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山水画

In the days following Earth Day, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss one of the most prominent styles of Chinese traditional art, 山水 (shān shuǐ), which depicts stunning, idyllic landscapes and exalts nature to a divine like status. 山水 directly translates to “mountain” and “water,” which already clues the viewer into what the content of the paintings might be.

Guo Xi, Early Spring, Northern Song Dynasty.

Shanshui painting first emerged in the fifth century and grew into prominence around the tenth and eleventh centuries, during the late Tang dynasty and continuing into the Song dynasty. As we have learned already in class this semester, the Tang period was considered the golden age for Chinese literature and art. During the Tang dynasty, Daoism also became the official religion of the empire, which heavily influenced the principles of shanshui painting. Daoism stressed the insignificance of human presence amidst the vastness of the cosmos, a theme embodied by shanshui pieces. In shanshui painting, the landscape overwhelms the whole composition, so much so that viewers often are unable to identify humans or animals if they are present, due to their miniscule scale. Take Travelers among Mountains and Streams by Fan Kuan as an example. If you cannot find the travelers (yes, it did take me a good two minutes), don’t worry a detailed short video explaining the piece is found at the end of this post!

Fan Kuan, Travelers among Mountains and Streams, Song Dynasty.

As the Tang dynasty declined, however, so did Daoism as a religion. With the emergence of the Song dynasty, Neo-Confucian principles took force, which also influenced this style of painting. Neo-Confucianism expressed interest in patterns and common principles which underlie everything in the universe, leading to the highly structured world of shanshui painting.

Apart from the subject matter of the style, what separates shanshui painting from other artistic movements is its medium and underlying compositional rules. To start, 山水 rejects pigments, and thus colors, instead merely using a brush and ink. With the simplicity of materials, there is a greater emphasis placed upon an artist’s mastery of rhythm and expression of brushstrokes. An author from the twelfth century, Cheng Hsi wrote, “shan shui painting refutes color, light and shadow and personal brush work. Shan shui painting is not an open window for the viewer's eye, it is an object for the viewer's mind. Shan shui painting is more like a vehicle of philosophy.” While some pieces do depict existing Chinese landscapes, most paintings are meant to express an ideal of nature or the artist’s impression of the beautiful Chinese landscape. These paintings rely heavily upon balance, composition, and form, all developed through three basic principles: path, threshold, and heart. In this style of art, pathways should never be straight or inorganic, rather the lines of the composition should mimic that which nature creates. In the absence of shadows, the twisting nature creates depth and layers within the piece. Shanshui painting must also contain a threshold, most often in the form of a mountain, an especially designated spot for the viewer to be spiritually embraced. Like I mentioned in my last post about Hokusai’s spiritual obsession with Mount Fuji, similarly, in Chinese culture, mountains hold spiritual significance because they are thought to be the dwelling places of deities.  Lastly, the heart is the focal point of the piece where all of the lines and energies should meet in the composition. These three elements all together create a truly mesmerizing scene, which place an overwhelming emphasis on nature and its inherent spirituality.

Thank you so much to those who have read these posts! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about East Asian art along with us!

-Woo :)

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BT21 and the entrance of K-pop into commercialism and art

The world’s largest K-pop group and one of the most prominent artists internationally is BTS, or Bangtan Sonyeondan in Hangul. BTS’s world domination is not merely because of their catchy songs or iconic synchronous dances, but because of the work they have put into creating a brand for themselves and inserting that brand into every aspect of commercial life. One of the most popular brands that BTS has created and has helped strengthen their presence as artists is their collaboration with Line Friends, BT21. Line is a popular East Asian chat app, and Line Friends is their commercial avatar brand that sells plush toys, clothing, and almost anything with cute characters. This really plays into the emphasis on cuteness that East Asian markets appreciate, and with the help of BTS the brand has been able to take off into the Western markets as well.  Each member of BTS created their own avatar: leader RM created a blue koala named Koya, Suga a angry cookie named Shooky, Jin a loveable alpaca named RJ, J-Hope a blue and purple dancing horse named Mang, Jimin a white dog wearing a yellow hoodie named Chimmy, V a heart-shaped alien named Tata, and Jungkook a pink bunny named Cooky. 

