Displaying the top 100 results that match your query. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/rssapi.jsp?browse=true&Ne=6642&N=3+3398 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1744219 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1712038 Traces the parallel stories of nineteenth-century art patron Charles Ephrussi and his unique collection of 360 miniature netsuke Japanese ivory carvings, documenting Ephrussis relationship with Marcel Proust and the impact of the Holocaust on his cosmopolitan family. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1674382 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1479277 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1518270 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1522282 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1190102 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1268277 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1021511 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1044338 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1480801 The first full set of Tibetan medical paintings, or tangkas, were painted between 1687 and 1703 and were inspired by Sangye Gyatso, Regent of the Fifth Dalai Lama, who was a great patron of medical learning. In a beautiful and unique artistic style, the paintings illustrate Tibetan medical knowledge that drew on traditions from India, ancient Greece, Persia, pre-Buddhist Tibet, and China, while remaining firmly rooted in Buddhism. Copies of the iconic images have been created in meticulous detail through the centuries. Body and Spirit focuses on a set of contemporary paintings in the traditional technique by the Nepalese artist Romio Shrestha and his assistants in Kathmandu. The tangkas illuminate human anatomy and the causes and effects of illnesses, as well as their diagnoses and treatment. Most of the paintings consist of rows of small human figures, animals, plants, minerals, houses, landscapes, and demons and deities, depicting the rich complexity of human endeavor: farming, animal husbandry, personal hygiene, marriage, sex, birthing, fighting, sleeping, studying, and meditating. The thousands of small and large images were designed to add visual form to the technical information and be an eye-pleasing teaching aid for medical students.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=1198374 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=749798 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=887904 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=691586 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=695743 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=743692 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=741442 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=596994 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=675122 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=675392 Taiso Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) was the most popular woodblock artist of his day. Customers lined up on the day of publication for his prints of historical characters and beautiful women. His career, which introduced subtle psychological observation to the artistic and representational world of ukiyo-e, straddled the tumultuous late Edo and early Meiji periods. Yoshitoshi was fascinated by the supernatural, and some of his best work concerns ghosts, monsters, and charming animal transmutations. Yoshitoshis Strange Tales presents two series that focus on his depictions of the weird and magical world of the transformed. The first series dates from the beginning and the second from the end of the artists abbreviated career, encapsulating his artistic development. One Hundred Tales of Japan and China (Wakan hyaku monogatari) of 1865 is based on a game in which people told short scary ghost tales in a darkened room, extinguishing a candle as each tale ended. New Forms of Thirty-Six Strange Things (Shinken sanjurokkaisen) of 1889-92 illustrates stories from Japans rich heritage of legends in more serene and objective ways. The book opens with a study of Japanese ghost prints and analysis of Yoshitoshis changing treatments of the genre, and reproduces three rare paintings by the artist. This is Yoshitoshi at his most whimsical and imaginative.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=563830 Covering Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, Dr. Kerlogue examines the roots and development of the arts of this distinctive region from prehistory to the present day. The book traces the reflection of indigenous beliefs and world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity - in artistic expression, arriving at an exploration of the post-colonial period.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=563816 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=538375 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=572649 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=573273 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=596413 In this work, Michael Barry uncovers the mysteries of the numerous visual symbols employed in medieval Islamic figurative painting, during its Golden Age between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. This study deliberately takes a bold approach to crack the allegorical code and the lost iconographic conventions of a civilization and to acknowledge the riddle of the religious enigma posed by the existence of figurative painting in Islam. Barry focuses his study around the work of Bihzad, a painter who flourished in the late fifteenth century in the kingdom of Herat, now in Afghanistan.