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Dalam sejarah seni, seni prasejarah adalah semua seni yang diproduksi dalam budaya prasejarah yang belum terpelajar yang dimulai di suatu tempat yang sangat terlambat dalam sejarah Bumi dan biasanya berlanjut hingga budaya tersebut mengembangkan tulisan atau metode pencatatan lainnya, atau memiliki kontak yang signifikan dengan budaya lain. dan mencatat beberapa peristiwa sejarah yang penting. Dari titik ini dimulailah seni kuno untuk budaya terpelajar yang lebih tua. Tanggal akhir yang dicakup oleh istilah ini sangat bervariasi di seluruh dunia.
Artefak manusia paling awal yang menunjukkan tanda-tanda pengerjaan untuk tujuan artistik masih kontroversial. Jelas bahwa karya semacam itu ada 40.000 tahun yang lalu selama periode Paleolitik, meskipun kemungkinan besar karya tersebut dimulai jauh lebih awal. Pada September 2018, para peneliti melaporkan bahwa mereka telah menemukan gambar Homo sapiens paling awal yang diketahui, diperkirakan berusia 73.000 tahun, jauh sebelum artefak berusia 43.000 tahun yang diyakini sebagai gambar manusia modern paling awal yang ditemukan sebelumnya.
Ukiran cangkang Homo erectus yang berusia 500.000 tahun telah ditemukan, meskipun para ahli tidak setuju apakah ukiran ini dapat diklasifikasikan sebagai "seni". Dari Paleolitik Muda hingga Mesolitik, lukisan gua dan seni portabel seperti patung dan manik-manik mendominasi. , yang juga menampilkan pola dekoratif yang bekerja pada beberapa objek yang berguna. Periode Neolitik memiliki bukti tembikar awal, serta patung dan bangunan megalitik. Lukisan batu awal juga muncul saat ini. Munculnya pengerjaan logam di Zaman Perunggu membawa lebih banyak alat untuk seni, variasi gaya yang lebih banyak, dan penciptaan objek yang tampaknya tidak memiliki fungsi selain seni. Itu juga melihat perkembangan di beberapa cabang kerajinan, kelas orang yang berspesialisasi dalam produksi seni, dan sistem penulisan awal. Sebelum Zaman Besi, peradaban sastra muncul dari Mesir kuno hingga Tiongkok kuno.
Banyak masyarakat adat di seluruh dunia terus menghasilkan karya seni yang unik untuk geografi dan budaya mereka sampai eksplorasi dan perdagangan memberi mereka metode penangkapan. Beberapa budaya, terutama peradaban Maya, mengembangkan tulisan secara mandiri selama masa kejayaannya, yang kemudian menghilang. Kebudayaan-kebudayaan tersebut dapat digolongkan sebagai kebudayaan prasejarah, apalagi jika sistem penulisannya belum dibongkar.

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In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or makes significant contact with another culture that has, and that makes some record of major historical events. At this point ancient art begins, for the older literate cultures. The end-date for what is covered by the term thus varies greatly between different parts of the world.

The earliest human artifacts showing evidence of workmanship with an artistic purpose are the subject of some debate. It is clear that such workmanship existed 40,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic era, although it is quite possible that it began earlier. In September 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the earliest known drawing by Homo sapiens, which is estimated to be 73,000 years old, much earlier than the 43,000 years old artifacts understood to be the earliest known modern human drawings found previously.

Engraved shells created by Homo erectus dating as far back as 500,000 years ago have been found, although experts disagree on whether these engravings can be properly classified as 'art'. From the Upper Paleolithic through to the Mesolithic, cave paintings and portable art such as figurines and beads predominated, with decorative figured workings also seen on some utilitarian objects. In the Neolithic evidence of early pottery appeared, as did sculpture and the construction of megaliths. Early rock art also first appeared during this period. The advent of metalworking in the Bronze Age brought additional media available for use in making art, an increase in stylistic diversity, and the creation of objects that did not have any obvious function other than art. It also saw the development in some areas of artisans, a class of people specializing in the production of art, as well as early writing systems. By the Iron Age, civilizations with writing had arisen from Ancient Egypt to Ancient China.

Many indigenous peoples from around the world continued to produce artistic works distinctive to their geographic area and culture, until exploration and commerce brought record-keeping methods to them. Some cultures, notably the Maya civilization, independently developed writing during the time they flourished, which was then later lost. These cultures may be classified as prehistoric, especially if their writing systems have not been deciphered.

Pseudodon shell DUB1006-fL with the earliest known geometric engravings, supposedly, made by Homo erectus; ca. 500,000 BP; from Trinil (Java); Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Netherlands).[5]

The earliest undisputed art originated with the Homo sapiens Aurignacian archaeological culture in the Upper Paleolithic. However, there is some evidence that the preference for the aesthetic emerged in the Middle Paleolithic, from 100,000 to 50,000 years ago. Some archaeologists have interpreted certain Middle Paleolithic artifacts as early examples of artistic expression. The symmetry of artifacts, evidence of attention to the detail of tool shape, has led some investigators to conceive of Acheulean hand axes and especially laurel points as having been produced with a degree of artistic expression.

Similarly, a zigzag engraving supposedly made with a shark tooth on a freshwater Pseudodon shell DUB1006-fL around 500,000 years ago (i.e. well into the Lower Paleolithic), associated with Homo erectus, could be the earliest evidence of artistic activity, but the actual intent behind this geometric ornament is not known.

Claimed "Oldest known drawing by human hands", discovered in Blombos Cave in South Africa. Estimated to be 73,000 years old.[2]

There are other claims of Middle Paleolithic sculpture, dubbed the " Venus of Tan-Tan" (before 300 kya) and the " Venus of Berekhat Ram" (250 kya). In 2002 in Blombos cave, situated in South Africa, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago. This suggested to some researchers that early Homo sapiens were capable of abstraction and production of abstract art or symbolic art. Several archaeologists including Richard Klein are hesitant to accept the Blombos caves as the first example of actual art.

In September 2018 the discovery in South Africa of the earliest known drawing by Homo sapiens was announced, which is estimated to be 73,000 years old, much earlier than the 43,000 years old artifacts understood to be the earliest known modern human drawings found previously. The drawing shows a crosshatched pattern made up of nine fine lines. The sudden termination of all of the lines on the fragment edges indicate that the pattern originally extended over a larger surface. It is also estimated that the pattern was most likely more complex and structured in its entirety than shown on the discovered area. Initially, when this drawing was found, there was much debate. To prove that this drawing was created by Homo Sapiens, French team members who specialized in chemical analysis of pigments, reproduced the same lines using a variety of techniques. They concluded that the lines making up the drawing were intentional and were most likely made with ocher. This discovery adds further dimensions to understanding the behavior and cognition of early homo sapiens.

Neanderthals may have made art. Painted designs in the caves of La Pasiega ( Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso ( Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales ( Andalusia) are dated to 64,800 years ago, predating by at least 20,000 years the arrival of modern humans in Europe. In July 2021, scientists reported the discovery of a bone carving, one of the world's oldest works of art, made by Neanderthals about 51,000 years ago.

