This article seeks to contribute to the historical scholarship on the relationship between pictorial and dramatic arts in China, more specifically, between the use of the “beautiful woman painting” (meiren tu) as a prop in brothel theater and the mental habits of late Ming viewers of such paintings. Examples are analyzed within two larger historical contexts: the commercial marketplace and the literary field of drama. The generic quality of the “beautiful woman painting” in the Qiu Ying style, its copied or forged versions, and its inclusion in wood-block drama prints all reveal the diurnal aspect of such images associated with everyday life. I suggest that this graphic genre’s erotic energy is rooted in its dramatic context, in which the static image of a beautiful woman could come to life as a courtesan-actress endowed with virtuosity in singing and dancing. Qiu Ying’s “portraits” prompted a popularly received response among dramatists such as Tang Xianzu to adopt a new focus on depicting “beautiful woman portraits” in plays (and onstage), known as “beautiful woman plays” (yanpin). Scenes of “realizations” and reanimations later fell into disuse in Chinese drama, along with the waning influence of the Qiu Ying models, Suzhou pian (Suzhou studio replicas) shops, and the courtesan-actress herself.
The Azuchi Screens 安土図屏風 (Azuchi-zu byōbu) are a pair of six-panel folding screens that were commissioned around 1579 by the warlord Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 (1534–1582) and executed by Kanō Eitoku 狩野永徳 (1543–1590), the fourth-generation head of the Kanō school of painting 狩野派. Depicting Nobunaga’s newly constructed Azuchi Castle 安土城 (Azuchi-jō) and its surrounding town, the screens are the only known illustration of this short-lived landmark in architectural history and progenitor of the iconic Japanese castle form. Gifted to the Jesuits and presented in 1585 to Pope Gregory XIII (1502–1585) in Rome, the screens became the first major diplomatic gift offered from Japan to the West but disappear from the record shortly thereafter. Currently, the only known illustrated vestiges of this international treasure are two woodblock prints that were based on sketches by the Louvain antiquarian Philips van Winghe (1560–1592) and included in revised editions of Le imagini de gli dei de gli antichi (Images of the Gods of the Ancients) by the Padua-based scholar Lorenzo Pignoria (1571–1631). Owing to the awkward and partially inscrutable character of the buildings depicted within them, these prints have been dismissed as reflections of orientalist naïveté. However, examination of these images and comparison with Eitoku’s other paintings reveal much about the visual profile of the Azuchi Screens as well as the paintings’ significance to a European audience. This article argues that the choice of subject for these prints was not arbitrary, but the product of a convergence of knowledge about Nobunaga’s ambitions at Azuchi transmitted to Italy via the Jesuit mission reports and late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century currents of thought regarding the roots of newly encountered cultures around the world. 《安土図屏風》は織田信長（1534-1582）の依頼（1579 年頃）により、狩野派四代目当主の狩野永徳（1543-1590）が制作した六曲一双の屏風である。信長が造営した安土城は、完成後数年で焼失したものの建築史上の画期をなし、日本における象徴的な城郭形式の祖となった。この城と城下町を描いた《安土図屏風》を除いて、安土城の図像的記録は知られていない。信長からイエズス会に贈られた屏風は、 1585 年にローマで教皇グレゴリウス 13 世（1502-1585）に献上され、日本から西欧に運ばれた最初の重要な外交贈答品となったものの、その直後から所在不明となった。この世界史的至宝を写した現存唯一の図像史料が、ルーヴァン出身の古物研究家フィリップス・ファン・ウィンゲ（1560-1592）の模写に基づく 2 点の木版画で、これらはパドヴァを拠点とする知識人ロレンツォ・ピニョリア （1571-1631）が編纂した『古代人の神々の姿について』増補改訂版に掲載された。木版画の建物には不自然で部分的に不可解な特徴が認められるため、東洋学者の無知を反映したものとされ、これまで正当な建築史的考察がなされてこなかった。そこで本稿では、その詳細な分析と狩野永徳の現存作品との比較により、《安土図屏風》の視覚的特徴や西欧にとっての意味を明らかにする。そして、木版画の主題選択は気まぐれなどではなく、安土における信長の野望についての知見がイエズス会報告書を介してイタリアに伝わり、 16 世紀後半から 17 世紀初頭の西欧知識人が世界各地の異文化とその起源を追求した知的営みと合流した結果であることを実証的に論じる。
The National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, houses a collection of about 30,000 documents originally belonging to the German architect and archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (1879–1948). They comprise photographs and negatives on glass plates, sketches, excavation journals, maps, and letters illustrating Herzfeld’s archaeological fieldwork in the Near East. Among them is a group of twenty-seven glass negatives documenting the work on Palmyrene epigraphy by one of his colleagues, the German semitist Moritz Sobernheim. Herzfeld and Sobernheim traveled extensively in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, collecting Islamic inscriptions. Their journeys and epigraphic survey are documented in photographs that are part of the Ernst Herzfeld Papers, and some of the images show their personal friendship and family relations. The photographs of the Palmyrene squeezes illustrate the use of three-dimensional replicas of inscriptions for study purposes and publication during that early phase of research. They are an invaluable record of Sobernheim’s pioneering epigraphic work and illustrate the productive working partnership between the two scholars. A careful analysis of the photographs, which present a reversed impression of the epigraphs on the paper squeezes, has allowed the identification of twenty-six Palmyrene inscriptions that are listed here according to the numbers on the negatives, with reference to text type and findspot, and are cross-referenced to the editio princeps and other major publications. The present identification provides a significant element to complete their inventory in the Ernst Herzfeld Papers.