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=635549 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=545900 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=603527 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=573229 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=313385 Korea is the first authoritative general introduction to this distinctive culture to be published in English. It traces Korean development chronologically from the Neolithic period to the present day and illustrates more than one hundred of its highest artistic achievements, from precious metalwork, sculpture and lacquer to celadons, painting and printing.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=293033 For the fourth edition of his The Arts of China, last published in 1984, Michael Sullivan has thoroughly revised and expanded this classic history of Chinese art from the Neolithic period to the 1990s. He draws on archaeological discoveries in the last two decades of the twentieth century that have enriched scholars understanding of both prehistoric and ancient Chinese civilizations. At the same time, research on more recent dynasties has led to fresh interpretations of well-documented historical events and artworks. Also, Chinas dramatic opening to the outside world since the 1980s has triggered an explosion of contemporary Chinese art, on which Sullivan is the foremost Western authority.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=310796 In this, the latest addition to the growing range of Millers Buyers Guides, over 3,500 items of popular Chinese and Japanese antiques are illustrated and described, with over 800 color photographs, each with an up-to-date price guide reflecting the latest market trends. The book is divided by type of ware and then subdivided by country for ease of reference. Each section contains information boxes with practical guidance on collecting each subject, what to be aware of when starting out, how to spot fakes and hints on how to avoid making expensive mistakes. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=283504 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=297226 This study of the sacred art of Tibet is the result of eight years of meticulous brush drawing, and a life-time spent researching and reflecting upon the inner and often hidden meanings and origins encapsulated in this most complex of iconographical traditions. Several thousand individual drawings arranged as a series of 169 plates illustrate the many variations in style and individual expression of these ritual objects. The text interweaves the origins, meanings and functions of these symbols, derived from India, Tibet and China, into a comprehensive tapestry within a Buddhist conceptual framework. This book will become a classic not only for all those interested in Tibetan religious culture, but for artists, designers and others who look eastwards in a search for meaning.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=279555 More than 70 contemporary designs bring a fresh look to a traditional technique. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=282053 In China, mandarin ducks, said to mate for life, symbolize wedded bliss, and tiny red shoes are viewed as sexually arousing. In Japan, black hair once alluded covertly to passion and in the 20th century is explicitly erotic. Love is divine in India, enduring in temple sculpture in the form of rapturous couples, the territory of gods as well as mortals. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=279820 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=293377 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=115106 Southeast Asia, that immense region stretching from India to the Far East, encompasses Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar - the former Burma - and Thailand), Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Each country is endowed with its own national artistic identity and its own cultural heritage. At the same time, all gain strength from their common Asian identity. In a series of essays, a group of highly regarded scholars examine the mix of significant influences that have shaped the regions art. Of various nationalities, most have traveled, lived, and taught in Asia and are fluent in one or more Asian languages. Both the educated reader and the expert will find much that is new in these pages.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=281821 Anish Kapoor is one of the most important artists of his generation. Born in Bombay and living in London since the early 1970s, he has exhibited worldwide and has works in many important public collections including the Tate Gallery, London and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The artist uses different media to explore his vision including stone, metal, marble, pigment and fibreglass. Yet these materials are magically fashioned, polished and coloured into non-objects which invoke the sublime, a condition of emptiness and darkness. Kapoor represented Britain at the Venice Blennale in 1990, where he won the prestigious Premio Duemila and in 1991 was awarded the Turner Prize.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=288548 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=283188 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=287322 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=279306 Embroider brilliantly colored, patterned spheres using this ancient Japanese creative craft. The 22 temari designs -- plus numerous variations-in this full-color, how-to guide require only the most inexpensive and readily available materials. Learn how to form the base ball, divide it into pattern sections, and decorate it with the three main temari techniques of winding, stitching, and weaving. Add tassels and knots for finishing touches. Each design includes a difficulty rating and techniques list, making it easy to select the project thats right for you. Once youve created one of the exquisite works of art, youll understand why temari are often placed in glass cases for permanent display. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=311617 This book discusses the development of contemporary Indian sculpture in relation both to the development of mainstream world sculpture and also to the influence that traditional Indian artistic ideas are having on it, past and present. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=289709 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=157216 In 1819, a group of British soldiers on a hunting expedition chanced upon the Ajanta caves, lying in the horseshoe-shaped ravine of a river some 200 miles northeast of Bombay. Ranging in date from the second century BC to the sixth century AD, the paintings and sculptures that they found there now rank among the worlds most important cultural treasures. Since the rediscovery of the caves, numerous attempts have been made to photograph the murals and sculptures accurately, but these works of art were created using the glow of lamps and candles, not the harsh light of modern professional photography. Now, in The Ajanta Caves, using long exposures that pick up natural ambient light, Benoy K. Behl captures some of the finest works of Buddhist art in all their natural luminosity. The artists who created the Ajanta caves were early followers of the Buddha, and they sought an isolated haven where they could meditate in peace. What is unique about the paintings is not their variety, nor the skill displayed in their composition, but their humanity; the men and women of this world look upon each other with expressions of infinite caring.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=279301 The futuristic, sci-fi like scenarios created by the artist Mariko Mori in her photographs and video installations often include Mori herself, dressed in outlandish costume, and are intriguing and imaginative works which combine elements of Japanese popular culture, such as Japanimation, as well as fashion, cyberspace, and video art. Mori, who studied fashion in Tokyo and art in London and New York, has become one of the freshest young artists working in the 90s, and this book, which is the first on her work, comprehensively catalogs her upcoming exhibitions. Recent video work by Mori has included such works as Nirvana (shown at the 97 Venice Biennale), in which the artist depicts herself making symbolic Buddhist hand-gestures as she floats above the Dead Sea. Still another piece is a video in which Mori, in futuristic space wear, rolls a crystal ball through an airport to the haunting melodies of a Japanese song. These works involve a surrealistic interplay of imagery which suggests something akin to the art of Yayoi Kusama, the costs of funk icon George Clinton, science fiction, and the film works of Matthew Barney. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=291838 The dazzling cloths presented in this book are the visual record of one of the great untold stories of Asian design history: the trade in Indian textiles to Southeast and East Asia. Outstanding among them are the patterned cottons - the famous chintzes - and the tie-dyed silk patola, reserved for rulers and the nobility. John Guy examines the history of the cloth-for-spices trade, describes the techniques of textile production, and then looks in detail at the place of imported cloths in the Malay world, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan. The historical focus is on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the trade was at its peak.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=288404 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=284384 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=281181 Ukiyo-e - pictures of the floating world - produced by Japanese artists, publishers and craftsmen of the Edo period (1603-1868) constitute one of the most remarkable and spectacular achievements in the history of graphic art. This book traces the historical, stylistic and technical development of these prints, from the hand-coloured work of the seventeenth century, to the spectacular colour printing of the mid-nineteenth century. A postlude gives a glimpse of printmaking in the succeeding Meiji period. An introductory essay explores the historical context of the floating-world culture which is depicted in many of the prints and expressed in their style and treatment of subject-matter: the glamorous image of the courtesans, the stars of the kabuki stage, and the evocative imagery of Japanese poetry. A second essay provides insight into the technical refinement of Japanese woodblock printmaking. The main body of the book consists of full-colour reproductions of over seventy prints, highlighting the most significant artists and styles and the most typical subjects and moods.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=299124 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=265426 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=290699 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=58718 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=300532 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=292464 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=239405 From Neolithic painted petroglyphs, early paintings on silk, and landscapes by twelfth-century literati to the traditional handscrolls being produced today, Chinese painting has always had the power to enthrall. This magnificent book, written by a team of eminent international scholars, is the first to recount the history of Chinese painting over a span of some three thousand years. Drawing on museum collections, archives, and archaeological sites in China - including many resources never before available to Western scholars - as well as on collections in other countries, the authors present and analyze the very best examples of Chinese painting: more than 300 of them are reproduced here in color. Both accessible to the general reader and revelatory for the scholar, the book provides the most up-to-date and detailed history of Chinas pictorial art available today.