Painted Earthenware Jar

Yangshao Culture (5000-3000 B.C.)

Jiangzhai, Xian, Shaanxi (Upper Yellow River)

Upper region of yellow river valley

1st examples of decorated pottery

Before, not decorated

Low fire, clay not completely petrified

Decorations: Slip (clay+water), tough (sealed with clay), sophisticated

Pottery mostly comes from graves (not only functional)

Fish: Assocaited with plentitude

Patternd: Fish, Zoomorphic and geometric (more abstract)

Red ceramics: Oxyded iron in clay

Painted earthenware bowl

Yangshao Culture (5000-3000 B.C.)

Banpo, Xian, Shaanxi (Upper Yellow River)

Fish: Plentitude

Painted earthenware Jar

Yangshao Culture (5000-3000 B.C.)

Dadiwan, Qin’an, Gansu (Upper Yellow River)

More abstract patterns

Different place in Yangshao culture

Painted Earthenware Jar

Majiayao Culture (3100-1900 B.C.)

Tugutai, Lanzhou, Gansu (Upper Yellow River)

Similar to Yangshao

But yellower color: Innovations in techno, control of fire, of color, reducted atmosphere with less oxygen

Jar in funeral context: Only half seen

Kind of tapestry

Imbued person with luxury

Social significance

Earthenware ewer

Dawenkou culture (4300-2600 B.C.)

Yaoguanzhuang, Weifang, Shandong (Lower Yellow River)

Divided in phases

Increasing stratification in tombs

Use of coiling techno: Impact on forms (circular), parts added

Prediction of the design: Measures and forms known before starting

Shift: When arts complexity begins in China

Jade Pig Dragon

Hongshan Culture (4700-2900 B.C.)

Niuheliang, Liaoning (North East China)

Niuheliang = Site

Foundations of temples found (ceremonial place)

Big statues: Goddess, one of earliest representation of human face in East Asia

Socially stratified culture

Dev. of new techno: Jade (nephrite or jadeite), any beautiful and shiny stone

Long process, abrasive sand

Valuable: Duration

Personal ornaments

Zoomorphic

Jade shows status: Durability, stratified society, to be brought in after-life

Representation: Between pure abstraction and mimetic rep.

Jade Cong Tube

Liangzhu Culture (Period) (3400-2250 B.C.)

Fanshan, Zhejiang (South East China)

During Longshan + Liangzhu, dev. of sophisticated black pottery (different cultures and places, same time), transmission of culture

Durable, valuable (funeral)

Cong tube divided in equal sections

Rebirth, enduring beyond death

Funeral objects and symbols

Combination of square (earth) and circle (heaven): Together symbol of nature

Associated to shamanism

Evolution of earlier jade carving

Taotie figure

From different culture: Proves cultural transmission across China

Bronze Jue

Erlitou Culture (2000-1600 B.C.)

 Bronze age

Central plains (after Longshan)

Followed by Erligang, Xia to Middle Shang Dynasties)

Emergence of bronze casting: Model, Molds (inner, outer)

Laborious process, sophisticated technique

Abandoned Neolithic site, then new culture doing bronzes

3 types of drinking vessels: Jue, Jia He

Names used for shape and function

Maybe from Xia, but mythical

Funerary material, brought in after-life

Piece-mold casting, model in clay, intensive work

Bronze Axe

Late Shang Dynasty (1300-1100 B.C.)

Entering in historical times

Oracles bones: First evidence of writing, earliest texts of East Asia, questions to ancestors, 100 000 found in Anyang

Presence of violence, war during Shang Dynasty

Violence in status

Sacrificial culture

Taotie figure

Bronze Jia

Late Shang Dynasty (1300-1100 B.C.)

Drinking vessel

Funerary

Difficult process: Involves org. of specialization, ranked society

Bronze styles of Anyang Period (Max Loehr)

Progression of styles, cumulative process

1st: Curving lines in mold (positive lines)

2nd: Curving in model (negative lines), one more step

Both levels

Taotie figure

Bronze He

Late Shang Dynasty (1300-1100 B.C.)

Vessel

3rd style: More detailed and complex lines

Theriomorphic designs protrude

Dense and neat patterns

Taotie (eyes)

Bronze Fang Yi (Square Vessel)

Late Shang Dynasty (1300-1100 B.C.)

To cook meat for offerings to ancestors: Have power over what happens, revered and respected

5th style: Animal form more defined

Differentiation in thickness

Flanges used in design

Zoomorphic forms in relief

Heaviness

Vertical divisions

Angularity

Severe, menacing aspect

Bronze Fang Yi

Late Shang Dynasty (1300-1100 B.C.)

4th style: Animal form more present

Differentiation in thickness

Tapestry effect with variation (smaller spirals designs)

More flatness, less positive

Development of flinges

Sharply silhouetted animal figures

Bronze Head

Sanxingdui, Sichuan

Late Shang Period (1300-1100 B.C.)

Found in 2 ritual refuse pits: Deliberately broken and buried objects (ritual destruction)

Masks to be attached to wook (kind of statutes)

Sacrificial pits

Not invaders because valuable things

Representation of human form (earliest)

Styles development specific to this area

Bronze Zun Vessel

Hunan

Late Shang Period (1300-1100 B.C.)

