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Krishna playing flute (ca. 1790 – 1800), from the Guler/Kangra region. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; Freer Gallery of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Krishna and His flute, cca. 1740., Jammu, Punjab. Acquired by A.K. Coomaraswamy, Ross-Coomaraswamy Collecton, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1917.

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-Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy in 1916. Photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn.

By the early 20th century, more than 84 percent of the world had been conquered by Europeans. What was known as East and West were now thoroughly entangled, locked in cycles of resistance and reprisal, dependence and distrust. In India, the independence movement gave rise to satyagraha, the non-violent resistance of Mahatma Gandhi, who led his first revolt—an uprising of indigo farmers—in 1917.

That same year, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston hired Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy as the first curator of Indian art in the United States. Coomaraswamy was himself a product of colonial entanglement, born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and raised mostly in England. His father had been a scholar and a gentleman, popular in the court of Queen Victoria—he was the first person of Asian descent to be knighted. Ananda was among the first historians of Indian art and chafed at the impoverished view of Eastern culture in the West. A self-described cultural nationalist, he believed in an India “for ourselves” as the rightful opportunity to bring its heritage to bear on the global project of “human progress.” After calling for Indians to sit out World War I, he was pressured to leave England.

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Collecting the subcontinent: How South Asian art evolved under colonialism 

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Collecting the subcontinent: How South Asian art evolved under colonialism 

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-Processional image of a large swan, made in the 19th century as part of a much larger effigy of the goddess Kali for an annual temple festival. Collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

The rise of museums was coincident with the height of imperialism and its attendant racial theories, of course, and so the art of colonized cultures was seen accordingly. A dichotomy emerged between art from cultures with old traditions of writing and those without (a legacy that lingers in some Western museums’ curatorial structures). The latter included sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. India was included in the former, along with China and Egypt.

Yet within those lines, canons were formed and shaped mostly by market pressures, the changing tastes of museums and collectors and aesthetes. Within a few decades around the turn of the 20th century, for example, collectors of African art went from favoring less refined, ostensibly more powerful objects to seeking more streamlined, stylized pieces. And middle-men responded, stripping or including the raffia and other organic material of masks and statues to give a clean, modern look—or not.

The market was also shaped by decidedly non-aesthetic pressures. Small objects weren’t impressive enough to be collected; large items were too unwieldy.

-https://new.artsmia.org/stories/collecting-the-subcontinent-how-south-asian-art-evolved-under-colonialism

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-keywords: awareness, symbols, resistance, visual metaphors

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Young artists from China

-Shan Fei's works express the colors of the world in his eyes, as a result of the evolution of the artist's own ideology. His new series of art, the Brain Image series, began to include color, making the emotions expressed in his works richer and making his style and colors more distinctive artistic symbols. He tries to find the change of seasons and time in his creation, which both represents the hope for the future and contains the imagery of the initial black and gray of the world, an expression of their own mutilated symbols. In the expression of his works, a primitive wildness seems to be ready to be completed, about to break through the frame to break all the restraints on it. Shan Fei's emotions are meticulously perceived and sensitively touched. His work "Confrontation" uses boxing as an artistic expression to express the artist's resistance to all things. He puts strength in his works, expressing the denial of falsehood, hoping that the public can find the strength to face life and the world through these works.

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-It is not a work based on decolonization, but I think it can express part of the meaning of decolonization, because the two people in the picture are two people connected by a line, so what is their previous relationship? Are they unrelated? Or did they split up but then were linked together for some other reason? Is it a community of destiny?

-Symmetrical image composition

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ARTWORK INFO
Size: 10x12cm
Materials: Mineral pigment

-Although his painting is not based on a decolonization theme, based on the fact that his artwork is based on the traditional techniques of Japanese painting while incorporating the spirituality and iconography of European painting, I think it would be a bold guess that what this painting implies may include two different peoples who share a common land (alluding to Western society?). This is because the painting shows two faces with completely different skin tones and features, but they share the same head and body.
At the same time, the eyes on the black face are closed, while the eyes on the left face are open. Does this imply that the person in control of the body is the one with open eyes, while the one on the right is still growing slowly until the time of real awakening, and will there be a battle for the body between them?