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=262464 Tibet has produced some of the most distinctive and creative art in the world, with many striking qualities which set it apart from other Buddhist and Asian art. From a bleak and often inaccessible landscape arose an artistic world so vibrant and sophisticated that it drew commissions even from the emperors of China. With the spread of Buddhism in the West, inspired by the leadership of the exiled Dalai Lama, and the controversy over Tibets status, interest in this mysterious land has never been greater. In this book, Robert Fisher focuses on the inextricably intertwined relationship between the art and the spiritual life of the region, which is reflected by a dazzling pantheon unexcelled in its variety and complexity. From the Potala in Lhasa - one of the worlds greatest religious complexes - to painting, sculpture, manuscripts, silk embroidery and its highly developed tradition of portraiture and ritual objects, Tibets unique artistic culture is vividly presented in this compelling study.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=231188 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=289609 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=248362 Film historian and writer Donald Richie probes the ironies, missteps, and politics of the Occupation censors and their new colleagues in the Japanese cultural community. Citing incidents both famous and infamous, he deftly touches on painting, theater, and film. Scholar Keiko McDonald examines the conflicted and provocative evolution of womens roles in film while Linda Ehrlich discusses two films by Japanese directors looking back on the period. In a revealing look at nine visual artists who not only suffered reversals of fortune during the war but also a fundamental confusion of values in the aftermath, author Emiko Yamanishi describes the caution and experimentation that characterized the era. Ranging in purpose from soliciting donations of clothes for returning refugees to promoting cosmetics and Peace Cigarettes, a selection of posters forms a vibrant portfolio assembled by James Howard Fraser, author of several books onJapanese graphic design. Director emeritus of the Cleveland Museum of Art and distinguished author Sherman Lee provides a telling first person account of his experiences during those difficult years. His job with the Arts and Monuments Division of SCAP (Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers) in Tokyo led him to inspection visits of temple sites and art collections all over Japan at a time of intense national scrutiny. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=281187 No region has a textile tradition more vivid and romantic than that of Central Asia. This book provides a spectacularly illustrated survey of these textiles, displaying in more than 200 color plates the opulent silks and velvets, the exquisite embroideries, the magnificent felts and woolen fabrics produced in the workshops of the oasis towns of the Silk Route. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=293405 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=299183 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=226653 Art in China marks a breakthrough in the study of the subject. Drawing on recent innovative scholarship - and on newly-accessible studies in China itself - Craig Clunas surveys the full spectrum of the visual arts in China. He ranges from the Neolithic period to the art scene of the 1980s and 1990s, examining art in a variety of contexts - as it has been designed for tombs, commissioned by rulers, displayed in temples, created by the men and women of the educated elite, and bought and sold in the marketplace. Many of the objects illustrated in this book have previously been known only to a few specialists, and will be totally new to a general audience. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=291944 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=283279 This book explains the general intellectual climate of the early Ching period, and the political and cultural characteristics of the Ching regime at the time. Professor Huang brings to life the books central characters, Li Fu and the three great emperors - Kang-hsi, Yung-cheng, and Chien-lung - whom he served. Li Fu rose from poverty to become top graduate in the examinations, a distinguished scholar-official, and author of several important philosophical works; he was also involved in such practical affairs as the troubled relations between the state and non-Han minority peoples in Kwangsi. Li Fus turbulent relationship with three of Chinas most active emperors led to repeated banishments, loss of office, and in one case to death sentence and a last-minute reprieve. The book culminates in a discussion of the hero-emperor Kang-hsis appropriation of the tradition of the Way from his intellectual officials, which denied them their traditional role as moral censors and critics of the emperors exercise of authority. This depiction of the Ching periods activist management of the world of ideas will broaden our understanding of the historical relationship between intellectuals and the state in China.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=196006 From the most basic artifacts and traditions of village life - earthenware water jars, brightly colored wooden toys and painted murals of Hindu deities on mud walls - to sophisticated and intricate geometric designs painstakingly etched on precious metal or carved in stone, here is a spectacular array of arts and crafts, representing the wealth of the countrys craft heritage. Specially taken photographs complement a lively and thorough discussion of each medium: the plastic arts; wood and stone carving; metalwork; jewelry; textiles; paint and paper; and a colorful miscellany, including leatherwork, basketry and floral work. As well as comprehensive descriptions of materials and techniques such as inlay, enameling, sand-casting, tie-dye and papermaking, Arts and Crafts of India outlines the regional styles, history, and social and symbolic significance of many of the artifacts, informed by the authors first-hand research - often in remote areas of the subcontinent. This book, complete with a collectors guide and glossary, will appeal to all those visiting India, as well as to designers, buyers, and anyone who appreciates the beauty and decorative value of ethnic arts and crafts.