Another southern culture at the same time: Showing cultures through China

Own style, differentiation from Shang

Wine vessel

Zoomorphic: Details all placed on this zoomorphic matrix

Bronze Gui Vessel of King Li

842 B.C.

Fufeng, Shaanxi

Change of dynasty: Zhou

Different religion: God Di

Associated with heaven

Shang fallen, Zhou stayed

New ruler called himself son of heaven: Presence of sacred on earth (Legitimizing rule with God)

With Zhou: Appearance of writing on bronze and non-bronze objects

Inscription on the Bronze Gui Vessel of King Li

842 B.C.

Fufeng, Shaanxi

Great Seal Script, Metal Script

Inscriptions: Memorial texts honoring the dead

 Flame Ware Vessel

Middle Jomon Culture (2500-1500 B.C.)

Japan

 Tension between indigenous traditions and external influences

Culture from Korea (Spreading of coherent tomb structure: Dolmens covered with wood and earth, barbarians from north of China, wood stamps of followers into death, less literal interpretation)

Long Neolithic in Japan (11 000 to 400 BC): Jomon Culture

Flat bottom: Maybe funerary context

Distinctive

Clay Dogu Figurine

Late Jomon Culture (1000-300 B.C.)

Japan

Variety in clay figurines

Enigmatic meaning

Increase in sophistication

Evolution in human representation

Correlates with demographic decrease (no explanation)

Maybe associated with fertility (breasts, hips)

Maybe buried with deads

Yayoi Period (400BC-300AD)

2 origin theories

1. Invasion: From Korea (the ones with bronze techno). Evidence: Ainu people in Northern Japan would be from Jomon culture, displaced by Yayoi

2. Autochtonous: Techno came from mainland, but not necessarily from invaders, borrowed techno, techno. rev. in own society. Evidence: No evidence of violence, no drop in population, no discusion of invasions in texts

Pictorial Stone Relief

Wu Liang Shrine (2nd Century A.D.)

Shandong

From Qin to Han

Remember the Old Texts, New Texts

Teaching of the past

Great men and rulers as models

Confucianism

Efficient regime

Ritual ceremony

3 sovereigns

5 emperors

3 Xia rulers

10 important early rulers

Triagrams: System of divination, code from nature

Principles of rule represented: Emperors chosen because of virtue

Story of creation of civilization

Basic iconographic symbols

Writing is essential: Cartouches

Visualisation of filiality (respect of 4 cardinal relations) and morality

Buddha and attendants

Mathura Style (ca. 50-150 A.D.)

Kushan Period

Buddhism transmission from India to China

Emperor Asoka: Great Stupa, relics

Karma

Samsara (wheel)

Story of Siddhartha Gautama

Empire of Alexander the Great: Brought Greco traditions to Central/East Asia

Kushan Period (30-370 AD)

Ushnisha: Mark of the Buddha light

Mudra: Different hands positions have specific meanings

Halo = Divine

Lions = Associated to Asoka

Distinctive way of hanging fabrics: Very fine, contours of the flesh clearly depicted beneath

Greco influence less evident

Standing bodhisattva Maitreya

Gandhara Style

3rd–4th century

Central Museum, Lahore

Very western style

From Greece

MIght have influenced the first representations of Buddha

Stronger jaw

More robust frame, muscular

Moustache

Curly hair

Bodhisattva Maitreya = Buddha of the future, Buddha to be

Enlightened person

Thousand-armed Guanyin

Ink and color on silk

Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)

National Palace Museum

Spread of Buddhism on trade roads: Very compassionate religion

Guanyin = Bodhisattva

Depicted as kings and queens

Thousand heads and arms to help everyone, solution for each problem

So became very widespread

Parcel-gilt silver casket with the Four Guardian Kings

Tang dynasty (ca. 871)

Famen Monastery, Fufeng, Shaanxi

Tang Dynasty

Extended control

Mobilized military

Equal field system

Legal code

National market for ceramics

(Glazing technique: Flux added to clay and water mixture to lower melting point, heating to get glaze is too high for clay. Colors: Fired in oxydized concentration. Iron = Red, Copper = Green, Cobalt = Blue

Tricolor: Not always limited to 3)

Tang patronized Buddhism

Embraced relics practice: To celebrate the power from "real" Buddha

Relics taken out and brought on processions

Haniwa warrior figure

Late Kofun (ca. 400–550 A.D.)

Earthenware

Gunma Prefecture, Japan

Tomb mound of emperor Nintoku

Earthenware tradition

Limited to central japanese plains

Distinct

Low fire

Undecorated, unpainted

Not placed in tomb, situated around

Used to venerate emperor, rituals

Indigenous tradition focused on past ruler

Religion Shinto: Way of thinking that indigenous practices are linked to ancestral worship, stimulus

About 200 figurines

Transmission of culture across Asia

Missionnaries of Tang to Korea, Koreans to Tang to learn Buddhism

Recognition based on state, not blood

Ao-tu method in Buddhism: To give depth, colors of different tones contrasting, sense of intrusion and extrusion

Buddhism: Enhancement of imperial power (relics)

Macro culture

Wealth acquired, used to build huge centers, where world would come to trade

Similar pattern of urbanism in Japan

Ewers: Influence of far west, copied in Tang

Segment of the Avatamsaka Sutra

Dated 744

Silver ink on indigo paper

Nara period (710–794)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Japan

Original: 60 handscrolls

Long tradition of gaining merit in scripting: Use of precious material

Elite practice: Only accessible to people who could manage this art and pay for material

Buddhism: Possibility of reaching all social stratas

After fire damage, segment used on display

Visual expression of an idea: Everything changes, will cease to be

Creative use of an accident

Mobilized to communicate very important religious message

Principles of Buddha

 Practice of Asoka reproduces: Miniature pagodas, ordered by emperor, million scrolls kept inside, distributed in temples

