Chinese Art

Review of John Boardman, The Relief Plaques of Eastern Eurasia and China. The ‚Ordos Bronzes', Peter the Great's Treasure, and their kin. BAR S2146. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010 and Ulf Jäger/Sascha Kahnsteiner. Ancient Metalwork from the Black Sea to China in the Borowski Collection. Ruhpolding/Mainz: Franz Phillip Rutzen, 2011.

Review:
"Liu Yang’s catalogue for the terracotta warriors…is an outstanding contribution to the literature on the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi as well as a beautifully illustrated record of the seminal objects from the Terracotta Warriors Museum. Readers will not be disappointed: China’s Terracotta Warriors is much more than yet another book about China’s most glorious excavation site"―Nancy Steinhardt, Orientations

"The extensively illustrated catalogue, one of the most detailed overviews of the Qin and the First Emperor yet published, is vital for anyone even remotely interested in this pivotal period in Chinese art, culture and history."―Martin Barnes Lorber, Asian Art

"The Minneapolis catalogue stands out as one of the most informative and groundbreaking in the mass of books on the terracotta warriors. Within the plethora of books about the First Emperor of China and the terracotta soldiers placed at his tomb, this volume is exceptional in its placing of the First Emperor in his context—a young ruler of a vassal state of questionable 'barbarian' influences forging an empire out of the ruins of an old world, a world he conquered with a invincible army and governed with an iron fist." —Chao-Hui Jenny Liu, China Review International

"This dazzling catalogue by Curator Liu Yang traces the development of the Qin state from the 9th century BCE to the reign of the First Emperor, through an array of sculpted works and architectural remains from Shaanxi province....Written by an internationally renowned cast of scholars, the volume features detailed chapters of manageable length, making it accessible to the undergraduates but also relevant to advanced researchers.....Overall, this is a much-needed update on a well-trodden subjects." —A.R.Miller, Choice

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff, attributed to Qiao Zhongchang, has been long celebrated as a major achievement of early Chinese literati painting. Nevertheless, the lifelike portraiture of Su Shi and the depiction of an actual site, as well as the contemporary colophons, all point to a memorial function for the scroll. The early provenance of this handscroll indicates that Liang Shicheng, the eunuch at Emperor Huizong's court, was the one who commissioned it. The painting bears witness to the appropriation of the Li Gonglin style in the late Northern Song court.

This thesis compares Art Movement (New Wave Art) in China with that in Korea in 1980s. Although both of them arise around the same time, there are huge differences between them in that Abstract Expressionism and Realism, and a ideological emancipation and a pro-democracy movement. 
  Art movements of the two countries reflect reality and oppose to existing traditional art. Comparing character, space and time in work of a Chinese artist whose name is Wang Guangyi, Frozen North Pole No.1 and work of a Korean artist whose name is
Min Junggi, Conversation, it turns out that they have western surrealism language in common.
Surrealism language which is represented by Giorgio De Chirico, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali is manifested by artists of China and Korea not only in expressions of character and space-time but also in application of collage. Focusing on this point, this paper deals with how surrealism could be absorbed and presented in painting of China and Korea, what the similarities and differences are and what roles of the times and surrealism language.
Artists of China and Korea intend to show the reality that is being faced by using surrealism language. They express their thought about reality, either directly or indirectly. Although aspect of visual language has changed, it is the result of following the stream of times. Artists who reflect reality into their works contribute to establish a basis of modernity of contemporary art.
This study examines whether the common denominator which is found in Art Movements of both countries in 1980s is certainly surrealism language, and finally ruminates on the  modern  essence of contemporary art through painting of Art Movement.

Meeting at the interstices of art historical, literary, gender and anthropological studies, this thesis investigates the Yokihi Kannon, a Song Chinese Buddhist statue of imperial consort Yang Guifei (Precious Consort Yang; Yokihi in Japanese) as a manifestation of Kannon, Bodhisattva of Compassion, located in the Sennyu-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. More specifically, this paper situates the statue in a broad cultural and sociohistorical context to challenge prevailing assumptions about its original and composite identity. Relocated from China to Japan in the thirteenth century, the statue of Kannon gradually amassed a dual gender identity at Sennyu-ji, where it was repackaged and, arguably, popularized as the Yokihi Kannon during pre-modern and modern Japan. A general lack of textual documentation and scholarly attention given to this statue has prompted many researchers and temple-goers to gloss over the atypical pairing of Kannon with Yang Guifei, disregarding how the history, identity, and function of the statue has changed over time. Drawing on concepts of icon reconstitution and value transformation, as well as surveying Yang Guifei’s cultural legacy and deification in Japanese literature and Noh theater, this study will contribute not only a more unified narrative of the Yokihi Kannon’s past, but an interdisciplinary approach for addressing the present state of a relocated and reconstituted Buddhist statue.