The band also designed a alien rocketship named VAN to represent their fanbase, ARMY. BT21 is featured in a multitude of products and even has short animation films that are dedicated to showcasing the antics and lives of these characters and their relationships with each other. BT21 was created by BTS to send an uplifting image to their fanbase and show how strong the power of friendship is. BTS makes sure to connect themselves to these characters as well, as they are often featured in videos by Line Friends creating new story plots for their characters and helping with developing other characters. BT21 has taken off to the point that Line Friends has subsequently released entire families and friends of each of these characters to further the BTS multiverse. 

Though this is not the traditional view of East Asian art, this is very much a modern representation of how popular culture has entered the art sphere. Much like with Takashi Murakami, BT21 has shown how even the highest of the “low” art can get a new generation of people interested in art. I feel that often people who appreciate “high” art look down upon commercialized business art however BT21 demonstrates the success that can come from it. By creating this art, these characters, the band BTS has been able to not only create a whole new era of merchandise for fans but also introduce the whole world to a new form of art. These characters transcend more than just the merchandising sphere, they are featured in animation, photography, and even fashion. BT21 is truly a revolutionary group of characters and I am excited to see other artists emulate the same model that BTS has. 

- Lauren Yenari

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Ham Kyungah (Arrington)

Upon looking through different styles of art originating from East Asia, I stumbled upon Ham Kyungah’s artwork because of its unique character. It seems very modern and very detailed, so I wanted to know more about her. She was born in Seoul in 1966 and has used her Korean background as a heavy influence for her artwork. The history of Korea and its politically sensitive subjects are the main theme behind her work. She is constantly challenging the rules of the system. Usually her works begin with spontaneous ideas that she develops into big projects later with lots of meticulous work.

She graduated from Seoul National University College of Fine Arts in the Painting Department in 1989. She later earned her master’s degree in fine arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1995.

Currently most of her artwork is in the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Uli Sigg collection.

It’s been known that she likes to follow people in yellow clothes, when she is traveling among various Asian countries, noticing the significance of society, culture and religion in their lives. She collects wastes disposed from the former president’s house to metaphorical depict the tragedy of Korean modern history and all the parodies of the shameful history of Korea. She says that. The objects from the president’s house are stolen objects from all over the world. As a South Korean she is involved with North Korea and South Korean relationships. She actually smuggles designs into North Korea through people in Russia or China. She is best known for her embroidered canvases created in dialogue with anonymous North Korean artisans who convert Ham’s coded instructions into intricate embroideries, which are then smuggled back to the artist in South Korea to be integrated into the finished compositions.

These selected embroideries included in the Asia Society Triennial are from the series What you see is the unseen / Chandeliers for Five Cities.

This body of work was inspired by the historic decision made by several foreign powers to separate Korea after World War II, when Korea was under Japanese rule. In these works, the sumptuous crystal-chandelier motif, evocative of privilege, desire, and the geopolitical power of the aforementioned countries, is depicted at various degrees of fragmentation until the form is completely obliterated.

I really like Ham because not only does she have immense talent, but she’s using her talent in ways to shed light on societal problems of Korea. I’m glad she used her talent to challenge such a dictatorship.Some of her artwork is included below included the selected embroideries.

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Terracotta Warriors

     For my final blog post I think it is only appropriate to write about something extravagant like the Terracotta Warriors ( 兵马俑). In my last post I talked about Yue Minjun who found himself inspired by these ancient figures. Calling the Terracotta Warriors simply a piece of art is probably not a sufficient description. They are also a masterpiece of construction and architecture.

     So what exactly are they? I think we should start with some photos just to capture their grandeur.