-Strife, split, merge into one, fuse, snatch, coexist?

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-An artist from Japan, his field of work is considered to be "dichotomous", contemporary in expression and classical in flavor, showing the coexistence of cultures in the midst of chaos. (Is decolonization not also a coexistence of chaotic cultures in the same area?)

-Muraoka's artwork is based on the traditional technique of nihonga and at the same time integrates spirituality and icons of European paintings。

official site: http://kimio-muraoka.com/works2-16.html

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History

Tie-dye has a long history. It originated in the Yellow River valley. There is no certainty as to when it originated. It is recorded that mass production of stranded silk, which was tied and dyed to prevent dyeing, took place as early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The process of tie-dyeing was already well established in the Eastern Jin dynasty, with works from 408 AD.

At the time, there were simpler small clusters of patterns, such as butterflies, wax plums and begonias, as well as whole motifs and patterns.

Cloth is the carrier of tie-dye, and without textiles there would be no cloth, silk or brocade, and without such and such a carrier there could not be any art craft of painting and dyeing on the carrier.

The history of textiles in China can be traced back at least as far as the Shang or Western Zhou dynasties from the extant historical sources. A number of jade silkworms have been found in the tombs of both the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties, indicating the importance people attached to silkworms at the time. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, silk weaving had progressed rapidly, and the available excavations and documents show that there was a wide variety of silk weaving products with exquisite patterns. During the Han Dynasty, silk weaving and dyeing techniques made great progress, and the products could be divided into a dozen categories, such as cotton, damask, silk, roses, saris, lian, fancy silks, coats and satins. At the same time, silk production centres were formed in the Central Plains, mainly in Linzi and Xiangyi.

The general term for the ancient silk printing and dyeing process. From the process classification, dyeing valerian is divided into four categories: grey valerian, twisted valerian, wax valerian and clip valerian.

Grey val is a process of printing and dyeing with alkali raw material lime, grass wood ash as a mordant. Stranded val, also known as handful of val, handful of flowers, now known as tie-dye. Wax val, also known as groom of the bedchamber, is a process of using beeswax as an anti-dyeing agent, heating it and then painting the pattern on the silk, and then dyeing it to remove the wax. The val is a printing and dyeing process that uses two symmetrical patterned plywood panels to hold the fabric and prevent dyeing by clamping and pressing at the yang pattern.

Tie-dyeing has been practised for thousands of years, since the Qin and Han dynasties (Gong Yi Shi Lu)

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, tie-dye products were widely used for women's clothing

The use of tie-dye techniques. The fabric is rich in variation, with both a simple and thick primitive class and a modern beauty of transformation and flow, with the beauty of Chinese ink rhythm and magical hazy beauty, tie-dye clothing is based on the national culture of both traditional and modern clothing art creation. It is a traditional and modern creation based on ethnic culture. Different patterns of effect can be seen by interlocking, scratching, stringing and overlapping dyeing. The use of multiple tie-dyeing and dyeing processes on the same fabric allows the traditional tie-dyeing process to develop from a single colour to a multi-colour effect. In ancient times, dyes were usually made from vegetable dyes, also known as grass and wood dyeing. Commonly used dyes include saffron, comfrey and indigo. In those days, tie-dyeing techniques included rice dyeing, face dyeing, bean dyeing and so on. In other words, bean flour and lime were used to make a dye-proof paddle, which was applied to the cloth through a flower plate and then boiled and dyed to give the effect of white flowers on an orchid background. A printing method in which the fabric or garment is tied with thread or string in various ways according to the effect of the design and put into the dyeing solution, so that the tied area cannot be penetrated by the dye and a natural special pattern is formed. It is also possible to tie-dye the garment directly. There are two types of tie-dyeing: string tie and pinch tie. The former pattern is like a dewdrop, quiet and elegant, while the latter pattern has strong contrasting colours and is lively and fresh. Generally used for looser garments, scarves, etc. Silk fabrics are mostly used.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the dyeing and weaving techniques reached a very high level, and there were dyeing guilds, and the red cloth of Erhaiwei in the Ming dynasty and the cloth of Xizhou and Dali in the Qing dynasty were all famous and best-selling products. In the Republican period, home dyeing was commonplace, and the towns of Zhoucheng and Xizhou, which were known for their dense one-family dyeing workshops, had become centres of tie-dyeing that were known all over the world.