In November 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo, while in 2020 a Megaloceros bone was found in the Harz mountains in Germany, on which specimens of Homo neanderthalensis carved ornaments 51,000 years ago.

The oldest undisputed works of figurative art were found in the Schwäbische Alb, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The earliest of these, the Venus figurine known as the Venus of Hohle Fels and the Lion-man figurine, date to some 40,000 years ago.

Further depictional art from the Upper Palaeolithic period (broadly 40,000 to 10,000 years ago) includes cave painting (e.g., those at Chauvet, Altamira, Pech Merle, Arcy-sur-Cure and Lascaux) and portable art: Venus figurines like the Venus of Willendorf, as well as animal carvings like the Swimming Reindeer, Wolverine pendant of Les Eyzies, and several of the objects known as bâtons de commandement.

Paintings in Pettakere cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are up to 40,000 years old, a similar date to the oldest European cave art, which may suggest an older common origin for this type of art, perhaps in Africa.

Monumental open-air art in Europe from this period includes the rock-art at Côa Valley and Mazouco in Portugal, Domingo García and Siega Verde in Spain, and Rocher gravé de Fornols in France.

A cave at Turobong in South Korea containing human remains has been found to contain carved deer bones and depictions of deer that may be as much as 40,000 years old. Petroglyphs of deer or reindeer found at Sokchang-ri may also date to the Upper Paleolithic. Potsherds in a style reminiscent of early Japanese work have been found at Kosan-ri on Jeju island, which, due to lower sea levels at the time, would have been accessible from Japan.

The oldest petroglyphs are dated to approximately the Mesolithic and late Upper Paleolithic boundary, about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The earliest undisputed African rock art dates back about 10,000 years. The first naturalistic paintings of humans found in Africa date back about 8,000 years apparently originating in the Nile River valley, spread as far west as Mali about 10,000 years ago. Noted sites containing early art include Tassili n'Ajjer in southern Algeria, Tadrart Acacus in Libya (A Unesco World Heritage site), and the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. Rock carvings at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa have been dated to this age. Contentious dates as far back as 29,000 years have been obtained at a site in Tanzania. A site at the Apollo 11 Cave complex in Namibia has been dated to 27,000 years.

Göbekli Tepe in Turkey has circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars dating back to the 10th-8th millennium BCE; the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs.

The Dancing Girl of the Indus Valley civilization

Asia was the cradle for several significant civilizations, most notably those of China and South Asia. The prehistory of eastern Asia is especially interesting, as the relatively early introduction of writing and historical record-keeping in China has a notable impact on the immediately surrounding cultures and geographic areas. Little of the very rich traditions of the art of Mesopotamia counts as prehistoric, as writing was introduced so early there, but neighbouring cultures such as Urartu, Luristan and Persia had significant and complex artistic traditions.

The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of prehistoric times, the petroglyphs as found in places like the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, and some of them are dated to c. 8,000 BC. The Indus Valley civilization produced fine small stamp seals and sculptures, and may have been literate, but after its collapse there are relatively few artistic remains until the literate period, probably as perishable materials were used.

The Gobustan National Park reserve located at the south-east of the Greater Caucasus Mountains in Azerbaijan, 60 km away from Baku date back more than 12 thousand years ago. The reserve has more than 6,000 rock carvings depicting mostly hunting scenes, human and animal figures. There are also longship illustrations similar to Viking ships. Gobustan is also characterized by its natural musical stone called Gavaldash (tambourine stone).

Prehistoric artwork such as painted pottery in Neolithic China can be traced back to the Yangshao culture and Longshan culture of the Yellow River valley. During China's Bronze Age, Chinese of the ancient Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty produced multitudes of Chinese ritual bronzes, which are elaborate versions of ordinary vessels and other objects used in rituals of ancestor veneration, decorated with motifs and by the late Shang Chinese bronze inscriptions. Discoveries in 1987 in Sanxingdui in central China revealed a previously unknown pre-literate Bronze Age culture whose artefacts included spectacular very large bronze figures (example left), and which appeared culturally very different from the contemporary late Shang, which has always formed part of the account of the continuous tradition of Chinese culture.

A Korean Neolithic pot found in Busan, 3500 BCE

The earliest examples of Korean art consist of Stone Age works dating from 3000 BCE. These mainly consist of votive sculptures, although petroglyphs have also been recently rediscovered. Rock arts, elaborate stone tools, and potteries were also prevalent.

This early period was followed by the art styles of various Korean kingdoms and dynasties. In these periods, artists often adopted Chinese style in their artworks. However, Koreans not only adopted but also modified Chinese culture with a native preference for simple elegance, purity of nature and spontaneity. This filtering of Chinese styles later influenced Japanese artistic traditions, due to cultural and geographical circumstances.

The prehistory of Korea ends with the founding of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, which are documented in the Samguk Sagi, a 12th-century CE text written in Classical Chinese (the written language of the literati in traditional Korea), as beginning in the 1st century BCE; some mention of earlier history is also made in Chinese texts, like the 3rd-century CE Sanguo Zhi.

Clearer evidence of culture emerges in the late Neolithic, known in Korea as the Jeulmun pottery period, with pottery similar to that found in the adjacent regions of China, decorated with Z-shaped patterns. The earliest Neolithic sites with pottery remains, for example Osan-ri, date to 6000-4500 BCE. This pottery is characterized by comb patterning, with the pot frequently having a pointed base. Ornaments from this time include masks made of shell, with notable finds at Tongsam-dong, Osan-ri, and Sinam-ri. Hand-shaped clay figurines have been found at Nongpo-dong.

Large Middle Mumun (c. 800 BCE) storage vessel unearthed from a pit-house in or near Daepyeong

During the Mumun pottery period, roughly between 1500 BCE and 300 BCE, agriculture expanded, and evidence of larger-scale political structures became apparent, as villages grew and some burials became more elaborate. Megalithic tombs and dolmens throughout Korea date to this time. The pottery of the time is in a distinctive undecorated style. Many of these changes in style may have occurred due to immigration of new peoples from the north, although this is a subject of debate. At a number of sites in southern Korea there are rock art panels that are thought to date from this period, mainly for stylistic reasons.

While the exact date of the introduction of bronzework into Korea is also a matter of debate, it is clear that bronze was being worked by about 700 BCE. Finds include stylistically distinctive daggers, mirrors, and belt buckles, with evidence by the 1st century BCE of a widespread, locally distinctive, bronzeworking culture.

The time between 300 BCE and the founding and stabilization of the Three Kingdoms around 300 CE is characterized artistically and archaeologically by increasing trade with China and Japan, something that Chinese histories of the time corroborate. The expansionist Chinese invaded and established commanderies in northern Korea as early as the 1st century BCE; they were driven out by the 4th century CE. The remains of some of these, especially that of Lelang, near modern Pyongyang, have yielded many artifacts in a typical Han style.

Superb samples of Steppes art - mostly golden jewellery and trappings for horse - are found over a vast expanses of land stretching from Hungary to Mongolia. Dating from the period between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE, the objects are usually diminutive, as may be expected from nomadic people always on the move. Art of the steppes is primarily an animal art, i.e., combat scenes involving several animals (real or imaginary) or single animal figures (such as golden stags) predominate. The best known of the various peoples involved are the Scythians, at the European end of the steppe, who were especially likely to bury gold items.