These photos capture a small portion of the Terracotta Warriors, which are sculptures of an army constructed under the reign of Qin Shi Huang who was the first emperor of a unified China. It makes you wonder why he would want to build such a big army that can’t actually fight. It turns out that Qin Shi Huang was deeply concerned about the afterlife and desired to live eternally, so he had this army constructed as a means of protection for his path to the afterlife. This was certainly no small feat considering that there are probably over 7,000 of these Terracotta Warriors that we know of and there were also chariots, horses, and vases constructed all in an effort to provide Qin Shi Huang with a grand funeral in addition to protecting him after his death. Some details that really stand out about this massive project include the fact that each warrior was sculpted with unique features and it is thought that originally each warrior was painted in color which has faded over time. This shows not only that the Chinese people of this time were capable of a large amount of labor, but also very skilled artisans utilizing assembly line methods to construct such a detailed project. All the work that must have been put into this massive project is a testament to the type of ruler Qin Shi Huang was, a strict and powerful ruler. It is rumored that the artisans of the project were locked inside this massive tomb after Qin Shi Huang’s burial so that nobody could find out about the many treasures that were kept down there along with the Terracotta Warriors.

   What probably surprised me most about researching the Terracotta Army is finding out that it was sort of randomly stumbled upon by a group of farmers in the 1970s in Xi’an China who happened to be digging a well. The man shown above is Zhao Kangmin who is the archaeologist credited with the discovery and got the project of unearthing them started. Nobody was looking for this army of Terracotta Warriors, for all we knew they did not even exist, but since the 1970s archaeologists and historians have been able to date these warriors back to Qin Shi Huang and the Qin dynasty. Even today there is more work to be done and probably many more warriors to be excavated. You can visit the excavation site in Xi’an or even see some of the Terracotta Warriors on display at museums around the world.

Blog Post 3

-Luke Trask

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Ukiyo-e and Hokusai

While writing this post about the ukiyo-e style and the impact of Katsushika Hokusai, a print version of his most famous and instantly recognizable work, The Great Wave off Kanagawa hangs above my head and covers the front of one of my t-shirts hanging up in my closest friend’s closet. Although created around 1830, the work is still one of the world’s most reproduced images, partially due to the incredible dynamism and vibrant blue that amaze audiences and partially due to its original medium, woodblock print, which made it easily reprinted during its day.

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa

The ukiyo-e style emerged during the Edo period (1603-1868) when rigid class structures limited social climbing for merchants but failed to confine their growing economic power. With excess money for these urban middle classes to spend, ukiyo-e woodblock prints emerged. The original term is derived from the ancient Buddhist word, ukiyo, meaning the sadness of life, indicative of their social status stasis. However, the meaning of the word gradually changed to “floating world,” and the prolific essayist from the period, Asai Ryoi, explains that “living only for the moment, savoring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking sake, and diverting oneself just in floating, unconcerned by the prospect of imminent poverty, buoyant and carefree, like a gourd carried along with the river current: this is what we called ukiyo.” Popular subject matters reflected the interests of merchant classes: kabuki actors, courtesans, popular fashion styles, and landscapes promoting domestic tourism. The most common subjects were undoubtedly kabuki actors and prostitutes, almost paralleling today’s high quality posters of modern day pop stars or pin-up girls. Ukiyo-e prints were neither exorbitant nor especially cheap, meaning they were certain representations of wealth for merchant classes. Samurai often would commission prints as well. 

Toshusai Sharaku, Kabuki Actor Ōtani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei in the Play The Colored Reins of a Loving Wife

Not only was ukiyo-e incredibly influential in Japan, but it quickly shaped the art scene in Europe as well. Many Impressionist artists, such as Van Gogh and Cassat, looked to ukiyo-e prints to reimagine their perspectives and challenge classical formatting styles. The French term, Japonisme, refers to the influence of ukiyo-e prints on the 19th century French Impressionists. As seen below, these woodblock prints inspired a greater degree of flattening in Western art.

