Southeast Asian Art Research Articles

Making Time

Time is passing quickly; as I write this, I realize that I am more than halfway through my tenure as editor-in-chief of Art Journal. I'd like to welcome the new editor designate, Lane Relyea, who brings a wealth of experience in working with magazines, a deep engagement with contemporary art, and a brilliant critical voice. I'd also like to welcome two exciting additions to the editorial board of Art Journal: Salo ni Mathur, a specialist in Southeast Asian art from UCLA, and Doryun Chong, an associate curator of contemporary art at MoMA.

ABIA South and Southeast Asian art and archaeology index: v.2, Part 1 and v.2, Part 2

ABIA South and Southeast Asian art and archaeology index: v.2, Part 1 and v.2, Part 2

Prambanan: Sculpture and Dance in Ancient Java. A Study in Dance Iconography (review)

Reviewed by: Prambanan: Sculpture and Dance in Ancient Java. A Study in Dance Iconography Astri Wright Prambanan: Sculpture and Dance in Ancient Java. A Study in Dance Iconography. Alessandra Iyer. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 1998. xii, 211 pp. ISBN 974-8434-12-5. Alessandra Iyer's Prambanan: Sculpture and Dance brings together under one cover elaborations on several of the author's articles on dance in Java published in academic journals since the mid-1990s. This small, compact, and attractively packaged book organizes the results of Iyer's doctoral and post-doctoral research on the history, iconography, and practice of dance in Java into a consecutive narrative. Drawing on a combination of South and Southeast Asian art history, dance history, and recent theory in dance studies in general, Iyer presents her material here to a broader public, with interests (both academic and applied) in dance research, anthropology, and art history in Southeast Asia and beyond. In just over 160 pages, divided into Part 1 and 2, Iyer offers the following. Part 1 includes an introductory chapter of disciplinary reflections and theoretical-methodological navigations; a second chapter describing the Prambanan temple complex, its main temple Chandi Shiva with its Ramayana and dance reliefs, interspersed with reliefs of deities and auspicious symbols, and a discussion of the history of restorations; a third chapter discussing the dance reliefs and their dance iconography in greater detail, giving a more detailed introduction to the Indian Natyasastra's karana dance sequences as tentatively restored by Indian scholars; a fourth chapter discussing the Natyasastra's (sanskrit dance treatise) possible presence in ancient Java, textually or dance-practice-wise, and a short fifth chapter with concluding remarks. This text, interspersed with photographic and line-drawn images, is followed by Part 2, which begins with a sixth chapter that is really a catalog of the 62 dance reliefs. These are located on the outside of the Chandi Shiva balustrade (on the inside of which is carved the Ramayana series of [End Page 174] reliefs). In this section, Iyer gives us relief-by-relief photographs and descriptions, each matched up with its corresponding karana number and line-drawing taken from Subrahmanyam's 1978 reconstruction of the Natyasastra's sections on karana. This is followed by an Appendix in which Iyer's analysis is summarized in note form in parallel columns; footnotes to the text; a glossary of dance terminology; and the bibliography. Iyer's analysis begins with the riddle noted by nearly everyone who has written about the Prambanan over the last sixty years: what might have been the sources of inspiration and practice depicted in the relief series of dancers and musicians on the outer balustrade of Chandi Shiva (Shiva temple), most of them suggesting the difficult-to-substantiate relationship between the Natyasastra (an ancient Indian body of teachings about dance techniques, postures and iconography put into writing some time between the first century B.C.E. and the fourth century C.E.). Iyer dismisses earlier scholars' positings of this very connection as intuitive but unsubstantiated by quantifiable analysis (p. 99), even while noting that Suhamir, in his 1948 report on the completed Dutch-initiated restorations of the Prambanan, knew enough about this Indian dance tradition to identify the reliefs as depicting angahara, sequences involving more than one karana (p. 13). Then, through an intermittently acro-baticanalysis that rests on a painstaking adaptation of Indian dance scholar Padma Subrahmanyan's reorganization of the Natyasastra to the reliefs in Java, Iyer concludes that these Chandi Shiva reliefs (their original sequence also no longer identifiable), can "unerringly be identified as sculptures showing karana, the units of dance movement described in the Sanskrit text on dance and drama known from India as Natyasastra" (p. 11). In her introduction, Iyer writes how, upon undertaking her research, she realized that she was "studying an obsolete non Western dance form which, if at all, had only elicited interest in past times in terms of finding out whether it was an indication of the presence of Indian dance styles in ancient Java rather than for its own intrinsic value" (p. 7). While this seems a somewhat reductionist view of (among others cited) Claire Holt's varied...

