East Asian Art Research Articles

El Whispering Clouds, Echoing Mountains: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Gonzalo Ariza’s Lyrical Landscapes

This essay reevaluates the art of Gonzalo Ariza, a twentieth-century Colombian painter renowned for landscapes that merge Eastern and Western traditions. Challenging simplistic categorizations of his oeuvre as an “appropriated Japanese style,” my research argues that Ariza’s vision of landscape transformed into a contemplative attitude towards local Andean highlands after his return from Japan in 1938. It contextualizes the challenges Ariza faced when drawing inspiration from East Asian art amidst mid-twentieth-century modernist currents and political circumstances, shedding light on the critical narratives that marginalized his work and unraveling the complexities of Colombian modernism within a global art discourse. Building upon Warburg's concept of dynamograms to describe “pathos formula” in landscapes, this study argues that Ariza’s work transcends cultural boundaries, which links both traditions through the subtle emotions evoked by cloud-shrouded mountains, eliciting a universal appreciation for nature’s mystical splendor. Through cross-cultural comparison and an ecocritical lens, my essay delves into the interplay of transcultural exchange, nationalist identity, andrepresentations of nature in Ariza’s artworks, revealing his nostalgic proto-environmental consciousness. In doing so, it raises raising questions about the transformative power of landscape art to reflect and influence societal values and perspectives on nature within contemporary dialogues on environmental stewardship and the negotiation of cultural identity through art.

Otto Fischer (22 Mai 1886 — 9 April 1948) Veröffentlichungen zur asiatischen Kunst

Otto Fischer was born into a merchant family in Reutlingen on May 22, 1886. From 1904 he studied law, then art history in Tbingen, Munich, Vienna and Berlin and received his doctorate in 1907 with the dissertation Altdeutsche Malerei in Salzburg under Heinrich Wlfflin in Berlin. After study trips to Italy and France, he lived in Munich from 1909 to 1913 as a private scholar and was in close contact with the young artists of the Neue Knstler-Vereinigung Mnchen, which developed into the Blaue Reiter. In 1913, he habilitated in Gttingen with the thesis Die chinesische Malerei, which was published in a revised form as Die Chinesische Landschaftsmalerei. After serving in the war as a volunteer in 19151918, he was Director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (now the Staatsgalerie) in 19211927, where he distinguished himself with exhibitions such as Neue Deutsche Kunst (1924) and Schwbische Malerei des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (1925). In 19251926, he undertook a research trip to China, Japan, Java and Bali, which he described in two books. In 19271938, he was Director of the Kunstmuseum Basel and taught as a Professor Extraordinary at the university. In 1938, he retired to Ascona as a private scholar. He died in Basel on 4 April 1948. Fischers main areas of work and research were Old German painting and East Asian artthe fields to which, as can be seen already from his two dissertations, he applied himself in equal measure. His publications on German art are easily accessible, whereas his publications on the art of China, Japan and Southeast Asia reached only a comparatively small circle. In addition to his books on Chinese painting and sculpture, his work on Chinese art theory and Chinese stone rubbings as well as Chinese graphic art (color prints) deserve special mention. Fischers many-sided, sometimes controversial activities have been acknowledged several times in recent years (cf. literature on Fischer); the aim of this small contribution is to make Fischers publications on East Asian art known in their entirety. The material has been recorded after the scholars autopsy and is partly annotated. Perhaps the compilation will stimulate an art historian to appreciate Fischers contributions to East Asian art history in terms of content.

Reinterpreting Asiatic Representation in the Pictorial Space of Whistler’s Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks

The presence of East Asian decorative art and objects were prevalent during the 19th and 20th century, and these exquisitely refined objects inspired many artists to include them in their paintings. Among the artists who sought them for aesthetic innovation and perfection through East Asian art during the Aesthetic Movement, James Abbot McNeill Whistler was one who felt the most influence of East Asian art, and most successfully demonstrated and incorporated them into his own paintings. The oil painting Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks is a representational piece that displays Whistler’s taste and understanding towards East Asian art, through which the artist reveled in the joy of portraying pure aesthetic beauty, showing his enthusiasm for Oriental art. This paper approaches through a visual analysis of Whistler’s painting, The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, to explicate the entanglements of Japonisme elements and blue and white porcelains, as well as the fantasized image of East Asia and China and the commonly stereotyped femininity associated with these objects.