Organization of a new state: Adapted Buddhism to structure of society, new cultural stimulus

Tang Dynasty:

Justification of ruling of kings with marble tablets

Court patronized art

Wang Xizhi: Artist, calligrapher, esteemed

Sequence of script types:

1. Oracle bones

2. Large seal script

3. Small seal script

4. Clerical script: Less pictorial, +horizontal, variation in thickness of lines (brush)

Xizhi: Innovator, simplification of cursive script, recreate experience of writing

Fan Kuan Travelers Among Mountains and Streams

Ink and Colour on Silk

Late 10th century

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Song Dynasty

Rise of naturalism, proximity to what human beings see

Copy, mimetic

Texture of the rock/mountain

Less clear because done on silk

Masterpiece, major work in chinese art

Compared to blue and green landscapes

(Very assocaited to Tang, very little paintings survived, layering of different tones of colors, limited amount of shading, colors after, mineral pigments (+expensive), denotes it is valuable object, using lines (primary technique), simplistic variation of scale, no mimetic naturalism)

Closer to reality: Trees less individualized

Suggestion of clouds: No clear depictions

Tonality, more than hue

More shading

Sens of environment, atmosphere

Texture strokes: Surface of stone is articulated in its roughness, its texture

Different representation of the relationship between the travelers and nature

Transformed relation between human beings and landscape

Different balance of power: Domination of the mountains or of the travelers

Leaping scale/perspective

Sudden shift in scale

Shift of the point of perspective

Great rocky masses: Stability

Not allowing ourselves to be corrupted by failed policies

Detail, Zhao Gan, Travelers on the River in Early Snow, Mid-10th century

Ink and Colour on Silk

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Some visual elements recalling Song blue and green landscapes

Blue pigments like blue and green

Figures depicted with lines

Look through atmosphere

Thematic coherence with other scrolls/paintings

Song is a highly competitive environment

Agriculture productivity+

Wealth

Development of luxury goods (silk)

Vast shift in locality of population: North to South, to trade centers

Passage from pastoral space to urban space

Beginning of modern times with Song

Song China:

2 states conquered: Southern Tang and Former/Later Shu

Cultural traditions included in Song

Tang, Zhao gan: Southern Landscape painting

Guo Xi, Early Spring (1072)

Ink and Colour on Silk

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Monumental landscape

One of the first painting titled and dated by artist himself

Shift in the point of perspective

Landscape in motion

Cloud strokes pattern

Movement constrained and controlled by space

Consistant with new policies:

Late Northern Song Factionalism

New policies: Giving power to people learning

Looking back to classics: Confucianism

Emperor Anshi: Everybody has to think the way he thinks, has to agree for the system to work

Formed core intellectual basis for what court did

Collected bronzes: Only emperor and court had authority over their interpretation, catalogue, did his own bronzes with exclusive right of court to decide the bronzes to use, had authority because has been comprehensive, because has seen all bronzes

Commissioned book: Yinzao fashi, building standards

Insures construction of buildings as emperor commands it, very strict rules, comprehensive set of rules

Detail, the Genji Monogatari Emaki (Tale of Genji Scroll), ca. 1120-40

Ink and colors on paper, Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya

Heian Court in Japan

Highly aristocratic

Around appreciation of nature, art, calligraphy

Emperor did not have real power: Behind the throne (matrimonial relations)

Very closed

Tale written by woman living in this context, very privileged

Access to inner working of the court

Groups of women for emperor (her mother)

Genji: favorite of all women 

Events represented in narrative paintings, scroll

450 feet in lenghth

15% survived

National treasure

Masterpiece

Calligraphy with it: Does not retrace all the tale, key phrases

Written on exquisite paper, richly decorated (gold)

His Cloistered Eminence

Figures: Genji, his wife, her father (retiring in buddhist monastery, emperor), court ladies

Eminence left: Great shame, seated in house of Genji, non-monastic setting

Volume of fabrics to represent court ladies: Strict regulations, 12 layers of multicolored robes

Every figure has status shown

Moment of dramatic tension: Everything falling

Emotional anguish told with arrangement of space: Angular sections

Wind: Suggests disturbance, disruption, never good in Japanese art

Fabrics moving: Uncontrolled

Showing emotional peak by covering face

Detail, the Genji Monogatari Emaki (Tale of Genji Scroll), ca. 1120-40

Ink and colors on paper, Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya

Kashiwagi

Visit by Genji's secret son (Yugiri)

Dying

Court ladies: Greek chorus, extra-narrative framing role, voice of the story is the collective one of the ladies, always women seeing the scenes (real or imaginary)

Feeling communication through composition:

Heads close: Intimate position

Yugiri bending: Suggests intimacy of relation, friendship

Not overshowing emotion (mode): People supposed to know the tale

Facial emotions not a tradition as seen in West

Communication through settings

Yamato-e (Japanese)/Kara-e (Chinese)

Represented in counter position of Kara-e

Development of something to stand: Tension between what we create indigenously and what taken from great continent

Typically japanese scroll

Paintings first made by artists (lines) and then painted by colorists (specialists)

On mainland: Virtuosity of lines

In Japan: No modulating of lines, used to arrange composition, the colors are what communicated the nuances

Detail, the Genji Monogatari Emaki (Tale of Genji Scroll), ca. 1120-40

Ink and colors on paper, Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya

Genji with "Son"

Makes ritual offerings

Standard rituals to do after 50th day of birth

Recognizing his son: Bending over child and sees looks like him

Activated reading: Comprehensive knowledge of the novel (Know the story before)