本文在商业市场与戏曲文学两大历史语境下展开研究，探讨中国绘画艺术与戏剧艺术之间的历史关联，尤其聚焦于"美人图"作为青楼剧场道具的运用，以及晚明观画者的审美心理。本文从两方面揭示仇英风格"美人图"与日常生活密切关联的世俗面向：一、其程式化特征及其摹本和赝作的形态，二、这类图像在戏曲版画中的呈现。笔者认为，这一绘画类型的情色意蕴根植于其戏剧语境——静态美人图可通过青楼女伶的精湛歌舞技艺而幻化观者的动态想象。仇英的"肖像"创作引发了以汤显祖为代表的剧作家群体对"美人"题材（艳品）的新探索——在剧本中和舞台上着重刻画美人图。随着仇英范式影响力的式微、"苏州片"作坊的衰落，以及名妓/女伶群体的消逝，"画像显灵"与"画像复生"等戏剧场景亦逐渐淡出中国戏曲舞台。
Isamu Noguchi wrote in 1949 that the site of Mahabalipuram was his "first and most authentic lesson." Between then and his death in 1988, Noguchi visited India at least eleven times. Yet there has been little investigation into the nature of this long and deep connection, and the impact it had on the sculptor's artistic philosophy and practice. The few studies on the topic emphasize Noguchi's interest in the architectural modernity of post-independence India. This essay foregrounds instead the sculptor's enduring interest in the art of early India. Through extensive archival work, it highlights Noguchi's engagement with ancient sites such as Sanchi, Elephanta, and Mahabalipuram, among numerous others, and traces the centrality of the "matter of sculpture" in his approach. As such, he is one of the few sculptors-and perhaps the only one-to have studied, recorded, and theorized the materiality of early Indian sculpture. In looking at and alongside Noguchi, this essay expands the current understanding of the sculptor's work and calls for material approaches to the study of sculpture from early India.
The National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, houses a collection of about 30,000 documents originally belonging to the German architect and archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (1879-1948). They comprise photographs and negatives on glass plates, sketches, excavation journals, maps, and letters illustrating Herzfeld's archaeological fieldwork in the Near East. Among them is a group of twenty-seven glass negatives documenting the work on Palmyrene epigraphy by one of his colleagues, the German semitist Moritz Sobernheim. Herzfeld and Sobernheim traveled extensively in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, collecting Islamic inscriptions. Their journeys and epigraphic survey are documented in photographs that are part of the Ernst Herzfeld Papers, and some of the images show their personal friendship and family relations. The photographs of the Palmyrene squeezes illustrate the use of three-dimensional replicas of inscriptions for study purposes and publication during that early phase of research. They are an invaluable record of Sobernheim's pioneering epigraphic work and illustrate the productive working partnership between the two scholars. A careful analysis of the photographs, which present a reversed impression of the epigraphs on the paper squeezes, has allowed the identification of twenty-six Palmyrene inscriptions that are listed here according to the numbers on the negatives, with reference to text type and findspot, and are cross-referenced to the editio princeps and other major publications. The present identification provides a significant element to complete their inventory in the Ernst Herzfeld Papers.
This article reframes within a transcultural framework one of the most celebrated albums at the Topkapi Palace Museum Library in Istanbul (H. 2153). The broad perspective of that album (ca. 1514), extending from China to Europe, resonates with the collection Freer Gallery of Art of the National Museum of Asian Art's Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution. Analyzing selected images from this album, and a few examples from its smaller companion (H. 2160), will allow me to engage with the equally famous Freer Divan (Collected poems) of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir (r. 1382-1410). The selected album images were created simultaneously with the emergence of the so-called International Gothic style in Europe (late 1300s-early 1400s). A transregional perspective is encompassed by their attributive inscriptions, which identify some album images as "work in the Cathayan manner" and "work in the Frankish" manner. The "Jalayirid Contribution" documented in H. 2153, and to a lesser degree in H. 2160, uncovers the key role played by artists and patrons of that dynasty in shaping the future directions of Persianate painting. Besides the proliferation of sinicizing and Europeanizing elements, the analyzed Jalayirid works display striking parallels with the Freer Divan, such as the emphasis on the grisaille or "black pen" (qalam-i siyahi) technique, on landscapes, and on the use of margins.