Deleuze and the Kyoto School II

The aim of this paper is to bring Gilles Deleuze and the Kyoto School into an imaginary conversation around the idea of philosophy as a way of life, or what I call ethico-aesthetics. I first show how ethico-aesthetics in the Kyoto School modernizes the traditional notion of geidō, or ways of art, through the language of continental philosophy. Even though the discourse they construct in this respect remains less rigorous than that of the other domains of philosophy with which they engage, the ethico-aesthetic concepts of Nishida Kitarō, Nishitani Keiji, and Ōhashi Ryōsuke provide a starting point from which we might begin to piece together Deleuze’s seemingly random, but persistent and ultimately significant references to East Asian art and philosophy. I argue that Deleuze’s references to the Zen sage and poet-painter—in addition to his uses of the Stoics, Spinoza, and Nietzsche—are necessary to fully understand the immanent goal of his ethico-aesthetics. I conclude by demonstrating that, although there is no evidence that Deleuze was familiar with the Kyoto School, he unwittingly offers more complete and contemporary solutions to the ethico-aesthetic issues presented by some of its key thinkers.

Scrolls of Poem-Paintings by Buddhist Monks of the Late Goryeo and Early Joseon : Records of the “Scrolls of Poems” on the Studio Name and Their Significance

This article examines written records of the now-lost poem-painting scrolls created by Buddhist monks who were active in the late Goryeo and early Joseon (the fourteenth through fifteenth centuries) in order to reconstruct their artistic exercises and reassess their significance in the history of East Asian art. The literati painters of Yuan China reserved pictorial space in landscape painting for narrative or descriptive purposes. In contrast, the Buddhist monk-painters of the late Goryeo and early Joseon depicted natural features in their landscape paintings, accompanied by poems, as encrypted codes precisely corresponding to the characters of their studio names, or ho 號 (Ch. hao). Yuan’s Shiwu Qinggong 石屋淸珙 (1272~1352), who officially conferred the dharma to Goryeo’s Taego Bou 太古普愚 (1301~1382), proposed “a single thatched hut in the depth of the retreats,” or yi an shenyin 一菴深隱, as exemplary of Chan Buddhist paintings. The written records of the monks’ handscroll paintings suggest that the monks of the late Goryeo and early Joseon painted landscapes by combining the motifs of a thatched hut and of the depth of the retreat with depictions of natural features that signified their studio names. While the monk’s studio name was the central theme of the painting, each character of his name was also rendered pictorially. The records further testify that Goryeo monks played a critical role in introducing to Korea the styles of the Liu Daoquan 劉道權 and Li-Guo 李郭 schools, which gained tremendous traction in the early Joseon art scene, as the literati regarded highly of ink paintings by monks. It has been widely noted that early Joseon paintings contributed to the development of the paintings of a scholar’s studio in Muromachi Japan. The monks’ poempaintings themed on their studio names further attest to the significant impact that early Joseon paintings made over not just the style but also subjects, form, and content of Japanese paintings. Even if many works of premodern Korean painting are now lost, written records about them still survive. Close examinations of such textual sources can help illuminate the historical trajectory of Korean poem-painting scrolls in the context of East Asian art history.

Yang Enlin (1929–2014)

This article introduces Yang Enlin, whose scholarly life was dedicated to building and deepening the cultural understanding between China and Germany. Born in Yunnan, China, in 1929, he graduated from the Central University of Governance (Guoli zhongyang zhengzhi daxue 國立中央政治大學) in Nanjing in 1948. To continue his studies, he then moved to Switzerland and later Germany. From the 1950s, he lived in East Berlin, first working as a translator, and then, after doctoral studies at Humboldt University, at the East Asian Art Collection of the Pergamon Museum. During his tenure at this institution from 1959 to 1994, he not only contributed to the museum’s mission in the form of exhibitions and catalogues, but also continued his research in the areas of Chinese art history and German studies. He, moreover, kept working on the translation of Chinese literature into German and was teaching Chinese language, calligraphy, and painting.

