Pub Date : 2023-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-10329547
Quincy Ngan
This article contextualizes the visual intrigue that was created by the fifteenth-century Chinese poet and painter Sun Ai (ca. 1452–1536) when he broke from convention by using indigo blue to color the leaves of a cotton plant and a mulberry branch in a pair of paintings now in the Palace Museum, Beijing. The key to the meaning of this unique coloration lies in the poems inscribed by Shen Zhou (1427–1509) and Qian Renfu (1446–1526), as well as the socioeconomic connotations of silk, cotton, and indigo in those scholars' regions. It is argued that these paintings were made shortly after the Hongzhi emperor (r. 1487–1505) banned the submission of multicolored cotton and silk textiles. Considered in that context, the monochromatic use of indigo not only alluded to what cotton fibers and silkworms would ultimately produce—cloth and silk to be dyed indigo—but also stood in stark contrast to the kaleidoscopic appearance of the clothing banned by Hongzhi. The collaboration between Shen Zhou and Qian Renfu makes the paintings prominent examples of the layered nuance achieved in traditional Chinese painting through the interplay of color and poetry.
{"title":"The New Emperor's Clothes","authors":"Quincy Ngan","doi":"10.1215/00666637-10329547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-10329547","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article contextualizes the visual intrigue that was created by the fifteenth-century Chinese poet and painter Sun Ai (ca. 1452–1536) when he broke from convention by using indigo blue to color the leaves of a cotton plant and a mulberry branch in a pair of paintings now in the Palace Museum, Beijing. The key to the meaning of this unique coloration lies in the poems inscribed by Shen Zhou (1427–1509) and Qian Renfu (1446–1526), as well as the socioeconomic connotations of silk, cotton, and indigo in those scholars' regions. It is argued that these paintings were made shortly after the Hongzhi emperor (r. 1487–1505) banned the submission of multicolored cotton and silk textiles. Considered in that context, the monochromatic use of indigo not only alluded to what cotton fibers and silkworms would ultimately produce—cloth and silk to be dyed indigo—but also stood in stark contrast to the kaleidoscopic appearance of the clothing banned by Hongzhi. The collaboration between Shen Zhou and Qian Renfu makes the paintings prominent examples of the layered nuance achieved in traditional Chinese painting through the interplay of color and poetry.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41760562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-10329558
Steffani Bennett
The monk-painter Sesshū Tōyō (1420–ca. 1506) is among the most heralded of Japanese artists. This reputation is due in large part to his heroization in art-historical texts of the early modern period. Earlier scholarly emphasis on Sesshū's artistic individualism has obscured our understanding of the professional nature of his activity as a painter in service to a regional military clan. This article reexamines Sesshū's career through consideration of the pair of folding screens known as Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons. As the only firmly attributed painting in this format in the painter's oeuvre, Birds and Flowers offers illuminating insight into the ways in which Sesshū performed the role of painter-in-attendance for the Ōuchi clan. Sesshū's travel to China as part of an official diplomatic delegation in the fifteenth century was the most defining experience of the painter's career. In style and subject matter, Birds and Flowers provides insight into Sesshū's encounter with imperial painting at the Ming academy during this time. This symbolic analysis also offers a fresh approach to deciphering the heretofore mysterious patronage context surrounding the screens.
{"title":"Child of the Cranes","authors":"Steffani Bennett","doi":"10.1215/00666637-10329558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-10329558","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The monk-painter Sesshū Tōyō (1420–ca. 1506) is among the most heralded of Japanese artists. This reputation is due in large part to his heroization in art-historical texts of the early modern period. Earlier scholarly emphasis on Sesshū's artistic individualism has obscured our understanding of the professional nature of his activity as a painter in service to a regional military clan. This article reexamines Sesshū's career through consideration of the pair of folding screens known as Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons. As the only firmly attributed painting in this format in the painter's oeuvre, Birds and Flowers offers illuminating insight into the ways in which Sesshū performed the role of painter-in-attendance for the Ōuchi clan. Sesshū's travel to China as part of an official diplomatic delegation in the fifteenth century was the most defining experience of the painter's career. In style and subject matter, Birds and Flowers provides insight into Sesshū's encounter with imperial painting at the Ming academy during this time. This symbolic analysis also offers a fresh approach to deciphering the heretofore mysterious patronage context surrounding the screens.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44131308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-10329569
Susannah Cramer-Greenbaum
Dhaka's National Assembly building, designed by Louis Kahn, was built over several turbulent decades as East Pakistan fought for autonomy and became the new country of Bangladesh. Conventional critical narratives situate the National Assembly within Kahn's biography, treating Bangladesh as an empty canvas on which Kahn could enact design philosophies developed over his career. I contend that architects and critics are not the only arbiters of a building's meaning, and that local and political context should not be ignored in a building's historical narrative. There is ample recent scholarship decentering the Western canon, to which the National Assembly belongs, in architecture history, theory, and criticism. This article calls for decentering the architect as well, and acknowledging that the client's agenda, historical context, local interventions, popular perception, and the ongoing use of a building all influence the many layers of meaning architecture acquires over time. Continuing to perpetuate the myth of the lone artistic genius doggedly pursuing his creative vision gives unfounded agency to the individual architect alone. Design has agency and buildings shape worlds, but buildings themselves are shaped by complex collective actions, not singular visions. As a Western architect called to build on a grand scale in Asia, Kahn is an early example of a now prevalent trope. This research establishes a template for understanding this kind of work in context, and acknowledging the crucial role played by local actors in shaping each project and determining the project's cultural significance over time.
