Chinese Art

Premiered in London twelve years after the unsuccessful return of the first British embassy to China, led by Lord George Macartney, Domenico Corri's five-act ‘dramatic opera’,The Travellers, or Music's Fascination(1806), is a unique work exhibiting concrete connections to the embassy in its dramatic concept, musical and visual sources. This article explores how the subject of the opera – tracing the ‘progress of music’ from China to Britain – reflected the contemporary discussion about Chinese music, articulated most clearly by Charles Burney, who held a significant interest in the embassy's musical exchange. By incorporating a Chinese melody and ‘realistic’ visual representation connected to the embassy, the opera reconstructs certain ceremonies and musical experience witnessed by the members of the embassy. Interestingly, the opera balances first-hand knowledge of Chinese music and culture with an emerging imperialist view, and dramatises the aim of the embassy to show...

Los dias 20 y 21 de noviembre de 2015 tuvo lugar en San Jose, el III Simposio Internacional de Estudios sobre China desde (Latino) America: A 160 anos de la llegada de los chinos a Costa Rica , organizado por el Instituto Confucio y la Escuela de Lenguas Modernas de la Universidad de Costa Rica, y HANBAN, sede central de los Institutos Confucio en China. Esta actividad rindio tributo a un grupo etnico costarricense con una marcada y duradera influencia sobre la cultura del territorio, y reunio a distintos grupos de la comunidad china con academicos universitarios que han investigado los procesos de insercion de los chinos en Costa Rica y el continente americano.

The late Ming (16th–17th cent.) witnessed the newfound popularity of garden writing.
This article questions how gentry women negotiated this traditionally male-dominant genre and even employed it to respond to the dynastic change. By analyzing the writings of a family and their acquaintances—namely, Shang Jinglan (1605–1676); her husband, Qi Biaojia (1602–1645); her children; and her male and female acquaintances—this article argues that gender relations significantly influenced not only Shang’s writing but also the social-cultural meaning of the family garden. Shang’s life before the fall of the Ming reflected entrenched gender divisions between interior and exterior. Dynastic collapse and her husband’s suicide as a Ming martyr altered her persona from the feminine, silent figure in Qi’s garden writings and pushed her to write explicitly about the family garden, Allegory Garden. The writings by Shang, her beloved family, and friends and acquaintances in turn transformed this garden into a symbol in remembrance of individual persons and the former dynasty. This article attempts to generate a new interdisciplinary discussion of late imperial women’s place in the history of Chinese garden literature.

Contemporary Arabic calligraphy art is related to the practice of handwriting or lettering. Traditional Arabic calligraphy art was used as a way of expression that delivered the aesthetic spirit of the Arabic language. The use of contemporary Arabic calligraphy art by the artist Nja Mahdaoui raises a question dealing with the aesthetic quality of Arabic calligraphy in terms of form and theme. This study discusses the visual characteristics illustrated in contemporary Arabic calligraphy paintings created by Nja Mahdaoui. The visual analysis approach by Feldman was chosen and highlighted through the application of line, shape, texture, balance, repetition, and space. The research concludes that the art of Mahdaoui defies the static conceptions of fine art and the tradition of modern calligraphy. The Arabic calligraphic art created by this artist is a means of communicating a particular aesthetic experience with the spirt of the Arabic language. Mahdaoui seeks to create a total art, wh...

« Mais je trouvai bientôt que ma surprise était naïve. Quoique chinois… Mais non ! Parce qu’il était chinois […]. » En 1930, Paul Valéry inscrivait ces mots dans la préface d’un recueil de poésie chinoise ancienne traduite en français par Liang Zongdai  – il ne s’adressait pas directement à Sanyu, et pourtant chaque expression du grand poète français à propos de la Chine rappelle la peinture de Sanyu : « enchaînement des formes », « simplicité », « sensualité », « incorruptible volupté », entre autres. Ce n’est pas un hasard si Sanyu a donné trois eaux-fortes à l’ouvrage, planches sévères et fluides qui rappellent le point de fuite de son art à Paris, fondamentalement chinois même si moderne.
Tout artiste est un mystère, Sanyu davantage que d’autres Chinois venus faire leurs armes en France. D’où venait-il ? Où allait-il ? Et pour quoi faire ? Sa mise en lumière et son succès, depuis les années 1980, ne sauraient effacer l’ambiguïté première, celle d’un jeu de masques dans lequel l’acteur s’adapte aux divers auditoires de son itinérance. Alors qu’en 1949 ses camarades triomphaient et pavoisaient aux côtés de Mao Tsé-toung place Tian’anmen, Sanyu partageait l’atelier de Robert Frank à New York. Malgré ce décalage et cette succession de malentendus qui mettent en inadéquation l’artiste et le monde, il reste l’oeuvre, heureusement.
En France, la pente naturelle de Sanyu alla d’un lieu vers une idée, soit de l’École des beaux-arts à « l’école de Paris ». Dans le parcours qui de Chine le mena rue Bonaparte en 1921, il a suivi d’abord Xu Beihong (1895-1953). Ensuite, après son retour à Paris en 1927, définitif en somme, il se retrouva dans l’école de Paris essentiellement face à Foujita. Mais vers 1933, Sanyu commença à perdre son avantage en Chine sans avoir gagné sa place en France.

Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha is an account of Geisha's life; a life of struggle, and surrounded by various artistic practices where Geisha have no time for themselves. Their life seems glamorous and exciting to the outside world, however, in reality, it is pathetic and an isolated one. The aim of this paper is to focus on the origin of Geisha tradition, which is considered as a cultural heritage of Japan. Simultaneously, the paper throws light on various issues such as the role of tradition, culture, history, economy, and prostitution which contribute to the marginalisation of Geisha in personal as well as social arenas. The paper also deals with the reasons which blur the distinction between Geisha tradition and prostitution. To facilitate the interpretation of Geisha tradition, cultural construction of gender roles has been taken into account.

The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art was established in 2014 at Intellect as the only peer-reviewed journal worldwide in this emerging field of studies. Envisaging the increasing visibility of Chinese contemporary art in the international arena through frequent participations in the world's important art events since the 1993 Venice Biennale, this timely development aims to invite scholarly articles and reviews internationally to share, debate and celebrate the most recent original research on the topic

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Wuchan jieji wenhua da geming), from a general understanding, was launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong for his political agenda and ended with his demise in 1976. It has been seen as a watershed, the defining period of the half-century Communist rule in China. Studies on the Cultural Revolution offer more than historical insight, and they are essential for a better understanding of China today. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) at Birmingham City University convened a two-day international conference hosted at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. This conference, Making the New World: The Arts of China’s Cultural Revolution, invited more than twenty contributors including researchers, curators and artists worldwide to discuss the significance of the arts and culture of the Cultural Revolution, and to reflect upon their impacts on everyday experience in China within socio-polit...

In "A Textbook Case of Comparative Cultural Studies" Donald Mitchell and Angelica Duran posit that the cultural basis from which all literary works emerge includes a religious component given the historical perseverance of religious traditions. Hence, a basic understanding of the religious heritage and contemporary mix in Chinese culture is exigent to develop valid interpretations about literary works. Mitchell and Duran describe the changes made to the most widely used Anglophone introductory textbook on Buddhism, the third edition of Mitchell's Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, based on the globalization of Buddhism in today's world. Religious interaction and influence is dynamic, no longer a one-way flow of Buddhism from Asia to non-Asian countries but rather a multidirectional flow between countries in all continents. Close readings of two religious figures demonstrate this dynamic with Mo Yan's Wise Monk Lan in POW! and the Swedish Pastor Malo...

Among the new forms of urban signage made possible by innovations in digital photography and the relative low cost of wide-bed printing is the use of large-format vinyl graphics to shield and re-imagine large spaces of construction. Commonly appearing as construction-site fencing or building and scaffolding covers, this form of urban beautification is particularly associated with restoration or demolition and reconstruction projects in high-traffic and culturally or politically significant heritage areas (see image 1). What frequently distinguishes this type of outdoor media from related forms of screen culture is that in most cases—as with the Beijing examples explored below—the surfaces serve a civic and decidedly non-commercial function. That is to say, the panels are often associated with sites of cultural renovation or public infrastructure where commercial advertising banners are inappropriate This brief essay explores the relatively recent proliferation of what are commonly r...