How Pathos is constructed visually

Cui Bai, Magpies and Hare (1061)

Ink and color on silk

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Former/Later Shu

(With Southern Tang: Cultural traditions included in Song and basis for the academy of painting)

Bird-and-flower painting

Moment of dramatic tension: 2 birds preparing to attack hare, on its territory

Great wind

Rabbit: Highly realistic technique

Boneless technique: Absence of an outline, meticulous strokes

Close to court painting (Careful study, brushwork)

Emperor Huizong:

Most popular figure in chinese court painting

Master artist

Expanded imperial academy

Instigated great artistic regime

Presided period when China under Song was at peak of artistic production

Developped his own type of calligraphy:

Exposing bones of characters instead of hiding, 

Strokes foreground their structure, show how brush has moved

Severe and elegant

Naturalistic: Attempt to draw the underlined pattern of nature, order of things, what court believed in

Wen Tong (1018-1079)

Ink Bamboo

Ink on silk 131.6 x 105.4 cm

National Palace Museum, Taipei

 Tong absorbed the bamboo

Shi: Literatus (vs artisans)

Expressing the bamboo: Extension by his arms and the brush

Natural

Product of natural process of growth

Not static

Composition of similar strokes, no variation

Distinction between literati (more realistic, meticulous, detailed) and artisans

Associated with status of artist: Linked with court or not

Developing aesthetic discourse

Zhao Mengfu, Autumn Colors on the Que and Hua Mountains

Ink and color on paper, 28.4 x 90.2 cm

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Use of strong blue pigment (blue-and-green landscapes)

No clear arragement of objects in space

Sketchy rendering

Lines to define the ground: Texture the surface, create a sense of depth

Sense of antiquity is essential for Mengfu, connaisseurs will recognize it

Close to the ancients, so beautiful

Opposite to the denial of a link to works of the past

Just a product of the state of mind, a cognitive exercise

Role of representing the mind and not the actual world

Wang Meng (ca. 1308-1385)

Forest Chamber Grotto at Juqu, after 1368

Ink and Colour on Paper

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Beginning of development of patterns in constructing landscape

Linking act of painting with one of calligraphy

Literati adopted painting as cultural activity: Emergence of social group

Very dense, reproduced later, comeback to style

Follow the direction of the river towards the mountain

Scale, point of perspective

Resembles naturalist Song paintings

Cut landscape

Shen Zhou (1427-1509)

Lofty Mt. Lu, 1467

Ink and Colour on Silk

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Copy of the Forrest Chamber Grotto at Juqu

Going back to ancients

Less dense, sky visible, more air

Colophons

Dong Qichang (1555-1636)

Landscapes in the Manner of Old Masters, 1621-1624

Ink and colour on silk

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

In manner of old masters

Sense of antiquity of Mengfu

Monumental landscape

Point of perspective

Ni Zan (1301-1374)

The Rongxi Studio, 1372

Ink on Paper

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Colophons: Key sources of information for aesthetic history

White spaces: water

Frame the trees, make them recognizable

Depth, change in scale

No superposition

Shen Zhou (1427-1509)

Walking with a Staff, ca. 1485

Ink on Paper

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Copy of the Rongxi Studio

White spaces

Colophons

Dong Qichang (1555-1636)

Landscapes in the Manner of Old Masters, 1621-1624

Ink and colour on silk

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Looking back to masters

Copy of the Rongxi Studio

Ding ware

Northern Song (960-1127)

Mass produced

All China, Korea too

Development of a technology: Stepped sagger

Allows to sag/accumulate large number of plates

Maximization

Method spread, used throughout East Asia

Cannot have a glazed rim: Raw

So covered with metal to hide imperfection

Temperature

Atmosphere

Earthenware: Porous, low quality

Stoneware: Better quality, less porous

Porcelain: Fully petrified, resonant, can see light through it

Tao vs Ci (Stoneware considered as porcelain)

Clay (Kaolin): To add a glaze by lowering the melting point, adding a flux, and colorants to change color (iron, copper, cobalt)

Glaze vs Slip

Demographic shift with Song: From North to South, ceramics parallel this change across the line (One of the most important demographic change in history of world)

Kilns

Mantou kilns: 10th century, no trees

Dragon kilns: Long, built up a hill side so the smoke can go up and heat all the kiln and less fuel is needed

For glaze, surface needs to be bare

Sagger: Box that permits more surface to be glazed (inside of the bowl), egalizes the heat (more finished)

Slip-painted pillow

Cizhou ware, Jin (1115-1234)

Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal

North China

Pillow

Slip painting: To mask imperfections of body, using clay

Outer layer of slip dried, another black clay to paint

Then fired

Not as finished as other methods

Different decorative technique

Sgraffito: Layer of black slip carved away (this techno spread), layer of brown slip used to fill in carvings, white slip lower, then covered with clean glaze

Meiping vase with sgraffito decoration and clear glaze

Cizhou ware, Northern Song (960-1127)

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Sgraffito decor and clear glaze

Small bowl, Jun ware, Jin dynasty (1115-1234)

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Heavenly potted vessels

Lot of glaze

Large clay

Glaze when fired has been petrified just when about to drop

Very hard to do

Color +++ complex: Blue

Very high-quality: Probably for elite

Time-consuming process

Planter, Jun ware

Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Holes at the bottom for water to get out

Some with earthworm tracks: Maybe multiple layers, thick glaze

Celadon vase

Ru ware

Northern Song (ca. early twelfth cen.)