Kitagawa Utamaro’s Takashima Ohisa Using Two Mirrors to Observe Her Coiffure  (top) vs Mary Cassat’s The Coiffure (bottom)

Katsushika Hokusai is best known for his series titled Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji, in which The Great Wave off Kanagawa is the first work. Like the title states, the series depicts thirty-six different perspectives of Mount Fuji, the spiritual center for Hokusai as well as many other Japanese artists. He changes the scenery by manipulating different weather patterns, foregrounds of daily laborers, as well as seasons. One aspect that separates this series and Hokusai from other ukiyo-e artists is his mastery of color and use of gradient in his woodblock prints. 

Hokusai, Hodogaya on the Tōkaidō from Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji

Not only was Mount Fuji a place of spiritual obsession for Hokusai, but the mountain itself is thought to be a popular motif representing Japan, firm and strong. With this in mind, The Great Wave off Kanagawa may serve as a foreshadowing of the Meiji Period Japan was about to enter. The radical change, the great wave, tossing around sailors and fishermen, the Japanese citizen, yet they expertly navigate the surges and Mount Fuji, Japan, stays stable during the tsunami (see the image at the top of this post).

To relate to our previous classes about manga and anime, Hokusai can be credited for popularizing the term, manga, looking at his 1814 publication of his first volume of random drawings, titled, Hokusai Manga, which quickly became the all-time best-selling book in Japan up until that time. His depictions included scenes of everyday life, birds, ghosts, animals, insects, and of course, Mount Fuji.

Volume 2: Water Activities from Hokusai Manga

If you would like to learn more about the actual woodblock technique used in ukiyo-e prints check out the video below :)

-Woo

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Gyo-taku

Hello Asian art enthusiasts! This is Lauren Yenari, back with another post about all things Asian art. Rather than writing about an Asian artist, this time I will be blogging about a style of Asian art. Gyo-taku is a Japanese style of art, and is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish. I found out about gyo-taku through my father. He is an avid fisherman in our hometown of Sarasota, Florida and had always wanted to find a way to display his fish other than through photos. He found gyo-taku through a Japanese festival, and connected with a fellow fisherman who was adept in it. Then, he booked a trip with the fisherman and after their fishing trip was over, the fisherman took one of the fish of my dad’s choosing back with him to create the gyo-taku. This is what a gyo-taku looks like: 

Gyo-taku was first a type of nature printing used for Japanese fisherman to log and keep track of their catches. It has now become an art form with many avid Asian art collectors having gyo-takus on their walls. Prints were originally made by painting the fish with sumi ink and pressing the fish onto rice paper, but the art form has evolved into three different methods. The method of applying ink and then pressing it onto rice paper is the direct method, and the most simple. The fish you see above was done by the direct method. 

The indirect method is a lot more delicate and difficult, adhering washi paper, silk, or other fabric to the fish using rice paste. The fish creates the detail of its relief through the silk, and the ink is applied painstakingly to the silk while adhered to the fish, with applicators of silk wrapped around cotton. 

The third method is the least used, which is the transfer method. This method was developed to print the fish onto surfaces that were not rice paper such as hardwood, plastic, or even walls. First, gyo-taku artists ink and press the fish as in the direct method. The image is then lifted from the subject after placing and pressing a piece of nylon on the ink-covered fish. The transfer film is then lifted and carefully placed and pressed upon the target surface. In this method, the final image is not reversed as it is in the direct method. Through the process, the image is reversed a second time, resulting in a right-oriented impression.

Initially, gyo-taku was only done in black and white as gyo-taku was traditionally done with black sumi ink. As gyo-taku has become more of an art form, colors that reflect the beauty of fish were incorporated to now gyo-taku can be fully in color, as you saw from the photo above. However, despite gyo-taku being modernized you can still see the original versions of gyo-taku at tackleshops in Japan. I saw a couple on my trip to Japan a couple of summers ago, but due to a very sad computer issue I have lost all of photos from that trip and cannot share them with you :( 

Gyo-taku is a really cool way to showcase the beauty of fish and sealife. It was even rumored that samurai used to use gyo-taku when settling fishing competitions. I know that there are a lot of avid fishermen at Rhodes and so, if you are a little bored of just taking photos of your fish, get a gyo-taku of your catches instead! Be sure to share them with me I cannot wait to see how they look. 