The mausoleum of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas in Guangzhou (China) is presented as an important testimony to the history of the introduction of Islam in China, which legitimised its inscription as a cultural heritage site in 2013. However, this institutional recognition is not only due to a recent historiographical re-reading, but also to the presence of Muslim migrants. Indeed, while the local Muslim population visited the site very infrequently at the end of the 1990s, this was not the case for the migrant and foreign Muslim population, who have made a lasting contribution to the local religious life in Guangzhou and played a crucial role in the religious redefinition of the site. By focusing on one group in particular, the Pakistani migrants, associated with the Barelvi brotherhood, I will analyse their impact on the revival of Islam in general and Sufi Islam in particular. Indeed, as soon as they arrived in Guangzhou, they participated in (re)establishing the tomb of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas at the centre of their practices, developing Sufi networks, while adapting their practices to the local context. Biography Pascale Bugnon holds a PhD in Chinese Studies from the University of Geneva (Switzerland). After studying anthropology and sociology at the University of Neuchâtel, then Chinese and Russian studies at the University of Geneva, she specialised in the cultural heritage process of Muslim saints' tombs in China. Her first fieldwork on this topic was conducted in Xinjiang, where she analysed the political impact of cultural heritage on religious practice. For her dissertation, she shifted her geographical focus to southeastern China, conducting a multi-sited fieldwork in the cities of Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Yangzhou. Her work provides a multilayered account of the dialogic transformations of Muslim heritage sites and the political uses of Muslim sainthood in China, through a processual approach, both at the local level (local authorities, religious leaders, etc.) and at the international level (especially through the Maritime Silk Road Initiative).

Much of the current scholarship on the art of China in the 1910s and 1920s focuses on artworks, art academies, and art groups that were associated either with traditional Chinese painting (guohua 國畫) or with oil painting (youhua 油畫). By contrast, other mediums such as sculpture have rarely been discussed by scholars of modern Chinese art. Similar to guohua, the association of which with lofty literati values and imperial eras was hotly debated at the beginning of the Republic of China (1912–1949), the art of sculpture – a category that has long been considered as funerary art, craft, or decorative art – and its relevance to modern China was also discussed by artists and intellectuals at that time. In early twentieth-century China, sculpture eventually gained a new status within the fine arts. This article argues that one important factor that promoted the changing perception of sculpture in the public sphere was the blossoming print culture and its connections with photography and exhibitions in Republican China. Print materials such as newspapers, newspaper supplements, pictorial magazines, and exhibition catalogs/pamphlets promoted the process of modernizing sculpture.

The study of ancient ceramics provides valuable information about
different aspects of past human behavior such as their trade and commerce, their
rituals, technologies as well as exploitation of the resources. Particle-induced X-ray
emission (PIXE) is a non-destructive analysis method used to study the thin decorative

coating of antique ceramics. 15 glazed fragments of Early Islamic Ceramics
from Hazara University Museum, Hazara University Mansehra, and Pakistan were
studied. We used Particle-induced X-ray emission spectroscopy (PIXE) to investigate

the metallic minerals in the pigments of glazed ceramics. The aim of the study
was to identify metals of mineral pigments from the Islamic Period ceramics and
concludes about the culture and civilization of the cited era.

This paper documents and offers translations for two sets of ancient, highly complex inscriptions readable as Chinese that were pecked into the rocks of Arizona and New Mexico an estimated 2,500 years ago. Here is what appears to be conclusive epigraphic evidence that Chinese explorers not only reached the Americas in pre-Columbian times but also interacted positively with Native populations, sharing both intellectual and cultural information.

The rubric of the presence of Buddhist sculpture in the absence of an actual deity represents an admirable aspect of Buddhist art, especially sculpture, where the best works have drawn on this paradox in an astounding fashion. An important element in the realization of this religious archetype is the Buddhist statues’ sublime poses. This article demonstrates the Buddhist posture hierarchy, based on a case study of a Tang-Dynasty Chinese Buddhist Bronze collected by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the posture of which is identified as lalitāsana: one leg pendant and the other bent horizontally. This article shows how this pose engendered various other compositional situations and postures popular in East Asia icon design and, moreover, that this sculpture might form part of an assemblage, where the pose indicates the central Buddha figure, to which all of the other figures are formally and doctrinally posed following a hierarchy. This article argues that Buddhist figures of different religious ranks are characterized by their pose and degree of movement. This research proves that the myriad forms of Buddhist postures and hierarchy have been devised to illustrate mythologies and philosophical, doctrinal, or social concepts, and their representations, in turn, have engendered other myths and beliefs.