National Palace Museum

Rarest ceramics of entire East Asian tradition

Done for short time

Under Weing Zong: For consumption under his reign

Refine, monochrome, blue glaze

From Song

Crazing: Very fine crackles in glaze that occur during fire, intentional

Demonstrates a gap of perfection: Slight imperfection, gap between perfection and human

Quality of spontaneousless

Natural forces of creation and transformation

Positive aesthetic: From force of nature

Narcissus bowl,

Ru ware

Northern Song (ca. early twelfth cen.)

National Palace Museum, Taipei

 Lip and rim foot are fully glazed: Only spurs marks are not

Jia: Character that supposedly ranked ceramics, maybe added by collectors after

Other characters: Poems

Extended practice of colophons

Not random poems: About the vessel

Testers

Jar w/ marbled body and clear glaze,

Henan Northern Song – Jin (11th-13th cen.)

Asian Art Museum, SF

Do not know where it is from, maybe Tang

Marbled

Ware color has to do with concentration of O2 in the kiln

‘Secret color’ (mise) bowl

Yue ware

Ninth century, National Palace Museum

In South: Continuous tradition of celadon

Reduction of O2, iron in reduction

Ceramics mystery

Secret color: Pale, monochrome

Before 10th century

Most wanted in 9th century

Meiping vase

Longquan ware

Southern Song (1127-1279)

Cleveland Museum of Art

Lines

Celadon glaze: Tradition in South

Cong-shaped vase

Guan ware

Southern Song (1127-1279)

National Palace Museum

Guan wares: Official

Specific for court use

Highest quality

Modeled after Neolithic Song: Tendency to adopt ancient, archaic forms

Censer,

Ge ware

Southern Song (1127-1279),

Asia Society, New York

Sub-category

Story of the two brothers

Would dye the cracks

Dragon kilns

Cosmetic box with inlaid décor under celadon glaze

Koryo dynasty (918-1392),

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Celadon tradition

Detailed inlaid decorations

For elite

Tea bowl with ‘hare’s fur’ striations,

Jian ware,

Southern Song (1127-1279),

Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal

Associated with tea bowls

Black and brown glaze

Need of more iron

Striations (hare's fur): Particles of iron going down during fire

One of most prized quality

MOre beautiful tea when looked in darker bowl

In Japan, by 16th century:

Tea bowls are objects of art

No more mass produced: Artist sign

Beauty resides in imperfection

Vase with foliate lobes

Qingbai ware,

Jingdezhen Northern Song (ca. 11th cen.)

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Use of very pure white clay

Egg-shaped kiln: Variety of atmosphere and temperature, freer control, effects of colors and ceramics

Underglaze red porcelain vase

Hongwu reign (1368-1398)

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Porcelain: Very high temperature

First great modern export product (after silk, tea)

Blue-glazed porcelain cup,

Jingdezhen

Yuan dynasty (1271-1368),

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Control of the blue improves

Underglaze blue porcelain vase

Yongle reign (1403-1424)

National Palace Museum

Control of the blue improves, but still imperfections

No refined dots: Become aesthetically desired

Underglaze: Fired after painted

Underglaze blue porcelain bowl with reign mark

Xuande reign (1426-1435)

National Palace Museum

With reign marks

Underglaze blue

Underglaze blue porcelain ‘chicken’ cup with doucai enameling

Chenghua reign (1465-1487),

National Palace Museum

Enameling:

More colors

Blue glaze first, then fired

Then colored with enamel glazes

Fired in more O2

Manipulation of color in different environment

Underglaze blue porcelain: Application of blue under

Enameling: Glaze added on, turns into glass when fired

Outlined chickens underglaze in cobalt blue,

Then cover in glaze,

Fire,

Apply enamels,

Fire 2nd time: Could be in a +O2 environment, so wider range of colors, sorts

Porcelain jar with wucai décor

Jiajing Reign (1521-1567)

Asia Society, New York

Wucai: Kind of overglaze decoration

Colorful patterns

Rich colors, hard: Blue, green, yellow

Clear lines

Higher firing temperature than that of famille rose

5 colors

Underglaze blue+overglaze enamel

Overglazing technique: Shades produced

Testers for emperor: For orders (like ink painting)

Underglaze blue plate

Kraak ware

Wanli reign (1521-1567)

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

 Carrack: Kraak

Polychrome enameled porcelain plate,

Swatow ware

17th century,

National Palace Museum

Porcelain cup with enameled décor

Yongzheng reign (1723-1735),

National Palace Museum

New color: Pink (famille rose, lower temperature)

Porcelain cup with enameled décor

Yongzheng reign (1723-1735),

National Palace Museum

New color: Pink (famille rose, lower temperature)

2 magpies

Rebus: Visual form that stands for words

Bowl: Matrimonial gift

Porcelain cup with enameled décor

Yongzheng reign (1723-1735),

National Palace Museum

Associated with ink bamboo

Strokes similar to brushwork

Porcelain cup with enameled décor

Yongzheng reign (1723-1735),

National Palace Museum

Different enameling effect: Imitating other materials

Testers for emperor: Orders

Shades produced: Like ink painting

Overglazing technique

Cloisonné jar,

Ming dynasty (ca. early seventeenth century)

British Museum, London

Ottoman empire: Exportation

Reached East Asia

Same kinf of enameling, but applied to metal base

Underlining of design with weirs and then filled with enamel

Champlevé enamel box with gilding

Qing dynasty (ca. eighteenth century)