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SOA and anime art-Arrington

Anime has a unique artistic style with some of the most talented artists. This summer, I began to become invested in an anime recommended to me by my friend called Sword Art Online (SOA), written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec. The show has a realistic art style with elements of Kawaii, which comes from the Japanese word for cute. It’s realistic because the animation is very detailed giving the characters lots of features to define their human characteristics. It also has elements of Kawaii like for example the giant eyes that most of the girls have. Here is a gif of two of the main characters, Asuna  and Kirito:

The illustrator of this series SOA goes under the alias abec (アベシ, abeshi) . He has had an interesting and successful history of art. One interesting fact about abec is that he is a self-claimed high school girl, even though it was later revealed in the Anime Expo in 2014 that he is actually a man. However, abec was said to be in jetlag so the man that attended the conference was not really abec. Although this to me seems like abec was possibly denying that he was in fact a man. I thought this was interesting because the writer of SOA emphasized how you could be anyone you wanted in the virtual world. Maybe abec wanted to be someone else in real life and that’s why he liked the idea of creating SOA. Below is a picture of him (or maybe not depending on what you believe )in the middle . One success that he’s had is that he placed first in the top 10 illustrators in the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! 2012 awards.

 Other famous anime artist includes Takeshi Obata, the creator of Death Note, Ken Sugimore, the creator of Pokémon, but I want to focus on Hayao Miyazaki. I like Miyazaki as an anime creator, book author, and movie produced because his  work represents his own beliefs and experiences. One interesting thing about the changing nature of anime is how technology and 3d animation has affected artists. Many see this new technology as a threat. With the rise of computers and AI, more anime will be created faster, animating all the manga and novels, making more sequels and anime originals. Hopefully, this will help underpaid animators in the industry to continue making money instead of them becoming obsolete.

Miyazaki actually talked about this stating “If it's a dying art [manga/written anime], there's nothing you can do about it. Civilization is moving forward. Where are the mural makers now? Where are the landscape designers? What are they doing? The world is changing. I'm very lucky to have been able to do the same thing for almost 40 years. In my era, it's a rare case” (Miyazaki). Below is a picture of the film My neighbor Totoro, on of Miyazaki’s most famous works.

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Yue Minjun

Yue Minjun is a contemporary Chinese artist with an intricate background. His family worked in oil fields growing up and they travelled around often to find work. This led him down the path of underwater oil drilling, but eventually he studied oil painting at Hebei Normal University. This seems fitting considering his background and familiarity with all things related to oil. He graduated college in 1989, the same year as the student protests in Tiananmen Square. Certainly this critical event had a sharp influence on Yue Minjun as well as his artwork. One thing everyone notices when viewing an artwork by Yue Minjun is the use of laughter and smiles in practically all of his works. These laughing faces are actually self portraits. It is hard to connect laughter to the event of Tiananmen Square, but many critics say that perhaps Yue uses laughter as a mask for other emotions such as loss or helplessness. Yue is able to reflect inward on himself by using self portraits, and also make comments on Chinese society at large because he himself is a part of it.

This artwork titled Execution is undoubtedly a commentary on the events of Tiananmen Square, the four naked men representing some of the student protestors. The red wall in the background provides a physical context to viewers that this is Tiananmen Square. This specific work is actually the priciest piece of contemporary Chinese art, it sold for about 5.9 million dollars in 2007. Interestingly, Yue Minjun argues that this painting is not a political critique of the Chinese government but rather a broader critique of societal issues at large. I think that perhaps Yue Minjun makes this claim to avoid conflict with his own government and people. Aside from oil paintings, Yue Minjun has also delved into sculpture. Some of my favorite sculptures of his are his Contemporary Terracotta Warriors seen below.