Tie-dyeing shows a strong folk art style, with more than 1,000 patterns epitomising the history and culture of the people over the centuries, reflecting their folk customs and aesthetic sensibilities, and together with various craft methods forming an attractive weaving and dyeing culture.

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History

Shadow play probably originated in the Central Asian-Continental Chinese or Indian regions around 1000 BCE. [5][6]

Many documents record that during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Buddhist monk Li Shaoweng advised that he had the art of invoking spirits and set up a tent to make shadows to invoke the spirits of his concubine, Lady Li, who had died. As the Shaanxi shadow play is said to have begun in the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and was in full bloom in the Song Dynasty. Another theory is that it is also related to the spirits of the dead, as the Tang dynasty monks used light shadows in Buddhist temples to reason with and overtake the spirits of the dead, so it is inferred that shadow play had a close relationship with religion.

By the time of the Song Dynasty, shadow puppetry had reached a considerable scale and standard. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the "Ege Society" was formed in Hangzhou. During the Yuan Dynasty, the military brought shadow puppets with them on expeditions, spreading shadow to countries in Central Asia, and then from West Asia to Europe in the 13th and 15th centuries. The traditional repertoire of shadow puppets in the Guanzhong area includes hundreds of plays and dozens of singing voices.

Shadow play was already very popular during the Wanli period (1573-1619) of the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the shadow art was combined with Daoism, resulting in the Huanxian Daoist Shadow.

In the Qing Dynasty, the art of shadow play had developed to its heyday. At that time, many large families took pride in hiring famous masters to carve shadow puppets, placing finely crafted shadow boxes and raising shadow classes privately. However, in the late Qing Dynasty, some local officials feared that shadow puppet theatres would gather a crowd and banned the performance of shadow puppets and arrested shadow puppeteers. During the Second World War, when people were suffering from a lack of livelihood, shadow puppet theatre fell into disarray. During the war against Japan, however, shadow puppets were used in Zhangzhou, Fujian, to promote the struggle against Japan. Since the liberation of China, the surviving shadow puppet shows and artists have been revived with the support of the government of the time. However, during the Cultural Revolution, the art of shadow puppetry was hit again by the breaking of the Four Olds. After the reform and opening up, traditional culture was gradually taken seriously. Although shadow puppetry was revived and developed, it was still subject to the impact of film, television and popular culture.

The shadow art in China has evolved over a long period of time and has formed different local genres, such as Shanxi Shadow, Longdong Shadow, Shaanxi Shadow, Beijing Shadow, Shandong Shadow, Qinghai Shadow, Ningxia Shadow, etc., each reflecting unique stylistic characteristics. In rural areas such as Shaanxi and Tianshui in Gansu, this clumsy folk art form was once widely popular. Its popularity is extremely wide, spreading over almost all provinces of China, and has resulted in a wide variety of shadow plays, such as the Huaxian shadow play, Huayang old shadow play, A Gong cavity shadow play, string plate cavity shadow play in Shaanxi, Huan County Daoist shadow play in Gansu, Xiaoyi bowl cavity shadow play in Shanxi, Tangshan shadow play and Jinan shadow play in Hebei, Haining shadow play in Zhejiang, Jianghan plain shadow play in Hubei, and Lufeng shadow play in Guangdong. The shadow puppet plays of Haining in Zhejiang, Jianghan Plain in Hubei, Lufeng in Guangdong, Fuzhou in Liaoning, and Lingyuan in Liaoning.

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paper-cutting pasted on windows for decoration (especially in festivals)

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History

The history of the art of window-cutting is thousands of years old, and was gradually spread and shaped during the Song and Yuan dynasties.

The history of the art of paper-cutting, in the true sense of the word, begins with the appearance of paper. The invention of paper in the Han Dynasty led to the emergence, development and popularity of paper cutting.