대교약졸(大巧若拙)의 의미 고찰 – 철농 이기우(鐵農李基雨)의 전각예술(篆刻藝術)을 중심으로 –

Taoist doctrine had a great influence on Chinese art, and as a result, East Asian art appreciated the value of “Inaction nature(無爲自然)”. Inaction nature(無 爲自然) is related to Laozi's “Conforms to naturalness(道法自然)”, which is the doctrine that connects with Laozi's “The Greatest Skill Seems to Be Clumsy(大巧 若拙)”, it aims for poor beauty of “Inaction(無爲)” that goes beyond outstanding techniques. Laozi pursued the greatest skill that matched the nature of Tao and it is the skill of Tao(道之巧). Jol(拙) means ‘clumsy’ that is natural without any decoration. In order to ‘seem to be clumsy’, a skilled technique of “What the heart wishes one's hands accomplish(得心應手)” is required. Lee, Ki-woo(1921-1993) was a modern Korean calligrapher and engraver. He studied to Muho Lee Han-bok and Wichang Oh Se-chang, and tried to promote the artistry of engraving and calligraphy in the dark age of culture. By combining modern aesthetics on the foundation of “Clumsy and plain(古拙素朴)”, he boldly pioneered not only calligraphy but also the field of engraving, which was like a wasteland. He expanded the world of engraving indefinitely not only with stone engraving but also with various media. This paper sheds light on Lee Ki-woo‘s view of art, which was rose to the level of “What the heart wishes one's hands accomplish(得心應手)” and pursued “Purifying the heart(心齋)” and “sitting oblivion(坐忘)” and then reached to the level of “The Greatest Skill Seems to Be Clumsy(大巧若拙)”. I hope that this paper could be a cornerstone for restarting research on Lee Ki-woo, which has been sluggish.

Culturally Responsible Approach to Teaching East Asian Art in the Classroom

Drawing from the rich philosophical traditions of East Asia, we redress the questions and inquiry methods of teaching about East Asian artists and their works in the classroom, rejecting European White master frameworks when appreciating the arts of East Asia. To illustrate our approach, we have chosen two contemporary Asian artists, Do-ho Suh and Wou-Ki Zao, and we discuss why and how European White pedagogy has limitations in appreciating these works. As an alternative, we focus on a holistic lens of viewing East Asian artistic expressions, which is one of the key methods to understand artworks by many East Asian artists (Sullivan & Vainker, 2018; Stanley-Baker, 2014). To make East Asian art curriculum culturally responsive and authentic, we suggest that art educators adopt the holistic approach of teaching the East Asian art, in which art is seamlessly weaved with worldview, culture, and philosophy as one.

Realism Relativized: A Cultural-Historical Approach to What Images Capture

It is sometimes assumed that there can be a unified and universal analysis of pictorial realism, but this seem implausible. Realism has been understood differently at different times in Western art history art, and art-making traditions elsewhere often aspire to forms of realism that contrast with forms operative in the West. Such variations are presented here, with examples from European, African, and East Asian art. Contact between cultural traditions is also considered. Within analytic aesthetics, some definitions of realism are designed to accommodate cultural diversity, but they face challenges. Leading definitions are critically examined. For example, there are theories that focus on entrenchment, visual skills, and informativeness. None of these constructs captures what realist systems share in common, and none provides an ideal framework for explicitly describing how such systems differ. An alternative theory of pictorial realism is presented. On that theory, realist systems each aim to capture aspects of reality, but they focus on different aspects and provide different manners by which those aspects may be captured.