Among the most famous finds was made in 1947, when the Soviet archaeologist Sergei Rudenko discovered a royal burial at Pazyryk, Altay Mountains, which featured - among many other important objects - the most ancient extant pile rug, probably made in Persia. Unusually for prehistoric burials, those in the northern parts of the area may preserve organic materials such as wood and textiles that normally would decay. Steppes people both gave and took influences from neighbouring cultures from Europe to China, and later Scythian pieces are heavily influenced by ancient Greek style, and probably often made by Greeks in Scythia.

Pillar from Göbekli Tepe with low reliefs of what are believed to be a bull, fox, and crane, 9600 to 8800 BCE.

The Ain Sakhri Lovers from modern Israel, is a small Natufian carving in calcite, from about 9,000 BCE. Around the same time, the extraordinary site of Göbekli Tepe in eastern Turkey was begun. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive but neatly shaped T-shaped stone pillars were erected - the world's oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime. On the smoothed surfaces of the pillars there are reliefs of animals, abstract patterns, and some human figures.

By convention, prehistory in the Near East is taken to continue until the rise of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE, although writing existed in the region from nearly 2,000 years earlier. On that basis the very rich and long tradition of the art of Mesopotamia, as well as Assyrian sculpture, Hittite art and many other traditions such as the Luristan bronzes all fall under prehistoric art, even if covered with texts extolling the ruler, as many Assyrian palace reliefs are.

The Art of the Upper Paleolithic includes carvings on antler and bone, especially of animals, as well as the so-called Venus figurines and cave paintings, discussed above. Despite a warmer climate, the Mesolithic period undoubtedly shows a falling-off from the heights of the preceding period. Rock art is found in Scandinavia and northern Russia, and around the Mediterranean in eastern Spain and the earliest of the Rock Drawings in Valcamonica in northern Italy, but not in between these areas. Examples of portable art include painted pebbles from the Azilian culture which succeeded the Magdalenian, and patterns on utilitarian objects, like the paddles from Tybrind Vig, Denmark. The Mesolithic statues of Lepenski Vir at the Iron Gate, Serbia date to the 7th millennium BCE and represent either humans or mixtures of humans and fish. Simple pottery began to develop in various places, even in the absence of farming.

Compared to the preceding Upper Paleolithic and the following Neolithic, there is rather less surviving art from the Mesolithic. The Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin, which probably spreads across from the Upper Paleolithic, is a widespread phenomenon, much less well known than the cave-paintings of the Upper Paleolithic, with which it makes an interesting contrast. The sites are now mostly cliff faces in the open air, and the subjects are now mostly human rather than animal, with large groups of small figures; there are 45 figures at Roca dels Moros. Clothing is shown, and scenes of dancing, fighting, hunting and food-gathering. The figures are much smaller than the animals of Paleolithic art, and depicted much more schematically, though often in energetic poses. A few small engraved pendants with suspension holes and simple engraved designs are known, some from northern Europe in amber, and one from Starr Carr in Britain in shale.

The rock art in the Urals appears to show similar changes after the Paleolithic, and the wooden Shigir Idol is a rare survival of what may well have been a very common material for sculpture. It is a plank of larch carved with geometric motifs, but topped with a human head. Now in fragments, it would apparently have been over 5 metres tall when made.

In Central Europe, many Neolithic cultures, like Linearbandkeramic, Lengyel and Vinča, produced female (rarely male) and animal statues that can be called art, and elaborate pottery decoration in, for example, the Želiesovce and painted Lengyel style.

Megalithic (i.e., large stone) monuments are found in the Neolithic Era from Malta to Portugal, through France, and across southern England to most of Wales and Ireland. They are also found in northern Germany and Poland, as well as in Egypt in the Sahara desert (at Nabta Playa and other sites). The best preserved of all temples and the oldest free standing structures are the Megalithic Temples of Malta. They start in the 5th millennium BC, though some authors speculate on Mesolithic roots. One of the best-known prehistoric sites is Stonehenge, part of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site which contains hundreds of monuments and archaeological sites. Monuments have been found throughout most of Western and Northern Europe, notably at Carnac, France.

Entrance stone with megalithic art at Newgrange

In the central Alps, the Camunni made some 350,000 petroglyphs: see Rock Drawings in Valcamonica.

During the 3rd millennium BCE, the Bronze Age began in Europe, bringing with it a new medium for art. The increased efficiency of bronze tools also meant an increase in productivity, which led to a surplus - the first step in the creation of a class of artisans. Because of the increased wealth of society, luxury goods began to be created, especially decorated weapons.

Examples include ceremonial bronze helmets, ornamental ax-heads and swords, elaborate instruments such as lurer, and other ceremonial objects without a practical purpose, such as the oversize Oxborough Dirk. Special objects were made in gold; many more gold objects have survived from Western and Central Europe than from the Iron Age, many mysterious and strange objects ranging from lunulas, apparently an Irish speciality, the Mold Cape and Golden hats. Pottery from Central Europe can be elaborately shaped and decorated. Rock art, showing scenes from the religious rituals have been found in many areas, for example in Bohuslän, Sweden and the Val Camonica in northern Italy.

Gold shoe plaques from the Iron Age Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave, Germany, c.  530 BC.

The Iron Age saw the development of anthropomorphic sculptures, such as the warrior of Hirschlanden, and the statue from the Glauberg, Germany. Hallstatt artists in the early Iron Age favored geometric, abstract designs perhaps influenced by trade links with the Classical world.

The more elaborate and curvilinear La Tène style developed in Europe in the later Iron Age from a centre in the Rhine valley but it soon spread across the continent. The rich chieftain classes appear to have encouraged ostentation and Classical influences such as bronze drinking vessels attest to a new fashion for wine drinking. Communal eating and drinking were an important part of Celtic society and culture and much of their art was often expressed through plates, knives, cauldrons and cups. Horse tack and weaponry were also decorated. Mythical animals were a common motif along with religious and natural subjects and their depiction is a mix between the naturalistic and the stylized. Megalithic art was still sometimes practiced, examples include the carved limestone pillars of the sanctuary at Entremont in modern-day France. Personal adornment included torc necklaces whilst the introduction of coinage provided a further opportunity for artistic expression. The coins of this period are derivatives of Greek and Roman types, but showing the more exuberant Celtic artistic style.

In much of western Europe elements of this artistic style can be discerned surviving in the art and architecture of the Roman colonies. In particular in Britain and Ireland there is a tenuous continuity through the Roman period, enabling Celtic motifs to resurface with new vigour in the Christian Insular art from the 6th century onwards.

The sophisticated Etruscan culture developed from the 9th to 2nd centuries, with considerable influence from the Greeks, before finally being absorbed by the Romans. By the end of the period they had developed writing, but early Etruscan art can be called prehistoric.

Ancient Egypt falls outside the scope of this article; it had a close relationship with the Sudan in particular, known in this period as Nubia, where there were advanced cultures from the 4th millennium BCE, such as the " A-Group", " C-Group", and the Kingdom of Kush.

