Asian Art

Asian Art is the first comprehensive anthology of important primary documents and key contemporary scholarship on Asian art history.



Traces the rich artistic traditions in China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia across time periods, media, cultural contexts, and geography - from the terracotta armies of the First Emperor of Qin to late 20th-century installation art

Covers both imperially commissioned works and popular, vernacular art

Includes an accessible introduction which provides suggestions of thematic connections across the vast array of visual culture and historical time covered

Captures the diversity and depth of Asian art through primary documents - from inscriptions and imperial decrees to writings by artists and travellers - and through examples of the very best scholarship in the field



Features introductory material for each extract, an easy-to-navigate chronological structure, and has been extensively tested by the editors and their colleagues in classrooms.

Rebecca M. Brown is an Independent Scholar of South Asian visual culture from the eighteenth century to the present. She is author of Art for a Modern India, 1947–80 (2007).



Deborah S. Hutton is Assistant Professor of Art History at the College of New Jersey. She is the author of The Art of the Court of Bijapur (2006), winner of the College Art Association Millard Meiss Publishing Grant and the American Institute of Indian Studies Edward Cameron Dimock Jr. Prize in Indian Humanities.

“Asian Art is a rich and very useful sourcebook that combines the voices of original authors and primary texts with some of the most interesting contemporary art historical studies.” Richard Vinograd, Stanford University



“The choice of material in this anthology demonstrates why anyone interested in visual culture should carefully consider art produced in Asia. It wisely covers not just well-known traditions but also contemporary art practice.” Janice Leoshko, University of Texas at Austin

Acknowledgments.
Series Editor’s Preface.
Part I. Introduction.
Part II. South and Southeast Asia.
Selected Periods and Dates.
1. “Ashokan Edicts,” from Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. 1: Ainslie T. Embree, editor.
2. Selections from Stories of the Buddha and The Jataka: Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids and W.H.D. Rouse, translators.
3. “The Country of Khotan and the Image Procession” and “The Image Procession,” from A Record of the Buddhist Countries: Fa-Hsien [Faxian].
4. "Varaha, the Boar," "Brahma, Vishnu and the Linga of Siva; Mt. Govardhana," "The Origin of the Goddess from the Gods," and "The Death of Mahisha, the Buffalo Demon" from Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas: Cornelia Dimmitt and J.A.B. van Buitenen, editors and translators.
5. Playful Ambiguity and Political Authority at the Large Relief at Mamallapuram.
Padma Kaimal.
6. Excerpts from Borobudur: Louis Frederic.
7. "Reading Love Imagery on the Indian Temple" from Love in Asian Art and Culture: Vidya Dehejia.
8. Excerpts from Angkor Wat: Time, Space, and Kingship.
Eleanor Mannikka.
9. "Akbar riding the elephant Havai " and "Akbar supervising the construction of Fatehpur Sikri" from The Akbar Nama of Abul Fazl: Henry Beveridge, translator.
10. Excerpts from The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India.
Wheeler M. Thackston, translator and editor.
11. Orthodoxy, Innovation, and Revival: Considerations of the Past in Imperial Mughal Tomb Architecture: Michael Brand.
12. "Timeless Symbols: Royal Portraits from Rajasthan 17th-19th Centuries" from The Idea of Rajasthan: Vishakha Desai.
13. "Indian Images Collected" from Lives of Indian Images: Richard Davis.
14. "Image as Presence," from From the Sacred Realm: Treasures of Tibetan Art from the Newark Museum: Janet Gyatso.
15. Excerpts from Making Merit, Making Art: A Thai Temple in Wimbledon: Sandra Cate.
16. "The Artist as Charismatic Individual: Raja Ravi Varma" from Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922: Partha Mitter.
17. "The “East-West” Opposition in Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier" from Chandigarh's Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India: Vikramaditya Prakash.
18. "Skyscraper Competition in Asia: New City Images and New City Forms" from Imaging the City: Larry R. Ford.
Part III. East Asia.
Selected Periods and Dates.
19. "The Nine Tripods and Traditional Chinese Concepts of Monumentality" from Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture: Wu Hung.
20. Shang and Zhou Bronze inscriptions, translated by Wu Hung and Deborah Sommer.
21. "A Magic Army for the Emperor" from Ten Thousand Things: Lothar Ledderose.
22. “The Tigress,” from Once the Buddha Was A Monkey: Arya Sura's Jatakamala.
Arya Shura.
23. “The Six Laws of Xie He,” from Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting: William Reynolds Beal Acker, translator and editor.
24. "The Taming of the Shrew: Wang Hsi-chih ([Wang Xizhi], 303-361) and Calligraphic Gentrification in the Seventh Century" from Character and Context in Chinese Calligraphy: Eugene Y. Wang.
25. “Ise Jingu,” from Architecture and Authority in Japan: William H. Coaldrake.
26. Proclamation of the Emperor Shomu on the Erection of the Great Buddha Image, from Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 1.
27. “Of Nature and Art: Monumental Landscape,” from Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 8th-14th Century: Wen C. Fong.
28. Guo Xi's writings on landscape painting.
Susan Bush and Hsio-Yen, Shih, translators and editors.
29. Jocho’s statue of Amida at the Byodo-in and cultural legitimization in late Heian Japan: Samuel C. Morse.
30. “The Oak Tree,” from The Tale of Genji: Murasaki Shikibu.
31. The Unity of the Three Creeds: A Theme in Japanese Ink Painting of the Fifteenth Century: John M. Rosenfield.
32. "Symbolic Virtue and Political Legitimation: Tea and Politics in the Momoyama Period" from The Politics of Reclusion: Kendall H. Brown.
33. “Practices of Vision,” from Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China.
Craig Clunas.
34. Excerpts from Chinese Imperial City Planning: Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt.
35. Letters from European travelers about the Forbidden City: “A Jesuit in Beijing: Louis Lecomte” and “An English ambassador in Beijing: Aeneas Anderson”.
36. “The Conventional Success of Ch’en Shu,” from Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting: Marsha Weidner.
37. “Artistic Tradition and the Depiction of Reality: True-View Landscape Painting of the Chosen Dynasty,” from Arts of Korea: Yi Song-mi.
38. The Meaning of Western Perspective in Edo Popular Culture: Timon Screech.
39. “The Kizaemon Tea-bowl,” from The Unknown Craftsman: Soetsu Yanagi.
40. Excerpts from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
Mao Tse-tung.
41. Icons of Power: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution from Picturing Power in the People's Republic of China: Robert Benewick.
42. "Morphology of Revenge: The Yomiuri Indépendant Artists and Social Protest Tendencies in the 1960s" from Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky.
Alexandra Munroe.
43. Pseudo-languages: A Conversation with Wenda Gu, Xu Bing, and Jonathan Hay: Simon Leung.
44. "Believing is Seeing: Transforming Orientalism and the Occidental Gaze" from Asia/America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art: John Kuo Wei Tchen.
Index