동양화에서 색채를 배우다: 월러스 스티븐스의 습작 시절

This paper purports to deliver a discovery by the author regarding a piece of work in Wallace Stevens'' juvenilia. It thus also purports to present an evidence on the pervasiveness of East Asian influence in the development of British and American modernist poetry. Stevens has not been often discussed as closely associated with East Asian art and literature. However, “Colors,” a short poem written in 1909, reveals that the poet was impressed by the use of vivid colors in Chinese and Japanese visual arts and tried to imitate the effects in words in his own work. Particularly, this paper discloses that the words in “Colors” have come from a book by Laurence Binyon called Painting in the Far East. Binyon was the curator of East Asian art at the British Museum at that time, and he was the person who introduced emerging Imagist poets such as Ezra Pound and H. D. to East Asian art and literature. His book, first published in 1908, contained one of the earliest accounts of the history of art in East Asia written in Europe and North America. Stevens did not personally know Binyon, and the fact that he obtained the book and read it corroborates the thesis that many young poets, at either end of the Atlantic, were interested in East Asian art early in the twentieth century,

Shakespeare and Asian Cultural Diversity: Encounters between East Asia and Southeast Asia on Shakespearean Stage

This study discusses the ways that Shakespeare’s stories have captured the imaginations of East Asians and Southeast Asians on stage. Encounters between East Asia and Southeast Asia on Shakespearean stage place an emphasis on relevance and inclusivity within the stories. Their encounters are designed to speak to the extraordinary moments that call for multicultural and multilingual Asian productions. This study presents as exemplary cases two productions: Desdemona (2000) and Lear Dreaming (2012). Their retellings of Othello and King Lear are suggestive of what human beings resort to in order to maintain power over others, but at the same time give prominence to psychological and humane themes. These two Asian versions spring from the interest in stories about powerful families in conflict who are driven by ambitions, loyalties, and vendettas, while making decisions that affect each other. Desdemona and Lear Dreaming reinvent Shakespearean stories being told with new Asian twists and turns. Their stage practice is bound up with the ultimate examination of how Asian performing artists and Shakespearean characters are intertwined. Encounters between East Asian and Southeast Asian art forms have a direct bearing on how Asian cultural diversity is depicted on stage. They value the traditional contents of Asian performance styles, but at the same time go beyond classical values by employing modern technology such as visual and graphic arts. The integration of traditional and modern staging modes is set to redefine what Shakespeare’s stories mean to our own time and how they are relevant to contemporary audiences.

The Discourse of Guohua in Wartime Shanghai

Abstract This article looks at artists’ engagement with artistic activities carried out in wartime Shanghai, with a particular focus on guohua (lit., ‘national painting’). Drawing on primary sources such as archival materials, diaries, paintings, magazines and newspapers, it explores the layered meanings attached to and social functions of guohua and the institutional structure of the Shanghai art world from the gudao (solitary island) period to the advent of full occupation from December 1941 onwards. As a symbol of Chinese elite culture, guohua continued to dominate the Shanghai art world with support from Wang Jingwei’s regime and the occupying Japanese, and was deemed the root of East Asian art and one of the crucial pillars of the East Asian renaissance in the discourse of the new order of East Asian art. Through closely examining the discourse of guohua in occupied Shanghai, this article advances our understanding of the production and consumption of art in wartime Shanghai by going beyond the paradigmatic binary of ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’.

Narratives on a portrait of Japanese Prince Shōtoku (c.573–622): East Asian Buddhist networks in the royal painting

ABSTRACT The painting Tōhon miei 唐本御影 is allegedly the earliest portrait of Japanese Prince Shōtoku (c.573–622), traditionally regarded as the first royal patron of Buddhism. This article will discuss this particular portrait from three viewpoints: questions concerning the identity of its artist, the painting style, and its socio-historical background. Each of these three facets demonstrates cultural interaction between ancient Korea and Japan. In this light, this article begins from an examination of whose brush actually painted it, followed by an analysis of its style and the Buddhist elements of this painting. These then lead to the third part of the research, which discusses its historical context in ancient East Asia. The conclusion sheds light on the complexity of cultural interactions in East Asian art through this case of the symbolic figure of Prince Shōtoku. The processes of conception, mutual learning, and reinterpretation between the two cultures are crystallised in this artistic product of royal portraiture.