In September 2018, scientists from the University of Bergen, the University of Bordeaux and the University of the Witwatersrand together reported the discovery of the earliest known drawing by Homo sapiens at Blombos Cave, South Africa which is estimated to be 73,000 years old, much earlier than the 43,000 years old artifacts understood to be the earliest known modern human drawings found previously.

There is a significant body of rock painting in the region around Matobo National Park of Zimbabwe dating from as early as 6000 BCE to 500 CE.

Significant San rock paintings exist in the Waterberg area above the Palala River and around Drakensberg in South Africa, some of which are considered to derive from the period 8000 BCE. These images are very clear and depict a variety of human and wildlife motifs, especially antelope. There appears to be a fairly continuous history of rock painting in this area; some of the art clearly dates into the 19th century. They include depictions of horses with riders, which were not introduced to the area until the 1820s.

Namibia, in addition to the Apollo 11 Cave complex, has a significant array of San rock art near Twyfelfontein. This work is several thousand years old, and appears to end with the arrival of pastoral tribes in the area.

Laas Geel is a complex of caves and rock shelters in northwestern Somalia. Famous for their rock art, the caves are located in a rural area on the outskirts of Hargeisa. They contain some of the earliest known cave paintings in the Horn of Africa, many of which depict pastoral scenes. Laas Geel's rock art is estimated to date back to somewhere between 9,000- 8,000 and 3,000 BCE.

Other prehistoric art in the Horn region include stone megaliths and engravings, some of which are 3,500 years old. The town of Dillo in Ethiopia has a hilltop covered with stone stelae. It is one of several such sites in southern Ethiopia dating from historic period[clarification needed ] (10th-14th centuries).

A petroglyphic Saharan rock carving from southern Algeria depicting an antelope or gazelle.

The early art of this region has been divided into five periods:

Works of the Bubalus period span the Sahara, with the finest work, carvings of naturalistically depicted megafauna, concentrated in the central highlands. The Round Head Period is dominated by paintings of strangely shaped human forms, and few animals, suggesting the artists were foragers.These artists may have been producing rock art 2,000 years before domestication. These works are largely limited to Tassili n'Ajjer and the Tadrart Acacus. Some works show figures with bows near herds of cattle and a reunion of members near cattle. Round heads are found in Tassili, Jebel Uweinat and Ennedi, which may indicate similar cultures between these populations. Other animals represented in the Round head art are hippopotamus, elephant, and bovids. Animals like antelope and mouflon are also represented; fauna remains have been found in archaeological sites during excavations. About 90% of Round Head art is animal representation. Toward the end of the period, images of domesticated animals, as well as decorative clothing and headdresses appear. Some domesticated animals are cattle from the Bovidae family.

Pastoral Period art was more focused on domestic scenes, including herding and dancing. As well as hunting scenes of mouflon. Unlike in the Round Head art, the bow is relevant to Pastoral art since hunting scenes were depicted during this time. Pastoral figures are seen on the same wall of Round Heads except they are along the borders. The foragers may have been respecting the previous artwork and did not paint over the figures. The quality of artwork declined, as figures became more simplified.

The Horse Period began in the eastern Sahara and spread west. Depictions from this period include carvings and paintings of horses, chariots, and warriors with metal weapons, although there are also frequent depictions of wildlife such as giraffes. Humans are generally depicted in a stylized way. Some of the chariot art bears resemblance to temple carvings from ancient Egypt. Occasionally, art panels are accompanied by Tifinagh script, still in use by the Berber people and the Tuareg today; however, modern Tuareg are generally unable to read these inscriptions. The final Camel period features carvings and paintings in which camels predominate, but also include humans with swords, and later, guns; the art of this time is relatively crude.

Belonging in the Lithic stage, the oldest known art in the Americas is the Vero Beach bone, possibly a mammoth bone, etched with a profile of walking mammoth that dates back to 11,000 BCE. The oldest known painted object in the Americas is the Cooper Bison Skull from 10,900 to 10,200 BCE.

The ancient Olmec "Bird Vessel" and bowl, both ceramic and dating to circa 1000 BC as well as other ceramics were produced in kilns capable of exceeding approximately 900 °C. The only other prehistoric culture known to have achieved such high temperatures is that of Ancient Egypt.

Lithic age art in South America includes Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada dating back to 9250-8550 BCE. Guitarrero Cave in Peru has the earliest known textiles in South America, dating to 8000 BCE.

Peru, including an area of the central Andes stretching from the northern part of the country to northern Chile, has a rich cultural history, with evidence of human habitation dating to roughly 10,000 BCE. Prior to the emergence of ceramics in this region around 1850 BCE, cave paintings and beads have been found. These finds include rock paintings that controversially date as far back as 9500 BCE in the Toquepala Caves. Burial sites in Peru like one at Telarmachay as old as 8600-7200 BCE contained evidence of ritual burial, with red ocher and bead necklaces.

The earliest ceramics that appear in Peru may have been imported from the Validivia region; indigenous pottery production almost certainly arrived in the highlands around 1800 BCE at Kotosh, and on the coast at La Florida c. 1700 BCE. Older calabash gourd vessels with human faces burned into them were found at Huaca Prieta, a site dating to 2500-2000 BCE. Huaca Prieta also contained some early patterned and dyed textiles made from twisted plant fibers.

The Initial Period in Central Andean cultures lasted roughly from 1800 BCE to 900 BCE. Textiles from this time found at Huaca Prieta are of astonishing complexity, including images such as crabs whose claws transform into snakes, and double-headed birds. Many of these images are similar to optical illusions, where which image dominates depends in part on which the viewer chooses to see. Other portable artwork from this time includes decorated mirrors, bone and shell jewelry, and unfired clay female effigies. Public architecture, including works estimated to require the movement of more than 100,000 tons of stone, are to be found at sites like Kotosh, El Paraíso, Peru, and La Galgada (archaeological site). Kotosh, a site in the Andean highlands, is especially noted as the site of the Temple of the Crossed Hands, in which there are two reliefs of crossed forearms, one pair male, one pair female. Also of note is one of South America's largest ceremonial sites, Sechín Alto. This site's crowning work is a twelve-story platform, with stones incised with military themes. The architecture and art of the highlands, in particular, laid down the groundwork for the rise of the Chavín culture.

The Chavín culture dominated the central Andes during the First Horizon, beginning around 900 BCE, and is generally divided into two stages. The first, running until about 500 BCE, represented a significant cultural unification of the highland and coastal cultures of the time. Imagery in all manner of art (textiles, ceramics, jewelry, and architectural) included sometimes fantastic imagery such as jaguars, snakes, and human-animal composites, much of it seemingly inspired by the jungles to the east.

The later stage of the Chavín culture is primarily represented by a significant architectural expansion of the Chavín de Huantar site around 500 BCE, accompanied by a set of stylistic changes. This expansion included, among other changes, over forty large stone heads, whose reconstructed positions represent a transformation from human to supernatural animal visages. Much of the other art at the complex from this time contains such supernatural imagery. The portable art associated with this time included sophisticated metalworking, including alloying of metals and soldering. Textiles found at sites like Karwa clearly depict Chavín cultural influences, and the Cupisnique style of pottery disseminated by the Chavín would set standards all across the region for later cultures. (The vessel pictured at the top of this article, while from the later Moche culture, is representative of the stirrup-spouted vessels of the Chavín.)