Abstract
Shaped in the shadow of colonialism and post-colonialism, visual arts in Hong Kong have wrestled with issues of identity, locality, and international recognition. The lengthy process of the transfer of sovereignty, initiated in 1984 by the signing of the Joint Declaration, inspired contemporary artists in Hong Kong to assert their locality. In the 1990s in particular, since the trauma of the Tian’anmen Incident in 1989, ‘[a] psychic decolonization occurred which marked out a distance from both of these larger contexts [Western and Chinese art] without simply denying either’ (Clarke 2001: 8; also pp. 38‒69). The ideological struggles were visible in architecture and official public art too, which celebrated the reunion both during and after the Handover in 1997. It can also be argued that official public art in Hong Kong to a certain extent marks an ongoing cultural mainlandization of the urban space by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But how do urban art images, such as street art and contemporary graffiti, survive the discourses of post-colonialism in its specific forms of de/recolonization and mainlandization, and debates of cultural heritage and indigenous identities? How do they engage with the complex situation?
I seek to explore these questions by modifying Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) definition of space as a continuous process in which the physical, mental, and social aspects of the space are intertwined. In this process of creating the space of urban art images, we need to consider the agency of the creators of urban art images as constructors of the space and its norms, the nationality/ethnicity of the creators, as well as the contextualized formal analysis of the images and the site-responsiveness. Based on intensive periods of fieldwork research in Hong Kong since 2012, extensive photographic documentation, and frequent meetings and in-depth interviews with more than sixty local and non-local creators of urban art images, my aim is to provide a different perspective to the usage and understanding of urban public space at the grassroots level. As I have come to understand, while following the creators throughout the alleys, streets, canals, rooftops, and abandoned buildings, the urban public space appears very different in the eyes of the creators of urban art images.

Keywords: urban art images, contemporary graffiti, street art, mainlandization, urban public space

This paper aims to highlight the influences of the colonial discourse in the discussion of ancient art form China, with particular regard to the taotie motif of Shang bronze ritual vessels. On this topic, two main opposite schools of thought developed in Western countries, specifically the anglophone ones. A third approach emerged among those scholars who conducted their studies mainly in the People Republic of China and Taiwan. The principal difference between these theories is the theoretical framework they are based on. Specifically, those developed in Western countries, namely the formalist-oriented theory and the iconographical approach, mostly rely on those Western art history theories implemented by Heinrich Wölfflin and Erwin Panofsky, respectively. Contrariwise, the third approach is deeply rooted in the Chinese Archaeological tradition of relying on written sources, such as historical records, oracle bones and literary sources. The primary issue with the formalism-oriented theory and the iconographical approach lies in the fact that, by relying on Western art theories to discuss non-Western art, they not only decontextualize the Shang bronzes, but also perpetuate colonial stereotypes and preconceptions on art from China. While the third approach does not take the objects of study out of context, nonetheless it relies on uncertain sources, as well as neglects one crucial aspect, namely the agency of the artists/craftsmen. Because all these perspectives tend to exclude one of the other possibilities, a mixed-method should be implemented in order to overcome the shortcomings of both Western-centric and historiography-based theories. In so doing, different fundamental elements can be highlighted to solve the mystery of the taotie.

Chinese export porcelain was executed in China and exported to the West.  When special orders were made, first by Europeans and later Americans, they were sometimes not understood by the Chinese artisans who shaped and decorated the ceramics.  This resulted in sometimes humorous or otherwise mistakes.

