Enchanted by Lohans
Enchanted by Lohans

Author: Minna Törmä

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9888139843

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Finnish-Swedish art historian Osvald Sirén (1879–1966) was one of the pioneers of Chinese art scholarship in the West. This biography focuses on his four major voyages to East Asia: 1918, 1921–23, 1929–30 and 1935. This was a pivotal period in Chinese archaeology, art studies and formation of Western collections of Chinese art. Sirén gained international renown as a scholar of Italian art, particularly with his books on Leonardo da Vinci and Giotto. But when he was almost 40 years old, he was captivated by Chinese art (paintings of Lohans in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) to such an extent that he decided to start his career anew, in a way. He has left his mark in several fi elds in Chinese art studies: architecture, sculpture, painting and garden art. The study charts Sirén’s itineraries during his travels in Japan, Korea and China; it introduces the various people in those countries as well as in Europe and North America who defined the field in its early stages and were influential as collectors and dealers. It also explores the impact of theosophical ideas in his work.

The Arts of China to AD 900
The Arts of China to AD 900

Author: William Watson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780300082845

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This book is the first in a major three-volume series that will survey China's immense wealth of art, architecture, and artifacts from prehistoric times to the twentieth century. The Arts of China to A.D. 900 investigates the beginnings of the traditions on which much of the art rests, moving from Neolithic and Bronze Age China to the era of the Tang Dynasty around A.D. 900. William Watson discusses in lively detail a wide range of art forms and techniques: porcelain and pottery, lacquer, religious and secular painting and sculpture, mural painting, monumental sculpture and architecture. He explains the materials and techniques of bronze casting, jade carving, pottery manufacture, and other arts, and he describes the most important sites, the artifacts that were produced at each one, and the historical interactions between different areas. He discusses the iconography, the technique and the function of every art form. Written by one of the most distinguished scholars in the field of Chinese art and archaeology, this lavishly illustrated book will be a valuable resource for both experts and beginners in the field.

The Arts of China 900–1620
The Arts of China 900–1620

Author: William Watson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9780300073935

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This beautiful book is the second in a major three-volume series that will survey China's immense wealth of art, architecture, and artefacts from prehistoric times to the twentieth century. It covers the most prolific and broad-ranging period of Chinese art history, from the Song Dynasty with its spectacular landscape paintings to the Ming Dynasty with its lovely pottery. William Watson considers architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts in equal balance. He follows styles and motifs as they are developed in each medium from one province to another and discusses materials and techniques as well as the iconography and function of every art form. He also explores relationships between one medium and another, tracing, for example, the influence of Buddhist iconography on sculptural traditions and on the architecture of temples and towers and showing how ceramic ornament affected the development of ornament in other media.