A Paracas Mantle dating from 200 CE

The Early Intermediate Period lasted from about 200 BCE to 600 CE. Late in the First Horizon, the Chavín culture began to decline, and other cultures, predominantly in the coastal areas, began to develop. The earliest of these was the Paracas culture, centered on the Paracas Peninsula of central Peru. Active from 600 BCE to 175 BCE, their early work clearly shows Chavín influence, but a locally distinctive style and technique developed. It was characterized by technical and time-consuming detail work, visually colorful, and a profusion visual elements. Distinctive technical differences include painting on clay after firing, and embroidery on textiles. One notable find is a mantle that was clearly used for training purposes; it shows obvious indications of experts doing some of the weaving, interspersed with less technically proficient trainee work.

The Nazca culture of southern Peru, which is widely known for the enormous figures traced on the ground by the Nazca lines in southern Peru, shared some similarities with the Paracas culture, but techniques (and scale) differed. The Nazca painted their ceramics with slip, and also painted their textiles. Nazca ceramics featured a wide variety of subjects, from the mundane to the fantastic, including utilitarian vessels and effigy figures. The Nazca also excelled at goldsmithing, and made pan pipes from clay in a style not unlike the pipes heard in music of the Andes today.

The famous Nazca lines are accompanied by temple-like constructions (showing no sign of permanent habitation) and open plazas that presumably had ritual purposes related to the lines. The lines themselves are laid out on a sort of natural blackboard, where a thin layer of dark stone covers lighter stone; the lines were thus created by simply removing the top layer where desired, after using surveying techniques to lay out the design.

In the north of Peru, the Moche culture dominated during this time. Also known as Mochica or Early Chimú, this warlike culture dominated the area until about 500 CE, apparently using conquest to gain access to critical resources along the desert coast: arable land and water. Moche art is again notably distinctive, expressive and dynamic in a way that many other Andean cultures were not. Knowledge of the period has been notably expanded by finds like the pristine royal tombs at Sipán.

In its later years, the Moche came under the influence of the expanding Huari empire. The Cerro Blanco site of Huaca del Sol appears to have been the Moche capital. Largely destroyed by natural events around 600 CE, it was further damaged by Spanish conquistadors searching for gold, and continues with modern looters.

Ponce monolith in the sunken courtyard of the Tiwanaku's Kalasasaya temple

The Middle Horizon lasted from 600 CE to 1000 CE, and was dominated by two cultures: the Huari and the Tiwanaku. The Tiwanaku (also spelled Tiahuanaco) culture arose near Lake Titicaca (on the modern border between Peru and Bolivia), while the Wari culture arose in the southern highlands of Peru. Both cultures appear to have been influenced by the Pukara culture, which was active during the Early Intermediate in between the primary centers of the Wari and Tiwanaku. These cultures both had wide-ranging influence, and shared some common features in their portable art, but their monumental arts were somewhat distinctive.

The monumental art of the Tiwanaku demonstrated technical prowess in stonework, including fine detailed reliefs, and monoliths such as the Ponce monolith (photo to the left), and the Sun Gate, both in the main Tiwanaku site. The portable art featured "portrait vessels", with figured heads on ceramic vessels, as well as natural imagery like jaguars and raptors. A full range of materials, from ceramics to textiles to wood, bone, and shell, were used in creative endeavours. Textiles with a weave of 300 threads per inch (80 threads per cm) have been found at Tiwanaku sites.

The Wari dominated an area from northern to central Peru, with their main center near Ayacucho. Their art is distinguished from the Tiwanaku style by the use of bolder colors and patterns. Notable among Wari finds are tapestry garments, presumed to be made for priests or rulers to wear, often bearing abstract geometric designs of significant complexity, but also bearing images of animals and figures. Wari ceramics, also of high technical quality, are similar in many ways to those of the preceding cultures, where local influences from fallen cultures, like the Moche, are still somewhat evident. Metalwork, while rarely found due to its desirability by looters, shows elegant simplicity and, once more, a high level of workmanship.

Following the decline of the Wari and Tiwanaku, the northern and central coastal areas were somewhat dominated by the Chimú culture, which included notable subcultures like the Lambayeque (or Sicán) and Chancay cultures. To the south, coastal cultures dominated in the Ica region, and there was a significant cultural crossroads at Pachacamac, near Lima. These cultures would dominate from about 1000 CE until the 1460s and 1470s, as the Inca Empire began to take shape and eventually absorbed the geographically smaller nearby cultures.

Chimú and Sicán Cultures

The Chimú culture in particular was responsible for an extremely large number of artworks. Its capital city, Chan Chan, appears to have contained building that appeared to function as museums-they seem to have been used for displaying and preserving artwork. Much of the artwork from Chan Chan in particular has been looted, some by the Spanish after the Spanish conquest. The art from this time at times displays amazing complexity, with "multimedia" works that require artists working together in a diversity of media, including materials believed to have come from as far away as Central America. Items of increasing splendor or value were produced, apparently as the society became increasing stratified. At the same, the quality of some of the work declined, as demand for pieces pushed production rates up and values down.

The Sicán culture flourished from 700 CE to about 1400 CE, although it came under political domination of the Chimú around 1100 CE, at which time many of its artists may have moved to Chan Chan. There was significant copperworking by the Sicán, including what seems to be a sort of currency based on copper objects that look like axes. Artwork includes burial masks, beakers and metal vessels that previous cultures traditionally made of clay. The metalwork of the Sicán was particularly sophisticated, with innovations including repoussé and shell inlay. Sheet metal was also often used to cover other works.

Prominent in Sicán iconography is the Sicán deity, which appears on all manner of work, from the portable to the monumental. Other imagery includes geometric and wave patterns, as well as scenes of fishing and shell diving.

Chancay culture Chancay culture, before it was subsumed by the Chimú, did not feature notable monumental art. Ceramics and textiles were made, but the quality and skill level was uneven. Ceramics are generally black on white, and often suffer from flaws like poor firing, and drips of the slip used for color; however, fine examples exist. Textiles are overall of a higher quality, including the use of painted weaves and tapestry techniques, and were produced in large quantities. The color palette of the Chancay was not overly bold: golds, browns, white, and scarlet predominate.

Pachacamac Pachacamac is a temple site south of Lima, Peru that was an important pilgrimage center into Spanish colonial times. The site boasts temple constructions from several periods, culminating in Inca constructions that are still in relatively good condition. The temples were painted with murals depicting plants and animals. The main temple contained a carved wooden sculpture akin to a totem pole.

Ica culture The Ica region, which had been dominated by the Nazca, was fragmented into several smaller political and culture groups. The pottery produced in this region was of the highest quality at the time, and its aesthetics would be adopted by the Inca when they conquered the area.

The twelve angle stone, in the Hatum Rumiyoc street of Cusco, is an example of Inca masonry.