"In my study "Prestigegüter entlang der Seidenstraße? Archäologische und historische Untersuchungen zu Chinas Beziehungen zu Kulturen des Tarimbeckens vom zweiten bis frühen fünften Jahrhundert nach Christus (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010)," I developed a method to identify genuine prestige goods in the context of burials. Whenever members of social groups were unable to obtain desired artifacts – be it on account of insufficient financial means or because they were prohibited to acquire them –, they resorted to a rather simple solution: imitations.
As early as the 8th century BCE, people in China began to emulate ritual bronzes. These were the ultimate status symbols at the time and possession of such valuable bronze objects clearly was restricted to the social élite. Various types of bronze vessels and bells constituted a so-called ritual set; the more different objects and the more specimens of each single type of object an individual could call his (sometimes her) own, the higher his / her social rank. At least this much we learn from several prescriptive texts dating from the 2nd through 1st centuries BCE. The ritual bronzes were an integral part of ritual ceremonies held at the ancestral shrines of one’s lineage. They were, however, not only employed to demonstrate one’s social achievements to the ancestors, but ultimately found their way into tombs and hoards where ritual sets are a common sight.
This paper is going to show how sumptuary rules grew less rigid with the factual decline of the Zhou. Earlier, expressing ones social rank through ritual bronzes was the prerogative of dignitaries with close ties to the royal house. Now, even politically rather insignificant local potentates made use of (substandard) replicas in attempts to signal their social position. The prestige of authentic ritual bronzes finally fostered the diffusion of an initially extremely elitist phenomenon. How strongly the association of ritual bronzes with social rank penetrated ancient Chinese thought and practices – that is to say, Chinese culture – is obvious in the fact that imitations of ritual bronzes remained a staple in tomb assemblages at least until the 2nd century CE."

Les médias officiels chinois sont contraints par les réseaux sociaux à s’adapter et à jouer un jeu concurrentiel auquel ils ne sont pas habitués. Amenés par de nouvelles règles du jeu à descendre dans une arène qui n’est pas la leur, ils sont souvent distancés par des opérateurs privés. S’ils bénéficient des subventions de l’État pour affronter dans de bonnes conditions la concurrence, la nécessité d’être encadrée par les directives qui régissent l’action des médias officiels constitue un obstacle dans cette lutte acharnée pour séduire les internautes chinois. La notion de « nouvelles faussées » devient un enjeu pour les médias officiels pour reprendre l’avantage et restaurer leur autorité menacée.

Throughout history, cultures situated geographically close to each other have had relationships of cultural and material exchange. Over the centuries one factor that has been very prominent is the abstraction of ideas and forms in art. India and China, like many neighboring regions have shared rivers, travelers, information, religion, among much else. This paper deals with the understanding of religious and metaphysical traditions of the two civilizations, social structures, openness to new intellectual thoughts, priorities of the rulers and the elite, and last but not the least a comparison of Oriental with Occidental in order to understand the similarities and differences between Indian and Chinese Art. It finally explains the immense role that Buddhism played in increasing contacts between the two regions, as well as the distortion and alteration of Buddhist cultural symbols as they crossed boundaries.

Applying Peirce's semiotics to the study of art history, this essay explores the order of signification in the Peircean theory and the visual order in Chinese landscape painting. Since the purpose of Chinese landscape painting is not to simply represent the beauty of scenery but to encode and manifest the philosophy of Tao, then, the author argues that the establishment of the encoding mechanism in Chinese landscape painting signifies the origination, development, and establishment of this genre in Chinese art history. In this essay, the Peircean order of signification is described as a T-shaped structure, consisting of a horizontal dimension of signs (icon, index, and symbol) and a vertical dimension of the signification process (representamen, interpretant, and object). Correspondingly, the visual order in Chinese landscape painting is also described as a T-shaped structure as well: the horizontal dimension at the formal level consists of three signs (mountain path, flowing water, and floating air, the three constitute a compound sign), whilst the vertical dimension at the ideological level consists of three concepts (the way in nature, the metaphysical Way of nature, and the Tao). The significance of this order is found in re-interpreting the formation of landscape painting in Chinese art history.

This article examines the exhibitions and sales of Yuanmingyuan (or "Summer Palace") loot taken from China in October 1860 by two soldiers in the Anglo-French armies-James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin (1811-1863) and Captain Jean-Louis de Negroni (b.1820). Both men displayed their collections before auctioning them-the former in the prestigious South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1862; the latter in a well known exhibitionary site, the Crystal Palace in Sydenham in 1865. Such displays and public exhibitions were used as a device for enhancing the value of collections destined for the art market. This paper focuses on the commercial and exhibitionary practices at play in the dispersal of Elgin's and Negroni's collections of Summer Palace loot. It examines how these objects became enmeshed in the interacting system of auction, dealer and exhibitionary sphere, emphasising the role of auction houses, the significance of British press coverage in confirming the quality and value of collections, and the interrelationships with prominent sites of public display in 1860s and 1870s London.

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Paper given at a conference, Bild. Erzählung. Kontext. Visuelle Narration in Kulturen und Gesellschaften der Alten Welt (Image. Narrative. Context. Visual Narration in Cultures and Societies of the Old World), held at Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.