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=77335 Ink plum (momei) has been one of the most admired and widely practiced genres of ink painting in East Asia throughout the last six hundred years. In this study, the first full account of momei, Maggie Bickford provides a comprehensive account of genre formation in Chinese painting. Fully interdisciplinary in approach, it demonstrates how art historical, literary, cultural, and political situations, groups, and individuals acted upon one another to produce the birth of a new painting genre and its codification. The emergence of ink plum in the Song Dynasty, at the beginning of the twelfth century, and its codification under alien Mongol rule in the mid-fourteenth, can be documented precisely, allowing the modern scholar to observe at close range the formative processes of Chinese scholar-art. Moreover, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre examines critically the transformation of the alternative art of the Song scholar elite into the self-proclaimed orthodoxy of later Chinese painting.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=82703 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=290946 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=32416 Poetic paintings - works done in response to lyric poems, or else as pictorial equivalents to them - compose a major category of East Asian art. In this beautifully illustrated book James Cahill looks at three exemplary traditions in this genre, works from three very different times and places, bringing new understanding of the paintings and of the relationship between the art and the societies that produced it. Creating paintings with poetic resonances, sometimes with ties to specific lines of poetry, is a practice that began in China in the eleventh century, the Northern Sung period. Cahill vividly surveys its first great flowering among artists working in the Southern Sung capital of Hangchou, probably the largest and certainly the richest city on earth in this era. He shows us the revival of poetic painting by late Ming artists working in the prosperous city of Suchou. And we learn how artists in Edo-period Japan, notably the eighteenth-century Nanga masters and the painter and haiku poet Yosa Buson, transformed the style into a uniquely Japanese vehicle of expression. In all cases, Cahill shows, poetic painting flourished in crowded urban environments, it accompanied an outpouring of poetry celebrating the pastoral, escape from the city, immersion in nature. An ideal of the return to a life close to nature - the lyric journey - underlies many of the finest, most moving paintings of China and Japan, and offers a key for understanding them.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=82698 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=286043 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=196363 Textiles, probably the best-known example of Thailands traditional crafts, form only part of the rich assortment of creative products and techniques presented in Arts and Crafts of Thailand. Over 175 spectacular full-color photographs showcase a wide variety of handicrafts, including baskets, earthenware, water dippers, shimmering silk fabrics, fine silverware, lacquerware, jewelry, furniture, wood carvings, and altar tables and other ceremonial objects. The trappings of Thai theater arts - masks, puppets, dance costumes, and musical instruments - are also represented here. A chapter featuring the innovative commercial crafts of the last two decades, together with a map, glossary, index, and comprehensive bibliography, completes this authoritative volume. Fascinating, informative, and visually stunning. Arts and Crafts of Thailand contains a treasury of both ordinary and unusual objects, all of them designed and created with ingenuity and expertise, and all of tremendous appeal both to folk art collectors and to anyone with an interest in this remarkable country.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=281349 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=287223 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=295583 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=287335 Hokusai is perhaps the Asian artist best known in the West. His influence has extended from the Impressionists to later modern art and even to commercial design. A few of his works are so frequently reproduced that they are almost as familiar as the face of the Mona Lisa. Yet the Great Wave and the Red Fuji from the Thirty-six views of Mt. Fuji represent only a tiny fraction of Hokusais output. The pages of the Sketches, with their teeming humanity and their boundless interest in the details of everyday life, give only a small idea of his true scope. Hokusais life was characterized by a prodigious energy and productivity that continued to the end of his ninth decade; his output comprises a correspondingly broad variety of genres and styles. Despite this, it is still not sufficiently realized just how great is the range, and how many masterpieces it includes. The aim of this work is to present a more balanced picture of Hokusais achievement, a selection ranging over the whole oeuvre that will give some idea of the strength, the delicacy, and the fabulous inventive powers of this truly universal genius of the ukiyo-e.