The Tang Dynasty also saw the emergence of folk printing plates using paper-cutting forms, where people carved thick paper into flower plates and leaked dye onto cloth to form beautiful patterns.

The Song Dynasty saw the maturation of the paper industry and a wide range of paper products, which provided the conditions for the popularity of paper-cutting. For example, it became a folk gift of "gift flowers", "window flowers", or was used for the decoration of lanterns and tealights. During the Song dynasty, the use of folk paper-cutting was gradually expanded, and the Jizhou kiln in Jiangxi Province used paper-cutting as a pattern for ceramics, making them more exquisite through glazing and firing; folk also used paper-cutting in the form of animal skins such as donkeys, cows, horses and sheep, carved into the shape of figures in shadow puppets; the blue printing process used oiled cardboard to carve the pattern for the openwork system, and the pattern for the scraping printing was the technique of paper-cutting, with yin and yang The long lines are cut and the dots are used to divide the reality from the reality.

Picture characteristics

The lines of paper-cutting are summarised in five words: "round, sharp, square, missing, line". The requirements are: "round as the autumn moon, pointed as the wheat mane, square as the green brick, missing as the serrated tooth, and line as the beard."

Subject matter

The subject matter of window painting is extremely broad, with dramatic characters, historical legends, flowers, birds, fish and insects, landscapes, real life and auspicious motifs all being used in window painting. The most common motifs are floral, animal, festive and auspicious, often in the form of "auspicious and joyful", "good year and good fortune", "good harvest", "prosperity for people and animals The main motifs are "auspicious and joyful", "seeking good fortune in the year of plenty", "abundant harvest", "prosperous for all", "prosperous for people and animals", "surplus in a row" and "auspicious flowers and birds".

Its unique popularity, practicality and aesthetics became symbolic in line with the psychological needs of the people. The authors mostly come from the hands of village women and folk artists, and because he or she takes the things they see and hear in real life as the subject matter and observes the objects, based entirely on pure emotion and intuitive impressions, they form a special style of paper-cutting art that is muddy, simple, concise and lucid, reflecting the kind of simple and unpretentious spirit of the peasants.

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Tibetan costume is a traditional Tibetan costume with a long history. Around the Tibetan clothing has many similarities, basic features are fat waist, long sleeve, cloth, YouRen, mostly using leather and Tibet wool (ཕ ྲ ུ ག) as the main material. And they like to use some objects, such as coral, agate, cat stone, pearls and other gems as decoration.

A typical pairing of Tibetan clothing is a shirt, underpants, a Tibetan robe, and a Bangdian (apron) around the lower body. Due to the differences in geographical environment, historical development and other factors, the aesthetics and customs of Tibetans in different regions are also slightly different, and they also have different styles of clothing according to different seasons and occasions .

https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%97%8F%E6%9C%8D

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The round collar robe, known as the upper collar in the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty and the group collar, disc collar or round collar in the Ming Dynasty, is one of the common styles of traditional Han clothing in China.

Cut the neckline into a tight circle around the neck, with the buttons on both shoulders. This design is to prevent sand from blowing into the neckline, when the weather turns hot, you can undo the button of the shoulder, a pair of "upper collar" out, and form an open "lapel" heat dissipation and perspiration. "Crewnecks" can also be worn as lapels. It is also on the upper collar robe and shirt, for the convenience of horseback riding, and the groundbreaking introduction of the "slit" probably from Persia.

According to the murals and figures of the Han Dynasty, scholar Lin Huaxu believed that there was already a situation of wearing round-neck underwear under the cross-neck coat, and since the Eastern Han Dynasty, round-neck underwear began to appear gradually and frequently. In the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, round collar began to be widely used as outerwear, and then the true sense of round collar robe began to appear.