These self portrait terracotta warriors are definitely an homage to the Terracotta Army in Xi’an. Additionally, Yue Minjun is making a comment about the lack of identity individuals can experience in contemporary China. Each sculpture is the same and they are all uniformly arranged. Even the laughing facial expressions bear no distinct differences which is common in Yue’s work. Many of these Contemporary Terracotta Warriors have been used in permanent outdoor installations around the world, not just in China. Overall I think that Yue Minjun’s work can be interpreted in a variety of ways. In some instances he is using laughter to mask other emotions, but in other examples of his work that laughter is almost certainly legitimate. If we were to try and condense the meaning of the laughter in his artwork into just one idea, I think that idea would be the variety of human emotions. Laughter can mean almost anything, and to Yue Minjun laughter means everything.

-Luke Trask 

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艾未未（Ai Weiwei)

I was first introduced to one of China’s most influential contemporary artists, 艾未未(Ai Wei Wei), during my junior year of highschool in my advanced placement art history course. My teacher was actually responsible for adding Ai Weiwei’s work, Sunflower Seeds (葵花籽), to the list of two hundred and fifty required works of art for the AP Art History course. It was undoubtedly one of my favorite pieces from the required list, so I’m excited now to delve deeper into this work of art and the artist responsible.  

Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei was originally installed and unveiled in London’s Tate Modern in October 2010. The work consisted of 100,000,000 to 125,000,000 hand-crafted and painted porcelain sunflower seeds that created a 10cm deep expanse which covered the entire floor of the Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern. Rather than have the porcelain seeds industrially mass produced, Weiwei traveled to Jingdezhen (景德镇), known as the porcelain capital of China because of its tie to 1,000 years of Chinese ceramic history. There, he employed over 1,600 people from the town to hand paint the porcelain seeds. All together the cottage-industry produced seeds weighed over 150 tons. Like all of Weiwei’s works, Sunflower Seeds is intrinsically linked with social and political commentaries concerning contemporary China.

Sunflower Seeds prompts discussions about the production and material history of China, the recent political history of China, as well as the individual Chinese person’s, and, at large, any individual’s role in an increasingly produced society. Through this artwork, Weiwei attempted to highlight China’s role as the largest producer in the world, how the country has capitalized upon its large number of citizens and industrial technology to make them the world’s largest exporter of goods. At the same time, Weiwei draws attention to Western capitalism that has resulted in cheap, mass-produced labor from China, accounting for horrible levels of poverty. In this way, artistry and authentic craftsmanship have been left in the dust and virtually forgotten. Additionally, sunflower seeds symbolize the Cultural Revolution that occurred in China during the 1960s. Ai famously said in a proposal for the installation that “the sunflower faces the trajectory of the red sun, so much the masses feel towards their leadership.” Weiwei deliberately chose the subject matter of sunflower seeds due to the connection between Mao Ze Dong (毛泽东) and the sun seen in many communist party propaganda artworks during the Cultural Revolution. The choice of sunflower seeds is also culturally significant because it is a common street snack in China and was especially coveted during the Cultural Revolution when access to food was limited. Lastly, the hundreds of millions of seeds that appear the same but are all individually unique are thought to evoke the search for an identity in the midst of a rapidly digital and global society. Weiwei, an unyielding human rights activist who has been unafraid to speak out against the Chinese government, hoped to emphasize the role of the individual and individual thought because it is individuals who in turn make up the masses.

In 2010, the editors of ArtReview magazine named Ai Weiwei the most powerful artist in the world. An extremely controversial figure, he creates multimedia projects as visual puns to socially and politically challenge contemporary China. This led to his imprisonment and confiscation of his passport in 2011. He comments on modern China through any and all art forms, even through a series of photographs depicting him dropping an ancient vase, appropriately titled, “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn.” Ai Weiwei also helped construct The Bird’s Nest, China’s National Stadium, that was created for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  Ai Weiwei, an activist just as much as an artist, has recently produced films about the Hong Kong protests (Cockroach) and the COVID-19 pandemic (Coronation). This leader of the the most recent avant-garde art movement in China still continues to create tidal waves in today’s art community in China and abroad.

-Woo Wade

If you want to learn more about Sunflower Seeds here is a video uploaded from the Tate Modern Museum!