What Constitutes an International Art Center?

What constitutes an international art center? To answer this question, I analyze the auction sales of fine art for 10 primary art markets; the results suggest four major findings: First, an expansion in the art market contributes to a more than proportional increase in art auction sales. Second, an increased GDP growth rate is positively associated with total auction sales, which indicates that GDP growth rate is an important contributing factor in the rise of East Asian art markets and the decline of Western art markets over the past four years. Third, the development of insurance and financial services sectors has a positive impact on auction sales, suggesting the importance of developing market infrastructures. Finally, the number of dominant art auction houses has a positive relationship with total auction sales, which reveals the statistically significant influence of market structure on the industry.

Documentation of Indo-Islamic architecture built along a 16th-century highway

An internationally recognized presence in the documentation of Indic and South East Asian art and architecture, the Center for Art and Archaeology (CA&A) of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) conducted a documentation project in 2007 that explored an interesting range of built heritage arrayed along a 16th-century highway, the Agra – Lahore route, laid by the Mughal rulers of India. The stretch of the Agra – Lahore highway this project traced, crossed two north Indian states of independent India – Haryana and Punjab, and documented built heritage that survives on that road. The documentation revealed edifices unique to a travel environment including Caravansarai (rest house), Kos-Minars (distance markers), bridges, stepped-wells and Bagh (pleasure gardens) built under the patronage of Mughal elites. The project emphasized the importance of identifying the strands of cultural heritage and the processes of documenting them. A major aim of such documentation was to aid preservation of the monuments themselves by providing critical information for future decisions.

Alanna Thain. Bodies in Suspense: Time and Affect in Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. 328 pp.

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe CI ReviewAlanna Thain. Bodies in Suspense: Time and Affect in Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. 328 pp.Rick WarnerRick Warner Search for more articles by this author Rick Warner is associate professor of film and Kenan Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is coeditor with Colin MacCabe and Kathleen Murray of True to the Spirit: Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity (2011) and with Gregory Flaxman and Elena Oxman of The Film-Philosophy Reader (forthcoming). His essays have appeared in several edited collections, as well as in New Review of Film and Television Studies, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Adaptation, Critical Quarterly, Post-Script, The Cine-Files, Senses of Cinema, La Furia Umana, and Journal of Popular Film and Television. His writing has focused on such topics as the essay film, slow cinema, film performance, New Hollywood cinema of the 1970s, East Asian art cinema, surrealism, “old” versus “new” media, and screen-based installation art. His first book is Godard and the Essay Film: A Form That Thinks (2018). He is currently working on a monograph that examines “contemplative” styles in global art cinema from 1945 to the present.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 45, Number 3Spring 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702600 Views: 200Total views on this site © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Taiwanese Water and Korean Ink: Contemporary Ink Painting in Taiwan and Korea

Contemporary art in Korea and Taiwan is influenced by two historical contexts: the acceptance of Western modernization and the progress of nationalism. These trends contradicted each other and thus brought about ideological conflicts in the art world of both countries. Under these circumstances, both art worlds realigned East Asian art practice in order to deviate from Japanese influences. Ink paintings of Taiwan and Korea have been influenced by the traditional discourse of both historically orthodox Chinese paintings, and East Asian nationalism in early modern times. Meanwhile, the consideration of “ink” and “painting” as separate and contradictory concepts was the result of a realignment of Oriental painting in the contemporary arts.