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=286003 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=285262 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=293387 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=290698 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=285514 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=164235 This handsome book is the first in a major three-volume series that will survey Chinas immense wealth of art, architecture, and artefacts from prehistoric times to the twentieth century. The Arts of China to AD 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 AD 900.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=190065 Chinese decorative, pictorial, and architectural forms, often approached as separate traditions, are here explained as a broad artistic movement and contextualized as part of a well-defined cultural and political tradition. The book begins with the first comprehensive explanation of ritual art. This native genre encompasses ceremonial pottery, jades, and bronzes, which, though often small and hidden, manifest a unique sense of the monumental. The author traces the decline of this archaic tradition and the corresponding rise of palatial and funerary monuments against the background of Chinas transition from a network of principalities to a unified political state. He portrays the continual reinvention of the city in China as he analyzes the history of the Western Han capital, Changan, and brings to life the individual motives of builder, mourner, and deceased in discussing the unprecedented construction and decoration of mortuary monuments during the Eastern Han. The book concludes by reexamining what is arguably the most important event in Chinese art history: the appearance of individual artists during the post-Han period and their transformation of public monumental art into a private idiom.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=179139 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=290774 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=300266 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=289689 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=292083 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=69272 Focusing on an extraordinary eighth-century statue of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, excavated in north central Thailand in 1964, this volume provides an overview of Buddhist art in Southeast Asia from the seventh to ninth centuries. The large sculpture of Maitreya now in the collection of The Asia Society Galleries, New York, is reportedly one of a group of stunning bronzes excavated from the base of an abandoned temple in the village of Prakhon Chai in Thailands Buriram Province. It is widely acknowledged to be one of the finest examples of the art of the region. The sculptures from Prakhon Chai - noted for their exquisite craftsmanship and their elegant physiques, relaxed poses, and scanty clothing and jewelry - raise challenging questions about style and iconography in the Buddhist art of Thailand and Cambodia. This volume, which documents an exhibition organized and circulated by The Asia Society Galleries, features an essay by Nandana Chutiwongs, a leading scholar of early Buddhist art in the region, that surveys regional styles and stylistic developments in Southeast Asian Buddhist sculpture from the seventh through the ninth centuries - an important addition to the available literature on the subject. In an essay raising more general issues of art history and religious development Denise Patry Leidy, curator of The Asia Society Galleries and of the Buddha of the Future exhibition, discusses the distinctive iconography of the sculptures from Prakhon Chai and the possible relationship between them and the spread of esoteric Buddhism in the region at the time. In addition to numerous color views of the centerpiece Maitreya, the book includes rich duotone illustrations of a number of important sculptures from Prakhon Chai and related sites; works from the neighboring Buddhist cultures of Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the Indonesian archipelago; and a selection of statues from India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia exemplifying the complex imagery of Maitreya.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=114579 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=89000 In The Painters Practice, James Cahill reveals the intricacies of the painters life with respect to payment and patronage - an approach that is still largely absent from the study of East Asian art. Drawing upon such unofficial archival sources as diaries and letters, Cahill challenges the traditional image of the disinterested amateur scholar-artist, unconcerned with material rewards, that has been developed by Chinas literati, perpetuated in conventional biographies, and abetted by the artists themselves. His work fills in the hitherto unexplored social and economic contexts in which painters worked, revealing the details of how painters in China actually made their living from the sixteenth century onward. Considering the marketplace as well as the studio, Cahill reviews the practices and working conditions of artists outside the Imperial Court such as the employment of assistants and the use of sketchbooks and prints by earlier artists for sources of motifs. As loose, flamboyant brushwork came into vogue, Cahill argues, these highly imitable styles ironically facilitated the forgers task, flooding the market with copies, sometimes commissioned and signed by the artists themselves. In tracing the great shift from seeing the painting as a picture to a concentration on the painters hand, Cahill challenges the archetype of the scholar-artist and provides an enlightened perspective that profoundly changes the way we interpret familiar paintings.--BOOK JACKET. http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=102734 http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/record.jsp?R=96029