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Tseng Yu-Ho

With her many talents, the author, educator, and artist Tseng Yu-ho lived a successful and exciting life. As a privileged daughter of an admiral, she began studying art when she was only eleven with the Chief Manchu House representative Prince Pu Jin. She attended Fujen University where she graduated in 1942 and received degrees in Chinese art history and literature from Peking University. In 1945 she married the Greek-American and art historian Gustav Ecke. After marriage, she moved to Honolulu in 1949 where she earned her master’s degree from University of Hawaii. Her career took off in 1946 when she received lots of recognition from famous Harvard art historian Michael Sullivan.

Artistically, Tseng’s skills were most often displayed through her paintings, calligraphy, and literature. She was specially known for a form of painting made from mixed media and paper collage called dsui hua, English translates literally to “assembled paintings”. When describing her work Tseng said, “In my work I have tried to unite many elements of the visual arts of China into one entity and give it a soul . . . I am but a single drop of the ocean and I occasionally feel that I am at the edge of the world. Like the astronauts walking in unlimited space, I feel my creative efforts do not convey a sense of being lost, but of being found.”      

Given her immense talent, Tseng is a highly decorated artist, but has also received other awards for her various achievements. In 1974, she received the Paul S. Bachman Memorial Award for her contributions to improving relations between the United States and Asia, and from 1977 to 1985, she was the first director of the Council for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaii. Before returning to Beijing in 2005, she was named the “Living Treasure of Hawaii” by the Japanese Buddhist Association in 1990. She was able to accomplish so much at a time when few women or minorities were properly acknowledged for their accomplishments.            

One thing that puzzles me about Tseng is why she used the pseudonym Betty Ecke. The name Betty seems to cover up for her Asian identity. It’s interesting to think about if she did this in order to appeal to European or Western critics. It’s especially interesting because most of her artwork centered around traditional Chinese style.

One of her most famous pieces is the “Remembrance in a Cup of Tea”, pictured below, a collage and gouache mounted on Masonite. Each panel in inscribed with the name of the piece. This is an example of the dsui hua paintings that she is well known for. This painting shows overlapping layers of paper together with carefully applied ink and color that come together to create an abstracted yet harmonious landscape.  This style of painting is considered to be a key moment in Chinese landscape painting of the twentieth century. The piece shown below was sold for $7,000.

I like Tseng Yu-ho because she exemplified strength and individuality. I find it honorable that she used her immense talent to teach others her techniques and about Chinese culture. She died in China on Sept. 16, 2017 and still remains an International legend to this day.

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Takashi Murakami and his 20+ year evolution

Takashi Murakami is one of the most prominent artists in terms of modern Asian art today. The most fascinating thing about Murakami’s work is that Murakami has worked in both fine arts media and commercial media, thrusting Asian art and East Asian culture into the pop-culture sphere. Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, Japan and later on received a doctorate from Tokyo University of the Arts in nihonga. Nihonga is the traditional style of Japanese painting, which Murakami went on to reimagine in order to revamp Japanese contemporary art.

  Although there were certainly hints at it before, Murakami’s true artistic style emerged in the early 2000s following his fellowship with the Asian Cultural Council in New York. Through this fellowship, Murakami was able to establish a small studio in New York which, when combined with his Japanese studio Hiropon Factory created in 1996, became the predecessor to his art company Kaikai Kiki. Murakami saw too much of a clash between “high art” and “low art” in Japan and sought to merge the bridge between the two. This sparked Murakami’s unique voice, and as such he has redefined Japanese visual culture by creating anime-style characters using traditional fine arts materials.

Murakami’s work is heavily depended on the reuse of prominent characters he’s created and repetitive motifs, which has made his work extremely memorable across the globe. His art style embodies an intersection of history, pop culture, traditional Japanese culture, and fine art. Murakami’s most famous exhibit is Superflat, which he introduced in 2000. Murakami wanted to highlight how Japanese visual arts are extremely flat, ranging from traditional Japanese art to more contemporary kawaii motifs. Superflat was a combination of multiple artists and multiple styles of Japanese art from woodblock prints to anime-resembling characters. Superflat pushed Murakami to monumental heights, and he began to be one of the first prominent artists to mix high end art culture with what some art critics may consider low end commercial art culture. 