Jørn Utzon's synthesis of Chinese and Japanese architecture in the design for Bagsværd Church

In his essay of 1983, ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’, Kenneth Frampton referred to the Bagsværd Church as a primary exemplar, briefly citing the architect's representation of ‘the Chinese pagoda roof’ in this project, to emphasise the importance of crosscultural inspiration in the creation of ‘critical regionalism’. Peter Myers followed Frampton in his 1993 ‘Une histoire inachevée’, arguing for the significant role that Chinese architecture played as a source for Utzon's Bagsværd Church design and further variations on the theme of Chinese and Japanese exemplars on Utzon's work follows. Françoise Fromonot established the importance of the 1925 edition of the Yingzao-fashi (State Building Standard, first published in 1103 ad) and Johannes Prip-Møller's 1937 Chinese Buddhist Monasteries for Utzon; Philip Drew pointed out the significance of the work of Chinese writer Lin Yutang (1895–1976) and historian Osvald Sirén (1879–1966) as important channels through which Utzon perceived East Asian art and architecture; while in 2002, Richard Weston suggested Das Japanische Wohnhaus (1935), written by Japanese architect Tetsuro Yoshida (1894–1956), as a formational influence in Utzon's early perception of Japanese building culture. However, none of these works attempt to clarify the precise role that Chinese and Japanese precedents play in Utzon's architectural career. Two more recent studies, by Philip Goad and Michael Asgaard Andersen, have confirmed the role of Chinese architecture in Utzon's church design and have introduced new evidence and details, but there are still unanswered questions about the exact nature of these influences. This article attempts to address the detailed process of Utzon's cross-cultural practices for his design of the Bagsværd Church in order to reveal how Utzon interpreted specific ideas, ideals, and artefacts from East Asian building culture.

‘Islamic Art Curation in Perspective: A Comparison with East Asian Models through the Case of the Leeum Samsung Museum’

With the development of a global museum culture since the eighties, called ‘curationism’ by David Balzer, the question of how to show ancient art both in newly founded institutions and in refurbished historic displays, is more than ever relevant. As much as contemporary art, artistic heritage participates in the new cultural discourse defining nations and communities, channelled through world-class museums and galleries. In that context, the Islamic artistic traditions gained tremendous visibility, as venues like the Museum of the Islamic Art in Doha or the Louvre’s new scenography in Paris, put these traditions on the forefront of the international stage. This article examines this museology in transcultural perspective, through a comparison between Islamic and Korean ceramics installations in the renovated Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and in the Leeum, in Seoul. The former privileges an archaeological narrative, the latter an aesthetic phenomenological approach. In revealing a qualitative asymmetry between the exhibitory practices in the areas of Islamic and East Asian art, this comparison allows for further discussion about museological issues such as the tension between didacticism and aesthetics, or the competitive relationship between architecture, design, and art in the displays’ space. Ultimately, the comparison posits East Asian experimentalism as a model from which to draw inspiration for reinventing the curation of Islamic art.

A comparative study of the influence of political systems on the art markets of East Asia and China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to define and characterise the precise nature of these cultural systems and their resulting impact on the respective art and artists of each territory, by ascertaining the impact on those systems of their respective government and governance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on three approaches to art market modelling. All three are based on political ideologies. The first, which typifies the art markets of Western Europe and the USA, is predicated on a Pluralist and Neo-Liberal ideology. The others correspond to the systems of government in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.FindingsIt has been shown in this paper that political systems and their accompanying ideology, born of cultural preferences, have impacted on the art markets of China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. It has been demonstrated that all four markets are employing variants of the international norm.Research limitations/implicationsThe art that is exported from East Asia will only be accepted by East Asian national markets when East Asian art markets exercise a majority influence on emerging and transitional markets. It is not the intention of this paper to pursue this thought beyond the possibility that it may occur.Practical implicationsThe ineluctable conclusion is, therefore, that the global art market is moving towards a bipolar affair.Social implicationsThis paper also suggests the disengagement of East Asian and Chinese “culture” and art from a global (western) norm and production and consumption of national culture in East Asia by East Asians.Originality/valueThe paper looks (for the first time) at the direct (and subliminal) influence of political systems on art markets and the consequential effects of political ideology on the art markets of East Asia and China. The paper arrives at a series of precise definitions for the way that these art markets operate.