This paper addresses the question of bio-politics that regulates and shapes people into different forms of life in today's societies, particularly in the post- 1989 neoliberal capitalist conditions that we can observe in China. I call it the aestheticization of neoliberal capitalism. My concern in this paper is with the aestheticization of the neoliberal capitalism that was manipulated and executed by the contemporary States. I shall discuss the double cycle of the use and consumption of bodies in the artistic labor through my reading of a contemporary Chinese artist Xu Bing (徐冰 1955-). The primary process of the uses of the bodies by the State, the polis, took us to the question of the forms of life under the dictate of the political economy as discussed by Giorgio Agamben, and the question as to how and why human life, through the uses of bodies, is shaped, measured, calculated, regulated and processed into various forms of life. In order to think the power of life or the pote...

This paper is a study I assisted Dr. Zhang（張永富） on the Tangut text of the Shousheng Sūtra（佛說壽生經）translated and engraved in the Yuan dynasty, including the partial preface and scriptures. The concept of Shousheng emerged during the Tang and Song dynasties. By burning paper money and chanting scriptures, people can repay their debts and obtain blessings, which has a profound impact on ancient Chinese folk beliefs. Lot No. 64③ and Lot No. 71 at the Debao Autumn Auction in 2014 were broken from the same Tangut script FoShuo Shousheng Sutra. Lot No. 64③ includes the preface and scriptures, and Lot No. 71 Including twelve zodiacs, prayer and a preface to the transmission of information. For the rest of the study, please refer to Dr. Zhang’s subsequent articles.Special thanks to Mr. Wei and Ms. Tang.

An in depth forensic examination of the origin, design and lineage of a historically important Chinese canopy bed built by a French diplomat in the 1850 - 1870.  In 1869 that diplomat was the target of a brutal assassination in the Tiensin Massacre.

On 8th March, the Dalai Lama gave the Chakrasamvara Empowerment, a tantric rite of initiation, in Dharamsala, in northern India; the ceremony is said to have been requested by Gandan Monastery in Ulaanbaatar. At the ceremony, slightly lower than the Dalai Lama's throne, was another throne or raised dais on

Akademievortrag, Heft XX, Herausgabe SAGW, Bern, 2011 Silvia Naef, Professorin für Kulturgeschichte der arabischen Welt an der Universität Genf, lädt die Lesenden zu einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit der modernen visuellen Kunst der arabischen Welt ein, die sich im gegenwärtigen Spannungsfeld von Globalisierung und lokaler Ausrichtung manifestiert. In ihrer Analyse der arabischen und islamischen Kunst beleuchtet sie sowohl die Ursprünge der seit nunmehr zwanzig Jahren anhaltenden okzidentalen Begeisterung für arabische und islamische Kunst als auch deren Einfluss auf die zentralen Entwicklungen innerhalb der regionalen Kunstszene.

One of the major problems of interpretation of earl y Indian history has been the inconsistencies between the Harappan (Indu s Valley) civilisation and the Rigvedic literature. Problems arise from th e fact that the Harappan Civilisation was at its peak around second millenni um BC (Allchin and Allchin, 1989 page 131). The period of creation of the Rigveda has also been put around 4000 to 2000 BC, though the writing down of the text has been dated to a much later period around 2000 BC or later. The Rigvedic literature and its subsequent developments have als o been in the Indian subcontinent. There has therefore been a strong tem ptation to connect the Harappans to the Vedic Civilisation. However, there are several problems with this association, most graphically portrayed i n the ‘horse problem’ (Thapar, 2003). Horses are integral to most Rigvedi c ritualistic customs while they are absent in the Harappan sites. There are several other problems also. We re-visit this controversy in...

Although it is difficult to reject emphatically the theory that Hundian, the legendary founder of Funan, came originally from India, the probability seems higher that he was of Southeast Asian origin. The itinerary of Suwu, a member of the royal family of Funan, to and from India in the early third century CE demonstrates the unfamiliarity between the two countries. In which case, the founding of Funan, the earliest known case of state formation in Southeast Asia, assumed to have taken place around the first century CE, and also its development into the center of the Southeast Asian trade network in the third century, must have been a result not of Indian influence but of developments taking place in Southeast Asia itself. The "Indianization" theory, in the sense that state formation in Southeast Asia took place after its contact with Indian civilization, thereby loses credibility