https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%86%E9%A2%86%E8%A2%8D

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In ancient times, puppetry is called "puppet show" and "puppet". It is a kind of opera in which the artist manipulates the puppet to perform the story.
Puppetry in China arose in the Han Dynasty, and had a new development and improvement in the Tang Dynasty. The Song Dynasty was an important period for the development of puppetry, and the puppetry production and manipulation techniques became more mature. With the development of society and economy, puppetry became popular all over the country in Ming Dynasty, and puppetry was more prosperous in the economically developed provinces and regions in the south, hence the saying "the South is a good puppet". After the Qing Dynasty, puppetry entered its heyday. It was not only popular, but also featured more and more voices. Branches of puppet show appeared, such as Liaoci Puppet Show, Zhangzhou Bubagian Puppet Show, Quanzhou Bubagian Puppet Show, Jinjiang Bubagian Puppet Show, Shaoyang Bubagian Puppet Show, Gaozhou puppet show, Chaozhou Tiezhi puppet show, North Sichuan Da puppet Show, Shiqian puppet show, YangTixian puppet show, Taishun Yaofa puppet show and Lingao puppet show. In terms of performance forms, it can be summarized into five kinds: marionette, rod head marionette, bag marionette, iron branch marionette and medicine hair Marionette.
The puppet art is exquisite and breathtaking. In addition to the wonderful performances of the artists, the perfect puppet plastic arts and operating equipment are also an important aspect to attract a wide audience. Plastic arts focus on the carving and design of puppets. Generally speaking, the marionette shape is higher, mostly around 2.2 feet. The key parts are all decorated with wire lifting, up to more than 30, at least more than 10, if the stunt performance also need to add a number of auxiliary wire lifting. The level of puppeteers performing various dance figures and martial arts skills completely depends on the artist's operating skills, which is the key to the level of puppeteers performing arts. The rod head puppet is taller than the marionette, usually about 3 feet high. It is equipped with three operating lines, two of which move the hands and one of which controls the head and body. The bag puppet has the smallest shape, only about 7 inches. It is performed by the artist with two hands. It has special operation skills and is different from the string lifting and rod head puppet.

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Qingzhao Li is the most famous female poet in the Chinese history. She wrote numerous brilliant poetries throughout her entire life. Her early works were passionate and carefree, but after her husband’s death and the war in her home country, her poems became sorrow and depressed.

Here are some of Li’s famous works:

《如梦令·暮春》

昨夜雨疏风骤，浓睡不消残酒。

试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。

知否，知否？应是绿肥红瘦。

《声声慢》

寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，

凄凄惨惨戚戚。

乍暖还寒时候，最难将息。

三杯两盏淡酒，

怎敌他、晚来风急。

雁过也，正伤心，却是旧时相识。

满地黄花堆积，憔悴损，如今有谁堪摘？

守着窗儿，独自怎生得黑。

梧桐更兼细雨，到黄昏，点点滴滴。

这次第，怎一个愁字了得。

https://bkimg.cdn.bcebos.com/pic/a71ea8d3fd1f4134a4b3461c2e1f95cad0c85ecf?x-bce-process=image/watermark,image_d2F0ZXIvYmFpa2U5Mg==,g_7,xp_5,yp_5

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The classical garden of Suzhou is originated from the Chunqui period in Chinese history and it thrived during the Ming and Qing dynasties. People can live, admire, and sightseeing in the Classical gardens. The gardens embrace Chinese traditional culture, history and philosophies into its architectural design. When the viewers are inside of the gardens, everything they see is carefully designed and the views are like paintings. These incredible architectures are underrated in the current global society.

https://baike.baidu.com/reference/358248/c735X_XIDMWybRvlpIVTPgBV0q_B1Bzi2mSaqhlCA1LLLwUys_vWGL22ud4AyG4fJ1PEm4bjPH357KectxPm

https://www.theadventuretravelsite.com/blog-data/uploads/2019/04/1024px-Humble_Administrators_Garden_in_Suzhou_China_2015_-_14-1024x768.jpg

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A novel which created by 14th-century writer Luo Guanzhong in China. It illustrates an epic era of numerous extraordinary leaders and political figures during 184-280 in the Chinese history. The writer combined real history in the novel and it is one of the four classic novel in modern Chinese society. The story is a real masterpiece and it shows the nature of human minds and the intangible Chinese rules and culture within the people. The story also includes immortal heroes, villains and splendid battle scenes. The book can make people open their minds and reflect/seeing themselves in the modern society. However, the story is not well-known outside of the China.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Romance-of-the-Three-Kingdoms