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Trade of Europe with Asia

Missionnaries traveling to court of Ming and Qing: Jesuits

Teached new techniques

2 involved enamels

Rather then building designs with weirs, engraving it, so enamel lasts longer

Resembles cloisonné: Shows influence of West

Bamboo-shaped snuff bottle

Enameled glass with enameled metal cap

Yongzheng reign (1723-1735)

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Blown glass vessel

Painted enamel

Snuff boxes from Europe, allowed for humidity of the region, hermetic (Development of new kind for this improvement)

Ise Shrine

A.D. 670 to Present

Cypress wood, miscanthus grass, metal fittings

Ise, Japan

East Asian timber frame architecture

Definition of old differing (depends of design, material, conception)

Founders established a political hegemony

Rebuilding it: Very expensive (Seen as sacrifice)

Believed to hold the 3 sacred treasures: Never been seen

Surrounded by walls and fences: Cannot get in

After WWII, searching to prove Japan's goodness: Photographer sent

Poles in ground without foundation stones: Cyprus

Simple structure

Dom ornementation: Bronze

Hay: Absorbes rain, becomes heavy, compresses wood and pushes pillars into ground

During hot times, it dires and wood can breath

Functional structure

Chigi: Structure coming out, extensions

Structure based on models of granaries from yayoi

Shrine will age, wood darkens

After 20 years, to be rebuilt

10 000 trees needed

20 years rebuilding

Process of rebuilding begins after 8 years

Long curing process to strenghten timber

Once new built, old dismantled: Used for archways

All of the rest of material across Japan for imperial network

Preservation of one base

Influenced modern architecture: No unecessary features

Simple, austere, plain structure

Universal model building because always rebuilt

Five-tiered pagoda,

ca. late sixth cen.

Wood and tile

Horyuji Temple, Nara, Japan

Horyuji

Oldest timber framed buildings of the world

Ornementations replaced over time: But never completely deconstructed (Pagoda)

Site surrounded by gallery

Bracket sets: 3 directions, distribute weight of the beams

Reconstructed because of wood

Elaborate brackets

Curved roof: To hold the tiles in place

Pillar-pagoda:

Pillar in middle of cave to support

Carved to resemble pagoda

Representation of brackets

Kondō (“Sanctuary Hall”)

670, rebuilt 1954

Wood and tile

Horyuji Temple, Nara, Japan

Reconstructed because done in wood

Fire?

Dating: Architectural project, on basis of formal characteristics

Products of structure changing over time

Different from Western vision

No famous architects (names unknown)

Yingzao fashi:

Building standards

Colophons

Used to predict how much wood would be needed for the building: Reduce waste

Detailed prescriptions for decorations according to status

Colors codes

Efficiency but also universal code to create an unchanging standard that would persist over time

But failed to achieve this, because not used

How they shoud be built, but not how they were

2 models:

1. Changing structure over time

2. One that proposes an unchanging form that can be eternally replicated

Tension

A Guide to Love in Yoshiwara,

Hishikawa Moronobu, 1678

Woodblock print

Japan, 17th-19th century

Modernity, interactions between East and West

First printings:

7th century

Evidence in 9th

Before Europe

Japanese woodblock printing: Floating world pictures

Process:

1. Images carved drawn first by DESIGNER

2. Carving of woodblock plate by CARVER

3. Key-block: Ususally, application of multiple blocks for an image

4. INKER: Block inked, paper fixed to it, application

Standard size of woodblocks: Primary determinant of scale in the design

Often a seal: PUBLISHER commissions the design

5. Color-blocks: Primary image reapplied to other blocks, these carved, one for each color, only used parts carved

Notches serve as registers: To create tightly delineated images

Floating world:

Fictonial world

Power from ruler to military aristoracy (samouraï)

Unified: Centralized authority over domains, alternative attendance system

Established capital in Tokyo

Restricted use of weapons: Only assigned samouraïs

National network of meaning

More than a pleasure district: Allowed people access to this ruling strata

Not presence of sexual relations

Relations at various degrees with courtesans

Ranks of courtesans: How dressed, art

Geisha

Professional performer, dance, sing

Not typically sexual, but implied

Courtesans subjects of japanese prints

Kimono pattern book,

Hishikawa Moronobu, 1682

Woodblock print

 Black outlines

Blank background: Defined colored areas

Dynamic patterns of robes

Pattern of nobi: Signifier of social rank of courtesan

Form of feminine body not directly shown, but hilghly erotic charge: Feet exposed

Torii Kiyomasu,

Courtesan Reading a Poem, c. 1715

Woodblock print

Poem on scroll

Discusses full moon: Whether moon of plum blossoms are more beautiful

Poem part of normal knowledge

Fictive space created in fictional space itself

Participating

Shows skills of these courtesans

Exposing foot

Theatre important social place: Exposing simple plots

Ichikawa Danjuro as Goro Uprooting a Bamboo Tree

Torii Kiyomasu, c. 1700

Woodblock print

Actor printing

Supernatural guy

Fierce deity

Eyes: Marquors of ferocity

Torii School:

