains a strong cultural significance to this day. This book focuses on feasting in the 10th through 14th centuries, examining Chinese paintings of feasts from the Song (960-1279), Liao (907-1125), and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties. Feast images, more so than works from any other painting genre, depict scenes from the past, the present, and the afterlife alike. More specifically, as author Zoe S. Kwok explains in the book's insightful text, they portray a continuum between life and what lies beyond it; this volume is the first to make such a connection. Full-color plates highlight a rare group of paintings as well as complementary ceramic, metal, stone, and textile objects, and the nearly fifty individual catalogue entries touch on diverse topics-not only food and drink but dance, music, costume, burial practices, artistic patronage, and more. Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum Exhibition Schedule: Princeton University Art Museum (October 19, 2019-February 16, 2020)

Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings is the first complete translation of the well-known document produced at the court of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125). Dated to 1120, the Catalogue is divided into ten categories of subject matter. Under Daoist and Buddhist Subjects, Figural Subjects, Architecture, Barbarian Tribes, Dragons and Fish, Landscape, Domestic and Wild Animals, Flowers and Birds, Ink Bamboo, and Vegetables and Fruit are biographies of 231 painters, ranging from famous early masters, such as Wu Daozi (ca. 685-758) and Li Cheng (919-967), to otherwise unknown artists of the Song-dynasty court, including fourteen eunuch officials and sixteen male and female members of the royal family. Titles of their pictures held in the palace collection are listed for each artist. These 6,396 paintings testify to the visual culture experienced by viewers of the twelfth century. The author's Introduction analyzes the Catalogue as a source of evidence about the formation of the Song-dynasty palace collection and argues that the majority of its pictures were already in the collection before Huizong's reign, as a result of conquest, confiscation, tribute, gift culture, collecting by earlier emperors, and the production of academy artists and regular officials at the Song court. Under Huizong's reign, around a thousand other pictures were added to the Catalogue through acquisition and reattribution. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A lush portrait introducing one of the most important Japanese artists of the Edo period Best known for his paintings Irises and Red and White Plum Blossoms, Ogata Korin (1658-1716) was a highly successful artist who worked in many genres and media-including hanging scrolls, screen paintings, fan paintings, lacquer, textiles, and ceramics. Combining archival research, social history, and visual analysis, Frank Feltens situates Korin within the broader art culture of early modern Japan. He shows how financial pressures, client preferences, and the impulse toward personal branding in a competitive field shaped Korin's approach to art-making throughout his career. Feltens also offers a keen visual reading of the artist's work, highlighting the ways Korin's artistic innovations succeeded across media, such as his introduction of painterly techniques into lacquer design and his creation of ceramics that mimicked the appearance of ink paintings. This book, the first major study of Korin in English, provides an intimate and thought-provoking portrait of one of Japan's most significant artists.

How did modern Chinese painters see landscape? Did they depict nature in the same way as premodern Chinese painters? What does the artistic perception of modern Chinese painters reveal about the relationship between artists and the nation-state? Could an understanding of modern Chinese landscape painting tell us something previously unknown about art, political change, and the epistemological and sensory regime of twentieth-century China? Yi Gu tackles these questions by focusing on the rise of open-air painting in modern China. Chinese artists almost never painted outdoors until the late 1910s, when the New Culture Movement prompted them to embrace direct observation, linear perspective, and a conception of vision based on Cartesian optics. The new landscape practice brought with it unprecedented emphasis on perception and redefined artistic expertise. Central to the pursuit of open-air painting from the late 1910s right through to the early 1960s was a reinvigorated and ever-growing urgency to see suitably as a Chinese and to see the Chinese homeland correctly. Examining this long-overlooked ocular turn, Gu not only provides an innovative perspective from which to reflect on complicated interactions of the global and local in China, but also calls for rethinking the nature of visual modernity there.

The catalogue for the groundbreaking exhibition at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, Nomads and Networks presents an unparalleled overview of the sophisticated culture of pastoral nomadic populations who lived on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan from roughly the middle of the first millennium BCE to the early centuries CE. Focusing on material from the Altai and Tianshan regions, Nomads and Networks explores the specific conditions of mobile lifeways that resulted from particular ecological conditions in the steppes and high valleys of Inner Eurasia. Highlights of the exhibition are grave goods from the burial mounds at the site of Berel and gold mortuary ornaments from Shilikty, Zhalauli, and Kargaly. Attesting to a sophisticated decorative art flourishing among these nomadic populations, the objects skillfully combine older iconographic traditions of animal style in the steppe with more recent influences from foreign cultures--most notably Persia and China. Contributors include Nursan Alimbai, Nikolay A. Bokovenko, Claudia Chang, Bryan K. Hanks, Sagynbay Myrgabayev, Karen S. Rubinson, Zainolla S. Samashev, Soren Stark, and Abdesh T. Toleubaev. Cover photograph (c) Bruce M. White, 2016

Chinese arts and crafts enjoy a unique reputation in the history of material culture and civilisation. For several thousand years, crafts have echoed the rhythm of daily life in China. From rural society to the imperial court, these crafts have served a practical purpose, constantly evolving with changes in lifestyle. In this illustrated introduction Hang Jian and Guo Qiuhui discuss the colorful history and development of distinctive Chinese crafts, including ceramics, furniture, clothing and decorative arts.

Chinese folk arts originate in the rural areas of China's vast territory. As forms of communal art, folk arts are evident in everyday food, clothing and shelter, in traditional festivals, ceremonies and rituals, and in beliefs and taboos. As a living example of cultural heritage, folk art demonstrates the continuity of Chinese culture from ancient to modern times, a culture with distinctive national and regional characteristics and a history of some 8,000 years. Chinese Folk Arts provides an illustrated introduction to the history and development of this colourful part of China's unique artistic culture.