An Inca period tunic

This time period represents the era in which the culture of the central Andes is almost completely dominated by the Inca Empire, which began its expansion in 1438. It lasted until the Spanish conquest in 1533. The Inca absorbed much technical skill from the cultures they conquered, and disseminated it, along with standard shapes and patterns, throughout their area of influence, which extended from Quito, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile. Inca stonework is notably proficient; giant stones are set so tightly without mortar that a knife blade will not fit in the gap. Many of the Inca's monumental structures deliberately echoed the natural environment around them; this is particularly evident in some of the structures at Machu Picchu. The Inca laid the city of Cusco in the shape of a puma, with the head of the puma at Sacsayhuaman, a shape that is still discernible in aerial photographs of the city today.

The iconography of Inca art, while clearly drawing from its many predecessors, is still recognizably Inca. Bronzework owes a clear debt to the Chimú, as do a number of cultural traditions: the finest goods were reserved to the rulers, who wore the finest textiles, and ate and drank from gold and silver vessels. As a result, Inca metalwork was relatively rare, and an obvious source of plunder for the conquering Spanish.

Textiles were widely prized within the empire, in part as they were somewhat more portable in the far-flung empire.

Ceramics were made in large quantities, and, as with other media, in standardized shapes and patterns. One common shape is the urpu, a distinctive urn shape that came in a wide variety of standard capacities, much as modern storage containers do. In spite of this standardization, many local areas retained some distinctive aspects of their culture in the works they produced; ceramics produced in areas under significant Chimú control prior to the Inca rule still retain characteristics indicative of that style.

Following the Spanish conquest, the art of the central Andes was significantly affected by the conflict and diseases brought by the Spanish. Early colonial period art, began to show influences of both Christianity and Inca religious and artistic ideas, and eventually also began to encompass new techniques brought by the conquerors, including oil painting on canvas.

The earliest evidence of decorated pottery in South America is to be found in two places. A variety of sites in the Santarém region of Brazil contain ceramic sherds dating to a period between 5000 and 3000 BCE. Sites in Colombia, at Monsú and San Jacinto contained pottery finds in different styles, and date as far back as 3500 BCE. This is an area of active research and subject to change. The ceramics were decorated with curvilinear incisions. Another ancient site at Puerto Hormiga in the Bolívar Department of Colombia dating to 3100 BCE contained pottery fragments that included figured animals in a style related to later Barrancoid cultural finds in Colombia and Venezuela. Valdivia, Ecuador also has a site dated to roughly 3100 BCE containing decorated fragments, as well as figurines, many represent nude females. The Valdivian style stretched as far south as northern Peru, and may, according to Lavallée, yet yield older artifacts.

By 2000 BCE, pottery was evident in eastern Venezuela. The La Gruta style, often painted in red or white, included incised animal figures in the ceramic, as well as ceramic vessels shaped as animal effigies. The Rancho Peludo style of western Venezuela featured relatively simple textile-type decorations and incisions. Finds in the central Andes dating to 1800 BCE and later appear to be derived from the Valdivian tradition of Ecuador.

The southern reaches of South America show evidence of human habitation as far back as 10,000 BCE. A site at Arroio do Fosseis on the pampa in southern Brazil has shown reliable evidence to that time, and the Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of the continent has been occupied since 7000 BCE. Artistic finds are scarce; in some parts of Patagonia ceramics were never made, only being introduced by contact with Europeans.

The Gwion Gwion rock art are one of many styles of rock art found in Western Australia. They are predominantly human figures drawn in fine detail with accurate anatomical proportioning. They are usually dated to be at least 17,000 years old, and there have been suggestions they are as much as 70,000 years old. The Sydney rock engravings are also a prominent rock art site in the country.

The natives of Polynesia have a distinct artistic heritage. While many of their artifacts were made with organic materials and thus lost to history, some of their most striking achievements survive in clay and stone. Among these are numerous pottery fragments from western Oceania, from the late 2nd millennium BCE. Also, the natives of Polynesia left scattered around their islands Petroglyphs, stone platforms or Marae, and sculptures of ancestor figures, the most famous of which are the Moai of Easter Island.

A. T. L. (1967). "Reviewed Work: Prehistoric Art by T. G. E. Powell". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 97 (1). Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland: 95-96. JSTOR 25509644.

Bruhns, Karen O (1994). . Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-27761-7.

Lavallée, Danièle (1995). The First South Americans. Bahn, Paul G (trans.). University of Utah Press. ISBN 978-0-87480-665-6.

Sandars, Nancy K. (1968). Prehistoric Art in Europe (1st ed.). Penguin (Pelican, now Yale, History of Art).

Soukopova, Jitka (2012). Round heads: the earliest rock paintings in the Sahara. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.

Thackeray, Anne I.; Thackeray, JF; Beaumont, PB; Vogel, JC; et al. (2 October 1981). "Dated Rock Engravings from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa". Science. 214 (4516): 64-67. Bibcode:1981Sci...214...64T. doi:10.1126/science.214.4516.64. PMID 17802575. S2CID 29714094.

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In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or makes significant contact with another culture that has, and that makes some record of major historical events.

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Kesenian India terdiri dari beberapa bentuk seni antara lain seni lukis, patung, keramik dan seni tekstil seperti anyaman sutera. Secara geografis, itu mencakup seluruh anak benua India, termasuk India modern, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, dan terkadang Afghanistan timur. Seni India dicirikan oleh rasa desain yang kuat, tercermin dalam bentuk modern dan tradisional.
Asal-usul seni India dapat ditelusuri kembali ke pemukiman prasejarah di milenium ke-3 SM. melacak kembali Dalam perjalanan ke zaman modern, seni India telah mengalami pengaruh budaya seperti Hindu, Budha, Jainisme, Sikhisme dan Islam selain pengaruh agama. Terlepas dari campuran tradisi keagamaan yang kompleks itu, gaya artistik yang dominan selalu dan di tempat-tempat umumnya umum bagi kelompok-kelompok agama yang paling penting.
Dalam seni sejarah, pahatan batu dan logam, terutama yang religius, telah bertahan di iklim India lebih baik daripada media lain dan memberikan sebagian besar peninggalan terbaik. Banyak penemuan kuno terpenting yang tidak terpaku pada batu berasal dari daerah sekitarnya yang lebih kering daripada dari India sendiri. Penguburan dan tradisi filosofis India mengecualikan objek penguburan, yang merupakan sumber utama seni kuno di budaya lain.
Gaya seni India secara historis mengikuti agama India di luar anak benua dan sangat berpengaruh di Tibet, Asia Tenggara, dan Cina. Kesenian India sendiri telah dipengaruhi dari masa ke masa, terutama oleh Asia Tengah dan Iran, serta Eropa.

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Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and at times eastern Afghanistan. A strong sense of design is characteristic of Indian art and can be observed in its modern and traditional forms.

In historic art, sculpture in stone and metal, mainly religious, has survived the Indian climate better than other media and provides most of the best remains. Many of the most important ancient finds that are not in carved stone come from the surrounding, drier regions rather than India itself. Indian funeral and philosophic traditions exclude grave goods, which is the main source of ancient art in other cultures.