Red lead print: Primary colorant

2 tones

The Torii School (either Kiyonobu I or Kiyomasu I),

Oshichi and Kichisaburo,

red-lead print (tan-e), 1718

 2 tones

The Eight Views of the Parlor: The Evening Bell of the Clock,

Suzuki Harunobu, c. 1766

Woodblock print

Several types of pigments

Not commercial

Calendar print

Reflective Love, from the series “Anthology of Poems: The Love Section,”

by Kitagawa Utamaro, c. 1793-94

Woodblock print

Shifts from body

Deeper study of psychology in face: Different qualities of affectation

Invite observer to speculate on love and affection felt by woman

Way hair is treated: Visual effect because carved directly on keyblock, not ink

Absence of eyebrows: Older married woman, upper class

Elaborate hair clips

Moatside Prostitute, from the series “Five Shades of Ink in the Northern Quarter,”

by Kitagawa Utamaro, c. 1793-94

Woodblock print

More transgressive series

Depicting 5 ranks: From geishas to low class prostitutes

Objectification of woman

Power of men purchasing them

Agressive depictions: Critics of the regime

The Actor Otani Oniji III as the Servant Edohei,

Sharaku, 1794

Woodblock print

Sharaku series:
Bust portraits

Actors

Sharaku: Mysterious

Focus on moment of dramatic tension: Moment of dramatic tension

Moment when audience would respond by claiming the actor's name (not character)

Show specific aspects of physionomy of actors

Looks clumsy: But maybe on purpose, from dramatic role of the moment

Regime became concerned with messages conveyed in actors prints in different layers

Prints being banned

Emergence of new genre: Warrior print 

Under the Wave, off Kanagawa (“The Great Wave”),

from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,

by Hokusai, 1830-33

Woodblock print

Late in overall tradition

Landscapes come later

Series of various positions of mountains, various seasonal settings

Wiping away portions of the ink to produce gradual effects

At this point, producing prints not just for gifts to elite, advertising of pleasure places, but for art collection

Development of a new blue color: Berlin blue

Imported from Germany, 1830

One of the first artificial, chemestry made shade

South Wind, Clear Sky (“Red Fuji”),

from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji,

Hokusai, 1830-33

Woodblock print

Mishima Pass in Kai Province,

from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji,

by Hokusai, 1830-33

Woodblock print

Mishima -- Morning Mist,

from the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road,

by Hiroshige c. 1831-4

Woodblock print

Kanbara -- Evening Snow,

from the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road,

by Hiroshige, c. 1831-4

Woodblock print

Shono -- Sudden Rain, by Hiroshige,

from the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road,

c. 1831-4

Woodblock print

Important competitor of Hokusai: Hiroshige

Wide range of different pictorial techniques showing diffenrent ways environment of Japan can be feeled, experienced

No single perspective

Travel book

Images of villagers, not just travelers

Different weather conditions

Evening Rain at Karasaki,

by Hiroshige,

from the series Eight Views in Omi Province,

c. 1834-5

Woodblock print

Woodblock movement

Development during this hard period

Atmospheric qualities

Integration of Western

Santos Palace,

Lisbon Seventeenth century

European influence:
Rose

Enameled technique

Objects like snuff boxes

Jesuits

Interaction between Europe and East Asia:
To understand contemporary art

From 1500 to today

Exoticism:

The Great Other

Generated through dialogue between different groups/cultures

Dominant mechanism: Trade 

 Santos Palace,

Lisbon Seventeenth century

Kraak ware

Swatow ware:

Not for imperial consumption

For trade in East Asia

Movement of population along this trade route

Ceramics reaching Europe

Excitement

Ceiling in Lisbon Palace

Evoke distant Asia: Communicated by boat, mountains from water, script

Expansion of Chinese trade goods throughout Europe

Europe fascinated by ceramics, but also of how they were made: So they could make them by themselves

Hybrid of Westerna dn Chinese pictorial effect

Outline of rocks, plaques

East Indiaman, Calcutta harbor,

1794 Frans Balthazar Solvyns (1760-1824)

Oil on canvas

Peabody Essex Museum

Monopoly to trade with China

Company

Celebration of trade as pictorial subject

Exportation of tea to England

Enameled porcelain plate, ca. 1745

New era of trade

Commissioned objects

Enameled porcelain

Innovations

Carving: European

Access to African ivory

More difficult for West to find things that Asia would buy

Techniques borrowed from West: Perspective

“Birdcage” Vase,

ca. 1700,

Japan Porcelain, copper, gold, bamboo

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem

Creation of fictional space loaded with exotic associations

Elephant handles: From ancient, more realistic, buddhist iconography

Shape: Zun vessel

Underglaze blue

Designs

Made in Japan: Attempt to take sources associated to crafts history of China

Japanese gold lacquer on top

Exoticized object: To impress the otherness of their appearance

Attempt to do something that would look exotic: Chinese imagining what europeans imagine as exotic

Ren Xiong (1820-1857)

Self-Portrait

Ink and color on silk

Palace Museum, Beijing

Nationalization of art in East Asia

Sagely worthies: Very long tradition

Life sized

Long inscription: Who are the sages, doubts his capacity of what models we should take, what we should emulate

Period when models of the past are not adapted to present: Important wars, new ideas, government

Historical tension depicted

Boneless figure connected with highly stylized, tension in impassive face as product of electric lines

Emotional tension externalized

Not new techniques

Strong, accentuated lines

Strongest sense of depth: Grey line added, old method

Stone pictorial relief of Wu Liang Shrine

Takahashi Yuchi,

Courtesan, 1872

Oil on paper

Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music

Machi restoration

Japan open for trade

System to support samourais slipping away

Commissionned by wealthy samourais patrons

19th century european style painting

Elaborate clothes and hairstyle: Numerous pins, probably some added

Pressure of all ornementation on her shoulders

Yamamoto Hōsui,

Nude, 1880

Oil on canvas,

Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu

2nd generation of japanese artists

Influence of western art with new establishment of government: Academy

Yoga: Western style painting

Studied abroad in Paris: First to study abroad, painting done in Paris

Hashimoto Gahō,

White Cloud, Red Leaves, 1890

Color on paper,

Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music

Americans trained a generation of painters with student: Founded institute promoting Nihonga (japanese style painting)