The art of calligraphy is seen as the epitome of Chinese culture. Originating in the earliest abstract symbols carved on cave walls, animal bones and tortoise shells by the ancient Chinese people, over several thousand years calligraphy has become far more than a means of writing and recording events. This book provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to the history of calligraphy from the beginning of the Chinese written language, the methods and styles used by calligraphers through the ages, and the influence that calligraphy has had on modern art around the world.

Unique in style, Chinese furniture has long been celebrated for its elegant, artistic lines and strong, durable structure. Ranging from pieces designed simply to display the beauty and texture of natural woods, to magnificent pieces decorated with lavish carvings, lacquer or precious metals and stones, Chinese furniture is an outstanding representative of the oriental arts. This book provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to the history, production techniques and rich variety of Chinese furniture, revealing the important part that this furniture has played in the development of China's culture.

Focusing on 5 objects found in the main media at the time - ceramics, metalware, painting, architecture and textiles - Sheila S. Blair shows how artisans played with form, material and decoration to engage their audiences. She also shows how the reception of these objects has changed and that their present context has implications for our understanding of the past. Greater Iranian arts from the 10th to the 16th century are technically some of the finest produced anywhere. They are also intellectually engaging, showing the lively interaction between the verbal and the visual arts.

Insightful quotes written in Tibetan calligraphy are paired with photos of Buddhas from around the world to create this collection of timeless iconography. Calligraphy has held an honored place in the spiritual traditions of Tibet. Monks dedicate their lives to mastering the many subtleties of the art, often spending years transcribing sacred Buddhist manuscripts. The carefully composed lines and deliberate spatial awareness in each work of calligraphy within Sacred Scripts encourage reflection, mindfulness, and meditation. Within these pages, sacred mantras, seed syllables, and Buddhist quotes are presented in authentic Tibetan scripts. Photos of Buddha statues from around the world complement the calligraphy and create an ethereal mood of serenity. Addressing the stresses of our modern world and the demise of spiritual languages, Sacred Scripts provides insight and inspiration for attaining inner peace and well-being.

Appearing for the first time in paperback and illustrated with line drawings, diagrams, and 26 half-tone plates, this study of the iconographic aspect of Japanese Buddhist sculpture surveys the significance of eight principal and six secondary hand gestures (mudra), in addition to the postures (asana), such as the "lotus," and the symbolic attributes. A pictorial index helps the reader in identifying the gestures.

According to the contributors to this volume, the relationship of Buddhism and the arts in Japan is less the rendering of Buddhist philosophical ideas through artistic imagery than it is the development of concepts and expressions in a virtually inseparable unity. By challenging those who consider religion to be the primary phenomenon and art the secondary arena for the apprehension of religious meanings, these essays reveal the collapse of other dichotomies as well. Touching on works produced at every social level, they explore a fascinating set of connections within Japanese culture and move to re-envision such usual distinctions as religion and art, sacred and secular, Buddhism and Shinto, theory and substance, elite and popular, and even audience and artist. The essays range from visual and literary hagiographies to No drama, to Sermon-Ballads, to a painting of the Nirvana of Vegetables. The contributors to the volume are James H. Foard, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Frank Hoff, Laura S. Kaufman, William R. LaFleur, Susan Matisoff, Barbara Ruch, Yoshiaki Shimizu, and Royall Tyler. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Drawing from Life explores revolutionary drawing and sketching in the early People's Republic of China (1949-1965) in order to discover how artists created a national form of socialist realism. Tracing the development of seminal works by the major painters Xu Beihong, Wang Shikuo, Li Keran, Li Xiongcai, Dong Xiwen, and Fu Baoshi, author Christine I. Ho reconstructs how artists grappled with the representational politics of a nascent socialist art. The divergent approaches, styles, and genres presented in this study reveal an art world that is both heterogeneous and cosmopolitan. Through a history of artistic practices in pursuit of Maoist cultural ambitions-to forge new registers of experience, new structures of feeling, and new aesthetic communities-this original book argues that socialist Chinese art presents a critical, alternative vision for global modernism.

This significant historical study recasts modern art in Japan as a "parallel modernism" that was visually similar to Euroamerican modernism, but developed according to its own internal logic. Using the art and thought of prominent Japanese modern artist Koga Harue (1895-1933) as a lens to understand this process, Chinghsin Wu explores how watercolor, cubism, expressionism, and surrealism emerged and developed in Japan in ways that paralleled similar trends in the west, but also rejected and diverged from them. In this first English-language book on Koga Harue, Wu provides close readings of virtually all of the artist's major works and provides unprecedented access to the critical writing about modernism in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s through primary source documentation, including translations of period art criticism, artist statements, letters, and journals.

How did modern Chinese painters see landscape? Did they depict nature in the same way as premodern Chinese painters? What does the artistic perception of modern Chinese painters reveal about the relationship between artists and the nation-state? Could an understanding of modern Chinese landscape painting tell us something previously unknown about art, political change, and the epistemological and sensory regime of twentieth-century China? Yi Gu tackles these questions by focusing on the rise of open-air painting in modern China. Chinese artists almost never painted outdoors until the late 1910s, when the New Culture Movement prompted them to embrace direct observation, linear perspective, and a conception of vision based on Cartesian optics. The new landscape practice brought with it unprecedented emphasis on perception and redefined artistic expertise. Central to the pursuit of open-air painting from the late 1910s right through to the early 1960s was a reinvigorated and ever-growing urgency to see suitably as a Chinese and to see the Chinese homeland correctly. Examining this long-overlooked ocular turn, Gu not only provides an innovative perspective from which to reflect on complicated interactions of the global and local in China, but also calls for rethinking the nature of visual modernity there.