{"title":"How Much Agency Does Architecture Have?","authors":"Susannah Cramer-Greenbaum","doi":"10.1215/00666637-10329569","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-10329569","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Dhaka's National Assembly building, designed by Louis Kahn, was built over several turbulent decades as East Pakistan fought for autonomy and became the new country of Bangladesh. Conventional critical narratives situate the National Assembly within Kahn's biography, treating Bangladesh as an empty canvas on which Kahn could enact design philosophies developed over his career. I contend that architects and critics are not the only arbiters of a building's meaning, and that local and political context should not be ignored in a building's historical narrative. There is ample recent scholarship decentering the Western canon, to which the National Assembly belongs, in architecture history, theory, and criticism. This article calls for decentering the architect as well, and acknowledging that the client's agenda, historical context, local interventions, popular perception, and the ongoing use of a building all influence the many layers of meaning architecture acquires over time. Continuing to perpetuate the myth of the lone artistic genius doggedly pursuing his creative vision gives unfounded agency to the individual architect alone. Design has agency and buildings shape worlds, but buildings themselves are shaped by complex collective actions, not singular visions. As a Western architect called to build on a grand scale in Asia, Kahn is an early example of a now prevalent trope. This research establishes a template for understanding this kind of work in context, and acknowledging the crucial role played by local actors in shaping each project and determining the project's cultural significance over time.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48526029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953476
S. E. Fraser
ber 2022 Dora C. Y. Ching, ed. Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves Princeton, NJ: P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Princeton University, and Princeton University Press, 2021. 9 vols. (3,128 pp.); 3,392 tri tone ills., 106 color ills., 95 b/w ills. $1,500 (hard cover) isbn 9780691208152 400 pp., 178 tri tone ills., 101 color ills., 13 b/w ills. $65 (paper back) isbn 9780691208169
{"title":"Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves ed. by Dora C. Y. Ching (review)","authors":"S. E. Fraser","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953476","url":null,"abstract":"ber 2022 Dora C. Y. Ching, ed. Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves Princeton, NJ: P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Princeton University, and Princeton University Press, 2021. 9 vols. (3,128 pp.); 3,392 tri tone ills., 106 color ills., 95 b/w ills. $1,500 (hard cover) isbn 9780691208152 400 pp., 178 tri tone ills., 101 color ills., 13 b/w ills. $65 (paper back) isbn 9780691208169","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"72 1","pages":"276 - 280"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44335502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953465
C. Bolon
{"title":"Opening Kailasanatha: The Temple in Kanchipuram Revealed in Time and Space by Padma Kaimal (review)","authors":"C. Bolon","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953465","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"72 1","pages":"273 - 275"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41375303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953498
Christian Luczanits
ber 2022 Tsewang Tashi’s A History of Art in Twentieth Century Tibet (2018), based on his doc toral dis ser ta tion, Mod ernism in Tibetan Art: The Creative Journey of Four Artists (2014). Tashi’s doc toral dis ser ta tion is under embargo and thus not avail able for ref er ence, and the mono graph is published only in Chi nese. Nonethe less, his 2018 book is very help ful in cre at ing a sphere of mod ern art and art ists extending beyond Gendun Chopel. It is hoped that Gendun Chopel: Tibet’s First Modern Artist rep re sents just the first of many more stud ies that con trib ute to larger dis cus sions about Tibetan mod ern art and global mod ern isms, not only about Gendun Chopel, but also other midtwen ti eth cen tury art ists who were essen tial in crafting inno va tive styles and forg ing new sub ject mat ter.