Early Indian art

Rock art of India includes rock relief carvings, engravings and paintings, some (but by no means all) from the South Asian Stone Age. It is estimated there are about 1300 rock art sites with over a quarter of a million figures and figurines. The earliest rock carvings in India were discovered by Archibald Carlleyle, twelve years before the Cave of Altamira in Spain, although his work only came to light much later via J Cockburn (1899).

Dr. V. S. Wakankar discovered several painted rock shelters in Central India, situated around the Vindhya mountain range. Of these, the c. 750 sites making up the Bhimbetka rock shelters have been enrolled as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the earliest paintings are some 10,000 years old. The paintings in these sites commonly depicted scenes of human life alongside animals, and hunts with stone implements. Their style varied with region and age, but the most common characteristic was a red wash made using a powdered mineral called geru, which is a form of Iron Oxide ( Hematite).

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro"

Despite its widespread and sophistication, the Indus Valley civilisation seems to have taken no interest in public large-scale art, unlike many other early civilizations. A number of gold, terracotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some forms of dance. Additionally, the terracotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs.

Much the most common form of figurative art found is small carved seals. Thousands of steatite seals have been recovered, and their physical character is fairly consistent. In size they range from inch to 1 inches square. In most cases they have a pierced boss at the back to accommodate a cord for handling or for use as personal adornment. Seals have been found at Mohenjo-Daro depicting a figure standing on its head, and another, on the Pashupati Seal, sitting cross-legged in a yoga-like pose. This figure has been variously identified. Sir John Marshall identified a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva.

The animal depicted on a majority of seals at sites of the mature period has not been clearly identified. Part bull, part zebra, with a majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims that the image had religious or cultist significance, but the prevalence of the image raises the question of whether or not the animals in images of the IVC are religious symbols. The most famous piece is the bronze Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro, which shows remarkably advanced modelling of the human figure for this early date.

After the end of the Indus Valley Civilization, there is a surprising absence of art of any great degree of sophistication until the Buddhist era. It is thought that this partly reflects the use of perishable organic materials such as wood.

The millennium following the collapse of the Indus Valley civilisation, coinciding with the Indo-Aryan migration during the Vedic period, is devoid of anthropomorphical depictions. It has been suggested that the early Vedic religion focused exclusively on the worship of purely "elementary forces of nature by means of elaborate sacrifices", which did not lend themselves easily to anthropomorphological representations. Various artefacts may belong to the Copper Hoard culture (2nd millennium BCE), some of them suggesting anthropomorphological characteristics. Interpretations vary as to the exact signification of these artifacts, or even the culture and the periodization to which they belonged. Some examples of artistic expression also appear in abstract pottery designs during the Black and red ware culture (1450-1200 BCE) or the Painted Grey Ware culture (1200-600 BCE), with finds in a wide area, including the area of Mathura.

After a gap of about a thousand years, most of the early finds correspond to what is called the "second period of urbanization" in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE. The anthropomorphic depiction of various deities apparently started in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, possibly as a consequence of the influx of foreign stimuli initiated with the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley, and the rise of alternative local faiths challenging Vedism, such as Buddhism, Jainism and local popular cults.

The Pataliputra capital, an early example of Mauryan stone sculpture, displaying Persian and Hellenistic influences. 3rd century BCE, Patna Museum

The north Indian Maurya Empire flourished from 322 BCE to 185 BCE, and at its maximum extent controlled all of the sub-continent except the extreme south as well as influences from Indian ancient traditions, and Ancient Persia, as shown by the Pataliputra capital.

The emperor Ashoka, who died in 232 BCE, adopted Buddhism about half-way through his 40-year reign, and patronized several large stupas at key sites from the life of the Buddha, although very little decoration from the Mauryan period survives, and there may not have been much in the first place. There is more from various early sites of Indian rock-cut architecture.

The most famous survivals are the large animals surmounting several of the Pillars of Ashoka, which showed a confident and boldly mature style and craft and first of its kind iron casting without rust until date, which was in use by vedic people in rural areas of the country, though we have very few remains showing its development. The famous detached Lion Capital of Ashoka, with four animals, was adopted as the official Emblem of India after Indian independence. Mauryan sculpture and architecture is characterized by a very fine Mauryan polish given to the stone, which is rarely found in later periods.

Many small popular terracotta figurines are recovered in archaeology, in a range of often vigorous if somewhat crude styles. Both animals and human figures, usually females presumed to be deities, are found.

Colossal Yaksha statuary (2nd century BCE)

"Mudgarpani" Yaksha, circa 100 BCE.[22] Art of Mathura, Mathura Museum

Yakshas seem to have been the object of an important cult in the early periods of Indian history, many of them being known such as Kubera, king of the Yakshas, Manibhadra or Mudgarpani. The Yakshas are a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness, and were the object of popular worship. Many of them were later incorporated into Buddhism, Jainism or Hinduism.

In the 2nd century BCE, Yakshas became the focus of the creation of colossal cultic images, typically around 2 meters or more in height, which are considered as probably the first Indian anthropomorphic productions in stone. Although few ancient Yaksha statues remain in good condition, the vigor of the style has been applauded, and expresses essentially Indian qualities. They are often pot-bellied, two-armed and fierce-looking. The Yakshas are often depicted with weapons or attributes, such as the Yaksha Mudgarpani who in the right hand holds a mace, and in the left hand the figure of a small standing devotee or child joining hands in prayer. It is often suggested that the style of the colossal Yaksha statuary had an important influence on the creation of later divine images and human figures in India. The female equivalent of the Yakshas were the Yakshinis, often associated with trees and children, and whose voluptuous figures became omnipresent in Indian art.

Some Hellenistic influence, such as the geometrical folds of the drapery or the walking stance of the statues, has been suggested. According to John Boardman, the hem of the dress in the monumental early Yaksha statues is derived from Greek art. Describing the drapery of one of these statues, John Boardman writes: "It has no local antecedents and looks most like a Greek Late Archaic mannerism", and suggests it is possibly derived from the Hellenistic art of nearby Bactria where this design is known.

In the production of colossal Yaksha statues carved in the round, which can be found in several locations in northern India, the art of Mathura is considered as the most advanced in quality and quantity during this period.

Crossbar medallion with elephant and riders, Mathura art, circa 150 BCE.[31]

The major survivals of Buddhist art begin in the period after the Mauryans, from which good quantities of sculpture survives. Some key sites are Sanchi, Bharhut and Amaravati, some of which remain in situ, with others in museums in India or around the world. Stupas were surrounded by ceremonial fences with four profusely carved toranas or ornamental gateways facing the cardinal directions. These are in stone, though clearly adopting forms developed in wood. They and the walls of the stupa itself can be heavily decorated with reliefs, mostly illustrating the lives of the Buddha. Gradually life-size figures were sculpted, initially in deep relief, but then free-standing.

Mathura was the most important centre in this development, which applied to Hindu and Jain art as well as Buddhist. The facades and interiors of rock-cut prayer halls and monastic have survived better than similar free-standing structures elsewhere, which were for long mostly in wood. The caves at Ajanta, Karle, Bhaja and elsewhere contain early sculpture, often outnumbered by later works such as iconic figures of the Buddha and bodhisattvas, which are not found before 100 CE at the least.