Collections in museums commonly provide one's initial encounter with actual works of religious art, not only for general visitors but also for students of Asian art, and these collections often remain a major source for many scholars throughout their careers. This circumstance, together with the availability of museum objects, largely shapes our perceptions of Asian art. Although museums offer an ideal environment for research and the conservation of art, we may easily forget the original goals of art-making. Objects of religious art-in the present context, East Indian sculptures from the Pala period1-were created for worship, not for analysis through the lens of the art historian in a museum, where they appear completely detached from their native cultural environment. In what follows, two stelae will be showcased and their disparate settings of use and preservation will be compared. The removal of the original architectural and ritual context in both cases, as well as the partial loss of a sense of historical storytelling based on the complicated technical solution by means of interactive digital models known as digital twins and address the benefits and limitations of the method.
The Azuchi Screens (Azuchi-zu by & omacr;bu) are a pair of six-panel folding screens that were commissioned around 1579 by the warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) and executed by Kano Eitoku (1543-1590), the fourth-generation head of the Kano school of painting (sic). Depicting Nobunaga's newly constructed Azuchi Castle (Azuchi-jo) and its surrounding town, the screens are the only known illustration of this short-lived landmark in architectural history and progenitor of the iconic Japanese castle form. Gifted to the Jesuits and presented in 1585 to Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585) in Rome, the screens became the first major diplomatic gift offered from Japan to the West but disappear from the record shortly thereafter. Currently, the only known illustrated vestiges of this international treasure are two woodblock prints that were based on sketches by the Louvain antiquarian Philips van Winghe (1560-1592) and included in revised editions of Le imagini de gli dei de gli antichi (Images of the Gods of the Ancients) by the Padua-based scholar Lorenzo Pignoria (1571-1631). Owing to the awkward and partially inscrutable character of the buildings depicted within them, these prints have been dismissed as reflections of orientalist naivete. However, examination of these images and comparison with Eitoku's other paintings reveal much about the visual profile of the Azuchi Screens as well as the paintings' significance to a European audience. This article argues that the choice of subject for these prints was not arbitrary, but the product of a convergence of knowledge about Nobunaga's ambitions at Azuchi transmitted to Italy via the Jesuit mission reports and late sixteenth- and early seventeenthcentury currents of thought regarding the roots of newly encountered cultures around the world.
This article seeks to contribute to the historical scholarship on the relationship between pictorial and dramatic arts in China, more specifically, between the use of the "beautiful woman painting" (meiren tu) as a prop in brothel theater and the mental habits of late Ming viewers of such paintings. Examples are analyzed within two larger historical contexts: the commercial marketplace and the literary field of drama. The generic quality of the "beautiful woman painting" in the Qiu Ying style, its copied or forged versions, and its inclusion in wood-block drama prints all reveal the diurnal aspect of such images associated with everyday life. I suggest that this graphic genre's erotic energy is rooted in its dramatic context, in which the static image of a beautiful woman could come to life as a courtesan-actress endowed with virtuosity in singing and dancing. Qiu Ying's "portraits" prompted a popularly received response among dramatists such as Tang Xianzu to adopt a new focus on depicting "beautiful woman portraits" in plays (and onstage), known as "beautiful woman plays" (yanpin). Scenes of "realizations" and reanimations later fell into disuse in Chinese drama, along with the waning influence of the Qiu Ying models, Suzhou pian (Suzhou studio replicas) shops, and the courtesan-actress herself.
Building a pagoda mobilizes durable materials into architectonic form. But a pagoda may also incorporate likenesses of images and objects wrought in ephemeral materials, thus becoming a nexus of textual, pictorial, and formal transfer and intermedial preservation. This essay examines how, in the Zhenguo pagoda*tq(lit. "Defender of the State Pagoda") at the Kaiyuan temple in Quanzhou, Fujian, rock-covered with the imagery of paper (and other fugitive media) by means of scissors (or, more precisely, the carver's knife)-preserved traces of evanescent forms. Specifically, it: articulates the relationship of paper- based editions of the Buddhist canon to the pagoda's stone- carved narrative program; asserts the influence of logographic schema of printed- paper primers and locally known, silk- based court painting styles to the pagoda's imagery; and contends that carved images of small, free- standing bronze (and stone) pagodas link the Zhenguo pagoda to overlapping local (Quanzhou), regional (Min-Yue/Fujian), imperial (Song- dynasty), and maritime (Indian Ocean) object networks. To test the hypothesis that the Zhenguo pagoda serves as a repository of, and lexicon for, now lost forms, this essay concludes by using the imagery of the Zhenguo pagoda to recover the iconography of a type of Quanzhou- specific Buddhist monument, the Stone Shoot ( Shisun i(sic)).