{"title":"An Illustrated History of the Maṇḍala: From Its Genesis to the Kālacakratantra by Kimiaki Tanaka (review)","authors":"Christian Luczanits","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953498","url":null,"abstract":"ber 2022 Tsewang Tashi’s A History of Art in Twentieth Century Tibet (2018), based on his doc toral dis ser ta tion, Mod ernism in Tibetan Art: The Creative Journey of Four Artists (2014). Tashi’s doc toral dis ser ta tion is under embargo and thus not avail able for ref er ence, and the mono graph is published only in Chi nese. Nonethe less, his 2018 book is very help ful in cre at ing a sphere of mod ern art and art ists extending beyond Gendun Chopel. It is hoped that Gendun Chopel: Tibet’s First Modern Artist rep re sents just the first of many more stud ies that con trib ute to larger dis cus sions about Tibetan mod ern art and global mod ern isms, not only about Gendun Chopel, but also other midtwen ti eth cen tury art ists who were essen tial in crafting inno va tive styles and forg ing new sub ject mat ter.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"72 1","pages":"284 - 290"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47806734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953399
P. Berger
{"title":"Naomi Noble Richard","authors":"P. Berger","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953399","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47973226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953443
Yong Cho
In 1345 the Mongol ruling house of the Yuan (1271–1368) built Juyong Gate along China's Great Wall. The gate stood on a road connecting the empire's twin capitals, Dadu and Shangdu. Those two cities possessed vastly different built environments. Dadu, the emperor's winter residence, evoked the tradition of Chinese imperial-city building. It provided the ruler with wooden and stone buildings laid out on an orthogonal grid. Shangdu, the emperor's summer residence, delivered a space for grassland containing pastures, where the ruler could set up collapsible tents filled with wall hangings. In other words, the seasonal movement between the two capitals entailed a shift in the habit of seeing and visual representation. To reflect that shift, Juyong Gate's passageway was carved with imagery that could simultaneously belong to the two visual worlds: planar reliefs that could be perceived as both stone carvings and wall hangings. Juyong Gate thus became a site where two major visual systems in constant negotiation in the Mongols' China could come together and coexist as one.
{"title":"Juyong Gate","authors":"Yong Cho","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953443","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In 1345 the Mongol ruling house of the Yuan (1271–1368) built Juyong Gate along China's Great Wall. The gate stood on a road connecting the empire's twin capitals, Dadu and Shangdu. Those two cities possessed vastly different built environments. Dadu, the emperor's winter residence, evoked the tradition of Chinese imperial-city building. It provided the ruler with wooden and stone buildings laid out on an orthogonal grid. Shangdu, the emperor's summer residence, delivered a space for grassland containing pastures, where the ruler could set up collapsible tents filled with wall hangings. In other words, the seasonal movement between the two capitals entailed a shift in the habit of seeing and visual representation. To reflect that shift, Juyong Gate's passageway was carved with imagery that could simultaneously belong to the two visual worlds: planar reliefs that could be perceived as both stone carvings and wall hangings. Juyong Gate thus became a site where two major visual systems in constant negotiation in the Mongols' China could come together and coexist as one.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45244218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953487
Melissa R. Kerin
{"title":"Gendun Chopel: Tibet's First Modern Artist","authors":"Melissa R. Kerin","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953487","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45856051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-9953418
E. Cecil
Ancient Daśapura was the site of an internally complex Śaiva religious community. The Aulikara rulers used Śaivism as a political idiom to celebrate military might and royal power. Their ministers, the Naigamas, promoted an irenic vision that praised Śiva as a source of protection and prosperity. Attention to those expressions of Śaivism enable us to contextualize one of Daśapura's most famous, yet enigmatic, works of art: an ithyphallic male figure depicted with a double phallus (ca. sixth c. ce). To date, the sculpture has remained impossible to place within the greater artistic landscape of the region. This study proposes a resolution by showing that the icon was conceived as part of a triad of sculptures that included Śiva's wife, Pārvatī, and their son, Skanda. The images of Śiva and Skanda are displayed at the Bhopal Museum, and while their similarities have been noted in previous studies, they have not been viewed as part of a set. The reason for this is their separation from an unpublished Pārvatī that currently is displayed in the Mandasor Archaeological Museum and identified as a yakṣī. When viewed as part of a triad, the double-phallus figure is transformed from an iconographic puzzle into an innovative visual strategy to reconcile what might seem opposing facets of a divine persona—that is, the ascetic and the family man. By presenting these icons as a “family portrait,” this study recontextualizes important works of art from early India and initiates broader considerations of the political and religious ideologies that inspired their production.
{"title":"A Forgotten Family Portrait","authors":"E. Cecil","doi":"10.1215/00666637-9953418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-9953418","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Ancient Daśapura was the site of an internally complex Śaiva religious community. The Aulikara rulers used Śaivism as a political idiom to celebrate military might and royal power. Their ministers, the Naigamas, promoted an irenic vision that praised Śiva as a source of protection and prosperity. Attention to those expressions of Śaivism enable us to contextualize one of Daśapura's most famous, yet enigmatic, works of art: an ithyphallic male figure depicted with a double phallus (ca. sixth c. ce). To date, the sculpture has remained impossible to place within the greater artistic landscape of the region. This study proposes a resolution by showing that the icon was conceived as part of a triad of sculptures that included Śiva's wife, Pārvatī, and their son, Skanda. The images of Śiva and Skanda are displayed at the Bhopal Museum, and while their similarities have been noted in previous studies, they have not been viewed as part of a set. The reason for this is their separation from an unpublished Pārvatī that currently is displayed in the Mandasor Archaeological Museum and identified as a yakṣī. When viewed as part of a triad, the double-phallus figure is transformed from an iconographic puzzle into an innovative visual strategy to reconcile what might seem opposing facets of a divine persona—that is, the ascetic and the family man. By presenting these icons as a “family portrait,” this study recontextualizes important works of art from early India and initiates broader considerations of the political and religious ideologies that inspired their production.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44149306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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