This article aims to present one of the most famous paintings of the worldrenowned Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", in a new light and to reveal the hidden messages in the artwork. To achieve the aforementioned goal, the following tasks were set: to research multilingual sources on the life and artworks of Katsushika Hokusai, to study the history of the spread of Christianity in Japan during that period and its influence on Hokusai's art, to combine the points of view of different authors on this matter. The methodological basis of the article is the methods of analysis, comparison, and combination of various materials. The research is based on multilingual literature studies, as a result of which the author advances her arguments that despite the fact that more than two centuries ago Christianity was banned in Japan Hokusai was well aware of biblical stories and through his paintings conveyed episodes related to Christianity, in particular, the Great Flood and the existence of angels. The article presents points of view not only of the author but also of other specialists.

Սույն հոդվածը նպատակ է հետապնդում նոր լույսի ներքո ներկայացնելու աշխարհահռչակ ճապոնացի նկարիչ Կացուշիկա Հոկուսայի ամենահայտնի նկարներից մեկը՝ «Կանագավայի մեծ ալիքը» և բացահայտելու նկարում առկա թաքնված հաղորդագրությունները։ Վերոշարադրյալ նպատակին հասնելու համար մեր առջև դրել ենք հետևյալ խնդիրները՝ հետազոտել բազմալեզու աղբյուրներ Կացուշիկա Հոկուսայի անձնական և ստեղծագործական կյանքի վերաբերյալ, ուսումնասիրել Ճապոնիայի տվյալ ժամանակաշրջանի քրիստոնեության տարածման պատմությունը և դրա ազդեցությունը Հոկուսայի արվեստի վրա, համադրել տարբեր հեղինակների տեսակետներ այս առնչությամբ։ Հոդվածի մեթոդաբանական հիմքը կազմում են վերլուծության, համեմատության, տարբեր նյութերի համադրման մեթոդները։ Հետազոտությունը հիմնված է բազմալեզու գրականության ուսումնասիրությունների վրա, որի արդյունքում հեղինակը առաջ է տանում սեփական հիմնավորումները, առ այն, որ չնայած այն հանգամանքին, որ ավելի քան երկու դար առաջ քրիստոնեության տարածումը արգելված էր Ճապոնիայում, այնուամենայնիվ, Հոկուսայը քաջատեղյակ է եղել աստվածաշնչյան պատմությունների մասին և իր նկարների միջոցով փոխանցել է քրիստոնեությանն առնչվող դրվագներ, մասնավորապես, Համաշխարհային մեծ ջրհեղեղի և հրեշտակների գոյության մասին։ Հոդվածում ներկայացվել են ոչ միայն հոդվածագրի, այլև այլ մասնագետների դիտարկումները։

В данной статье поставлена цель представить в новом свете одну из самых известных картин всемирно известного японского художника Кацусика Хокусая «Большая волна в Канагаве» и выявить скрытые послания в картине. Для достижения указанной цели поставлены следующие задачи: исследовать разноязычные источники о жизни и творчестве Кацусика Хокусая, изучить историю распространения христианства в Японии в тот период и его влияние на искусство Хокусая, объединить точки зрения разных авторов по этому вопросу. Методологическую основу статьи составляют методы анализа, сравнения и объединения различных материалов. Исследование основано на изучении многоязычной литературы, в результате чего автор выдвигает собственные аргументы о том, что хотя проповедование христианства в Японии было запрещено более двух столетий назад, однако Хокусай был хорошо знаком с библейскими историями и через свои картины передал эпизоды, связанные с христианством, в частности, Всемирный потоп и существование ангелов. В статье представлены точки зрения не только автора, но и других деятелей культуры.

In the West, the 1970s were the decade of rapid sexual liberalization. Similarly, in state-socialist Poland new approaches toward sex and nudity also gained momentum. Female nudes started being printed in the popular press and displayed in gallery rooms. Simultaneously, early feminist artists such as Natalia LL, Teresa Murak, and Ewa Partum experimented with nudity to question gendered discourses and social norms. This article compares popular nude photography exhibitions with the works of women artists to analyze two approaches toward female nudity that developed in 1970s Poland. Thus, it showcases the ambiguities surrounding the project of socialist sexual modernity and highlights confl icting visions of femininity and liberation.

The nomadic culture and art of the Mongol Empire was influenced by a diverse range of traditions and religions from various regions. Throughout their history, nomadic cultures have always maintained extensive connections with foreign civilizations.