The worship of Śiva in early South and Southeast Asia offered devotees a fully realized “religious ecology,” i.e., a system of mutually beneficial relationships between human communities, natural systems, and the nonhuman or more-than-human worlds in which they operated. Within this religious worldview, the Śaiva guru functioned as a critical terrestrial intermediary. In canonical early Śaiva texts, the guru was celebrated as an ecological agent capable of alleviating suffering and nurturing community. In material culture, the guru’s iconographic attributes (e.g., waterpot, trident, and lotus) signaled his ability to offer devotees emotional, social, and environmental benefits. Using the figure of the Brahmanical sage and Śaiva guru Agastya as an entrée, this study initiates a comparative analysis of the cultural connections between gurus, Śiva worship, and the power of the natural world as expressed through iconographic programs and architectural spaces from northern India, Vietnam, and Java. Since Agastya is both a personification of Brahmanical cultural authority and a transregional emblem of the Śaiva tradition, he provides a fertile ground from which to explore the role of the guru in early South and Southeast Asia. Agastya’s mythic biography also features two significant environmental interventions: subduing the Vindhya Mountain when it threatened to block out the sun, and drinking the ocean’s waters to reveal hidden demons threatening a divine order. His ecological agency, expressed in narratives as the power to neutralize potential threats in the natural world and manifest beneficence, is materialized in images that express the socially supportive values of prosperity and fertility.
For the past two decades, scholarship has made great strides uncovering the multifaceted ways in which Buddhist objects provide insights into the beliefs, practices, and worldviews of the people who used and viewed them. Having moved past iconographic analysis as the sole lens with which to evaluate Buddhist art, scholars have demonstrated, for instance, how the religion’s visual and material culture served as conduits between the physical world and the intangible, and operated as nodes linking networks of people and places. This article adds another perspective to the study of Buddhist art objects by considering how their physical condition prompted new forms of engagement in religious practice in premodern Japan. In particular, it investigates differences between three ways to preserve images—to copy, to repair, and to re-create—and demonstrates that while both copying and repair kept objects in a good and presentable state, repair could additionally serve as a means for the production and diffusion of Buddhist cultural knowledge. Re-creation combines the practice of copy and repair and reveals how an object’s material properties, an aspect of any conservation effort, could also transmit information about associated miracles or numinous qualities.
This article reexamines a wall painting discovered in 1925 and 1929 by Ernst Herzfeld in the Painted Gallery of the great Parthian-Sasanian temple complex at Kuh-i Khwaja in Iran (Sistan-Baluchestan province). The painting subsequently disappeared and today it can be studied only from Herzfeld’s photographs (hardly usable), sketch, and watercolors, kept at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. It shows a royal or aristocratic couple standing in a schematic architectural setting. No interpretation has so far been attempted. It is proposed that the couple is standing at the entrance of a fire chamber (such as the real one that exists at the back of the temple) and that the man holds a written scroll (already identified as such by Herzfeld according to a scribbled note), which probably contains a deed of endowment. The costumes are Sasanian but not royal Sasanian, while the type of the woman’s crown is documented in Kidarite-Hephtalite Bactria. A date is proposed in the fourth or fifth century. The man could belong to the vassal dynasty of the Sagānshāhs or be a later Sasanian governor.
The Government Museum and Art Gallery of Chandigarh was established to fill a cultural vacuum in post-partition Punjab. It received the seed of its collection from Lahore and the rest was amassed by M. S. Randhawa (1909–1986), an Indian Civil Service officer with a love for painting that at the time was identified as “Kangra” for its style and association with the eponymous region and kingdom. In the 1950s, he spent considerable time traveling in the western Himalayas, tracking down paintings and acquiring them for the museum. The many volumes of correspondence that he later bequeathed to the museum reveal how collections of early modern Pahari paintings were rapidly dispersing to form new collections elsewhere. Through the lens of the bureaucrat-collector Randhawa, this article sheds light on the complex history of collecting in mid-twentieth-century South Asia. In tracing the movement of paintings from private royal collections to a public government museum, the article approaches provenance as biography with the goal to contribute to collective efforts of mapping networks that connect collections and collectors.