Dictionary of south and southeast Asian art

From abhayamadra through zoomorphic, this is an essential dictionary for anyone stepping into the fascinating world of South and Southeast Asian art. Now with over 1,300 entries and 112 line illustrations, this revised and expanded edition makes a handy reference for travelers and residents, students, museum goers, and general readers. Explanations are succinct and easy to understand. Entries range from terms encountered in South and Southeast Asian history, religion, mythology, and literature, to those specific to art and architecture. Words are drawn from the diverse religious traditions of the region, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, and Taoism, and from the countries of the region, including Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

K. Van Kooij, E. Raven and M. Klokke (ed.): ABIA South and Southeast Asian art and archaeology index (Volume One), xxxiv, 597 pp. London and New York: Kegan Paul International in association with the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden and Amsterdam, 1999. £95.00, $161.50.

K. Van Kooij, E. Raven and M. Klokke (ed.): ABIA South and Southeast Asian art and archaeology index (Volume One), xxxiv, 597 pp. London and New York: Kegan Paul International in association with the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden and Amsterdam, 1999. £95.00, $161.50.

Following the textile trail: acquisition of South and Southeast Asian art books from an Australian perspective

Australia has traditionally adopted a Eurocentric outlook which has begun to be modified in the last decade by reappraisal of the country’s location in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian National Gallery has only recently developed its collections of the textiles of South and Southeastern Asia and of related research materials, yet it already accommodates the world’s leading public collection of Indian textiles exported to Southeast Asia. Acquisition of both contemporary and antiquarian library materials has been complicated by the range of languages and cultures involved, the history of the textile trade, colonial publishing, and the problems encountered in dealing with a varying degree of organisation in local publishing and distribution. Nonetheless, with patience, as a result of travelling, by means of networking, and with the help of distributors, it has proved possible to build a worthwhile collection without depending too exclusively on Western publications.

Resources for the conservation of Southeast Asian art

There is a desperate and urgent need to conserve works of art and documentary materials in Southeast Asia, where the rigours of the climate and the effects of war and political unrest have ravaged the cultural heritage. An initiative launched by Cornell University in Cambodia, with the intention of preserving documentary materials and training Cambodian librarians in conservation techniques, may result in the development of a badly-needed regional centre which would complement the National Archives of the Philippines, and the Regional Conservation Centres established by IFLA on the Pacific rim, in Australia and Japan. Information and expertise are available from UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICCROM, ICOM, the Getty Conservation Institute, IIC, IADA, IPC, IFLA, ICA, and other international and US organisations.

The lotus transcendent: Indian and Southeast Asian art from the Samuel Eilenberg Collection

The lotus transcendent: Indian and Southeast Asian art from the Samuel Eilenberg Collection

Textiles of Southeast Asia: tradition, trade and transformation

Textiles provide a visual history of a country's culture and crafting traditions in a way few other things can accomplish. In Textiles of Southeast Asia, Dr. Robyn Maxwell provides the definitive work on Southeast Asian textiles. Traditional textiles are one of the most widely collected and important categories of Southeast Asian art. Using an extensive range of locally produced raw materials and an astonishing array of techniques-including applique, weaving, batik and embroidery-the textiles of Southeast Asia are astonishing in their versatility and originality. Textiles are used to fashion everything from everyday clothing to sacred and ceremonial costumes, shrouds and wrapping cloths, hangings, banners and ritual regalia-all of which are represented and explained in Textiles of Southeast Asia. This authoritative text focuses on the changing relationship between indigenous Southeast Asian traditions and the outside influences continuing to be brought to the area, which change the nature of the region's textile traditions. This book considers the various ways Southeast Asian textile artisans reacted over the centuries to the steady stream of new and powerful ideas and raw materials arriving from India, China, the Islamic world and Europe. A detailed and definitive resource, Textiles of Southeast Asia is a welcome addition to the field of textiles.

Early Mughal painting: (the Polsky lectures in Indian and Southeast Asian art and Archaeology.) By Milo Cleveland Beach, pp. viii, 164, front., 92 illus., map. Cambridge, Mass, and London, Harvard University Press for the Asia Society, 1987. £23.95.

Early Mughal painting: (the Polsky lectures in Indian and Southeast Asian art and Archaeology.) By Milo Cleveland Beach, pp. viii, 164, front., 92 illus., map. Cambridge, Mass, and London, Harvard University Press for the Asia Society, 1987. £23.95. - Volume 121 Issue 1

Pramod Chandra: On the study of Indian art. (The Polsky Lectures in Indian and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology.) [v], 134 pp., front., 11 plates Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, (for the Asia Society), 1983, £11.

Pramod Chandra: On the study of Indian art. (The Polsky Lectures in Indian and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology.) [v], 134 pp., front., 11 plates Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, (for the Asia Society), 1983, £11. - Volume 48 Issue 2