Tradition landscape subject

Western notion of visual perspective giving depth, heighten atmosohere, volume

More shading, identification of light source

Use of contrast

The Second Army Attacks Port Arthur,

Kiyochika, 1894

Woodblock print

Japan transformed itself from a small regional state to a modern trading center

More military, became colonial power

Modern japanese army trained to attack Chinese: Propaganda

Photography developped at the time: Showing war, not creating attirance to army

Our Torpedo Hits a Russian Warship in the Great Naval Battle of Port Arthur,

Kiyochika, 1904

Woodblock print

Tryptique

Different story in China: Not becoming this modern center

Chinese studying in Japan, learning Western culture there: Say that by studying Japan, would understand West, shortcut

Tension debate in Japan: Western of Japanese style

What techniques are appropriate to national traditions

Xu Beihong,

Tian Heng and His Five Hundred Followers, 1930

Oil on canvas,

Xu Beihong Memorial Museum, Beijing

When Beihong returned, given good position

Classical chinese story rendered with Western technique

From records of grand historians

Xu Beihong,

The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains, 1940

Ink and color on paper,

Xu Beihong Memorial Museum, Beijing

Blending of Western and Chinese styles

Reference to tenacity of Chinese towards Japan

Media traditions of China, but more perspective and anatomical accuracy: Need of models, integration of Western traditions

Xu Beihong,

Galloping Horse

ink on paper, 1941

Dominant aspect of his work

Nationalistic verver, endurance, perseverance of officials

Horse = Moral integrity

Traditional symbol transformed in more aggressive

Visualize a hope for a prominant and unified China

Dawn at Yagumo Shrine in Kanda,

Kiyochika, 1880

Woodblock print

 Fixed light source: Shading, communicate a coherence of light

Tipsy,

Kobayakawa Kiyoshi, 1930

Woodblock print

Modan gaaru: Blobal fashion industry

Reimagined princess of old times: Women no more restrained to be courtesans

Female as objectivized as before: Ideologically problematic

Reaction to this: Creative print movement

Fisherman

Yamamoto Kanae

1904

Woodblock print

One artist would do the entire process of woodblock tradition

Rougher technique, visible knife traces

Turmoil of common people depicted

New mode of self-expressivity

Lyric I: First

Individualized source of knowledge of the world

Lyric: Bright Hours

Onchi Koshiro

1915

Woodblock print

Earliest abstract print

Red Sun,

Fujimaki Yoshio,

1934

Woodblock print

Jagged lines, fractured landscape

Prints linked with labor work: Rising to imperial problems

Li Hua (1907-1994)

Howl, China! 1935

Woodblock print

Modern Woodcut Movement

Borrowed from Japanese movement

China as a human form, personnified

Howling for release

Li Hua

The Livelihood of the Distressed

1944

Woodblock print

Against capitalism, leaders: Protest

Struggle, against forces of imperialism, against Japan

Li Hua,

Struggle for Survival,

1947

Woodblock print

Promotion of imperialism

Woodblock tradition from Europe, travels to Japan, then to China, became mode of protest

Yan Han

Army and People Cooperate

New Year Print, 1944

Promotion of imperialism

Woodblock tradition from Europe, travels to Japan, then to China, became mode of protest

Li Keran,

Ten Thousand Peaks of Red,

1964

Ink and color on paper

Beijing Fine Art Academy

Revolutionary literalism

Complex ideology, multiple layers of interpretation

Redness of China under communism

Xu Bing,

New English Nursery Rhymes 6: The Cat and the Fiddle,

2003,

ink on paper

Problem of deciphering writing

Not comprehensive for his people but ok for westerners

What it means to be asian and to produce asian art in modern times

Liu Chunhua (b. 1944)

Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan,

1967

Oil on canvas

China Construction Bank

Commissionned by government

Cultural revolution: Human will be sufficient to develop China

State's programs to rise China's productivity

Everybody has to contribute

Agricultural problems at the same time, gov. did not address this concern: Starvation

Government turned to pragmatism: Decisions taken upon calculations

Mao believes in naive deductions, old stories, encouraged students activists to struggle: Chaos

Cultural revolution

Deifing Mao: Ultimate ruler

Umbrella, rough path, trail, leader

Wind: Constant tension

Anyang: Site associated with problems, with painting: New relation

Yanagi Yukinori (b. 1959),

Pacific, 1996,

colored sand in plexiglass

Danger of nationalism and its ultimate degradation

Trying to find an identity in contemporenaity

Ants: People, migration across the world, breaking down nationalism

Questions the concept of nation: Imaginary

Huang Yongyu,

The Winking Owl,

1978,

Ink and color on paper

Traditional 

Militarism, development

Trap of nationalism

Today: Last few decades

Art mostly from academies

Technical training

Ideology left aside

Song Dong,

Printing on Water,

Film stills,

1996

Can be read politically

Express the imposing of Chinese will

Alludes to an old story

Sense of futility and incapacity to adress problems of present

Ai Weiwei,

Sunflower Seeds,

2010,

Tate Modern, London

Against communist party

Untouchable, from important family

Best known artist, popularized in West, America

Hand-painted: 100 millions

Working in ceramic centers

Mass production: Do not see the work of individuals, human twist on chinese development

Ai Weiwei,

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,

1995,

photographs

Full circle

Earthenware

Challenge of engaging with traditions: Challenge, way of creativity

Gesture that restores power to the object: Loaded with spiritual power

Present: Only a commodity for collectors

Product of history