Commercial art culture embodies fashion, mainstream media, and animation, and Murakami’s tendency to create characters that would continue throughout his work intrigued many within commercial art to collaborate with him. One of Murakami’s first collaborations of high art and commercialism was with Issey Miyake Men, however his first international collaboration that caught the attention of the world was his collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2002. Murakami’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton had Murakami’s iconic flower motif painted on various fine leather goods including handbags, wallets, clothing, shoes, and more. This collaboration is considered one of the first times the lines between commercialism and high art culture were blurred, and for Murakami it certainly wasn’t the last.

  Murakami has even brought his artistic genius to music, collaborating with the likes of Kanye West, Pharrell, Billie Eillish, and J. Balvin.  Murakami’s most recent art exhibit was a collaboration with famed fashion designer Virgil Abloh in 2018. Abloh was previous the creative director for Gucci and has since started his own brand. Murakami’s work is loved globally, but especially within East Asia as well. Murakami has done several collaborations in his home country of Japan, one of the most prominent being his creation of image characters as a press campaign for the major real estate development project in Japan, Roppongi Hills. Murakami’s art and motifs are seen on various Asian celebrities, causing fans of an entirely new generation to learn about Murakami and his art. An example of this would be J-Hope, a member of the South Korean boy-band BTS. J-Hope has been seen several times wearing Murakami’s flower motif, even featuring it in his outfits for his solo music debut, Hope World. BTS’s fanbase is extensive, and because of that the story of Takashi Murakami’s genius of combining high art with commercial art lives on in a whole new generation.

-Lauren Yenari

[blogaboutasianart]

Wang Xizhi and Calligraphy

Just recently I found out that calligraphy is considered the best and most noble art form in China. I was aware that it was an art form that existed in many cultures, but honestly, I was kind of shocked to find that the Chinese hold it in such high regard. In my view calligraphy often just seems more like writing than art, so what makes it the undisputed best art form to the Chinese? As it turns out, there is some history behind writing in China that helps explain the value of calligraphy. Thousands of years ago Chinese characters were inscribed on the bones of turtles. These were perhaps the earliest examples of Chinese writing, and they were often used in divination rituals. Having a connection between those that knew how to write and these early sorts of religious practice has placed a special importance on the drawing and writing of Chinese characters even today. Additionally, it was intriguing to discover that many Chinese characters were originally pictographic. This means that they look similar to the idea that they are trying to represent. Although simplified modern Chinese characters have changed over the years, these pictographs can sometimes still be seen in many Chinese characters. In this way, calligraphy becomes much more like drawing a picture than simply just writing a word. Perhaps this is why it is considered such a noble art form. Oddly enough not only is calligraphy considered to be the best art form in China, but there is also one individual who is considered the best calligrapher. This calligrapher is Wang Xizhi ( 王羲之), he lived during the Jin dynasty and sadly none of his original works still remain today. Only copies of his work keep it alive, but luckily these copies use tracing which make them very accurate depictions for what Wang Xizhi’s original calligraphy would have actually looked like. He became especially famous for what is known as semi-cursive script. This is similar to cursive or writing something quickly in English. Perhaps Wang Xizhi’s most celebrated and popular work is his Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion. This work was an especially beautiful introduction to the work of many popular poets during this dynasty. There is a popularized story that Wang Xizhi learned to move his wrist so perfectly when writing from watching the way geese move their necks. This gave me an understanding of just how delicate and precise calligraphy truly is. Oddly enough Wang Xizhi’s son Wang Xianzhi ( 王獻之), later became a well renowned calligrapher like his father. In the modern-day calligraphy is still an art form used in China, but it is looked as something classical and traditional. There will probably never be another Wang Xizhi, but calligraphy will always be an important and unique piece of the Chinese artistic sphere.

-Luke T