Buddhism developed an increasing emphasis on statues of the Buddha, which was greatly influenced by Hindu and Jain religious figurative art, The figures of this period which were also influenced by the Greco-Buddhist art of the centuries after the conquests of Alexander the Great. This fusion developed in the far north-west of India, especially Gandhara in modern Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Indian Kushan Empire spread from Central Asia to include northern India in the early centuries CE, and briefly commissioned large statues that were portraits of the royal dynasty.

Shunga Dynasty (c. 185 BCE - 72 BCE)

The Great Stupa at Sanchi, c. 273 BCE - 232 BCE (Mauryan Empire), enlarged c. 150 BCE - 50 BCE (Shunga Dynasty)

With the fall of the Maurya Empire, control of India was returned to the older custom of regional dynasties, one of the most significant of which was the Shunga Dynasty (c. 185 BCE - 72 BCE) of central India. During this period, as well as during the Satavahana Dynasty which occurred concurrently with the Shunga Dynasty in south India, some of the most significant early Buddhist architecture was created. Arguably, the most significant architecture of this dynasty is the stupa, a religious monument which usually holds a sacred relic of Buddhism. These relics were often, but not always, in some way directly connected to the Buddha. Due to the fact that these stupas contained remains of the Buddha himself, each stupa was venerated as being an extension of the Buddha's body, his enlightenment, and of his achievement of nirvana. The way in which Buddhists venerate the stupa is by walking around it in a clockwise manner.

One of the most notable examples of the Buddhist stupa from the Shunga Dynasty is The Great Stupa at Sanchi, which was thought to be founded by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka c. 273 BCE - 232 BCE during the Maurya Empire. The Great Stupa was enlarged to its present diameter of 120 feet, covered with a stone casing, topped with a balcony and umbrella, and encircled with a stone railing during the Shunga Dynasty c. 150 BCE - 50 BCE.

In addition to architecture, another significant art form of the Shunga Dynasty is the elaborately moulded terracotta plaques. As seen in previous examples from the Mauryan Empire, a style in which surface detail, nudity, and sensuality is continued in the terracotta plaques of the Shunga Dynasty. The most common figural representations seen on these plaques are women, some of which are thought to be goddesses, who are mostly shown as bare-chested and wearing elaborate headdresses.

Satavahana dynasty (c. 1st/3rd century BCE - c. 3rd century CE)

The Satavahana dynasty ruled in central India, and sponsored many large Buddhist monuments, stupas, temples, and prayer-halls, including the Amaravati Stupa, the Karla Caves, and the first phase of the Ajanta Caves.

Stupas are religious monuments built on burial mounds, which contain relics beneath a solid dome. Stupas in different areas of India may vary in structure, size, and design; however, their representational meanings are quite similar. They are designed based on a mandala, a graph of cosmos specific to Buddhism. A traditional stupa has a railing that provides a sacred path for Buddhist followers to practice devotional circumambulation in ritual settings. Also, ancient Indians considered caves as sacred places since they were inhabited by holy men and monks. A chaitya was constructed from a cave.

Relief sculptures of Buddhist figures and epigraphs written in Brahmi characters are often found in divine places specific to Buddhism. To celebrate the divine, Satavahana people also made stone images as the decoration in Buddhist architectures. Based on the knowledge of geometry and geology, they created ideal images using a set of complex techniques and tools such as chisels, hammers, and compasses with iron points.

In addition, delicate Satavahana coins show the capacity of creating art in that period. The Satavahanas issued coins primarily in copper, lead and potin. Later on, silver came into use when producing coins. The coins usually have detailed portraits of rulers and inscriptions written in the language of Tamil and Telugu.

Kushan Empire (c. 30 CE - c. 375 CE)

Officially established by Kujula Kadphises, the first Kushan emperor who united the Yuezhi tribes, the Kushan empire was a syncretic empire in central and southern Asia, including the regions of Gandhara and Mathura in northern India. From 127 to 151 CE, Gandharan reached its peak under the reign of Kanishka the Great. In this period, Kushan art inherited the Greco-Buddhist art. Mahayana Buddhism flourished, and the depictions of Buddha as a human form first appeared in art. Wearing a monk's robe and a long length of cloth draped over the left shoulder and around the body, the Buddha was depicted with 32 major lakshanas (distinguishing marks), including a golden-colored body, an ushnisha (a protuberance) on the top of his head, heavy earrings, elongated earlobes, long arms, the impression of a chakra (wheel) on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, and the urna (a mark between his eyebrows).

One of the hallmarks of Gandharan art is its relation to naturalism of Hellenistic art. The naturalistic features found in Gandharan sculptures include the three-dimensional treatment of the drapery, with unregularized folds that are in realistic patterns of random shape and thickness. The physical form of the Buddha and his bodhisattvas are well-defined, solid, and muscular, with swelling chests, arms, and abdomens. Buddhism and Buddhism art spread to Central Asia and the far East across Bactria and Sogdia, where the Kushan Empire met the Han Dynasty of China.

The Gupta period is generally regarded as a classic peak of north Indian art for all the major religious groups. Although painting was evidently widespread, and survives in the Ajanta Caves, the surviving works are almost all religious sculpture.

The period saw the emergence of the iconic carved stone deity in Hindu art, as well as the Buddha-figure and Jain tirthankara figures, these last often on a very large scale. The main centres of sculpture were Mathura Sarnath, and Gandhara, the last the centre of Greco-Buddhist art.

The Gupta period marked the "golden age" of classical Hinduism, and saw the earliest constructed Hindu temple architecture, though survivals are not numerous.

Middle kingdoms and the Early Medieval period (c.  600 CE - c. 1206 CE/1526 CE)

Over this period Hindu temple architecture matured into a number of regional styles, and a large proportion of the art historical record for this period consists of temple sculpture, much of which remains in place. The political history of the middle kingdoms of India saw India divided into many states, and since much of the grandest building was commissioned by rulers and their court, this helped the development of regional differences. Painting, both on a large scale on walls, and in miniature forms, was no doubt very widely practiced, but survivals are rare. Medieval bronzes have most commonly survived from either the Tamil south, or the Himalayan foothills.

Inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka mention coexistence of the northern kingdoms with the triumvirate of Chola, Chera and Pandya Tamil dynasties, situated south of the Vindhya mountains. The medieval period witnessed the rise and fall of these kingdoms, in conjunction with other kingdoms in the area. It is during the decline and resurgence of these kingdoms that Hinduism was renewed. It fostered the construction of numerous temples and sculptures.

The Shore Temple at Mamallapuram constructed by the Pallavas symbolizes early Hindu architecture, with its monolithic rock relief and sculptures of Hindu deities. They were succeeded by Chola rulers who were prolific in their pursuit of the arts. The Great Living Chola Temples of this period are known for their maturity, grandeur and attention to detail, and have been recognized as a UNESCO Heritage Site. The Chola period is also known for its bronze sculptures, the lost-wax casting technique and fresco paintings. Thanks to the Hindu kings of the Chalukya dynasty, Jainism flourished alongside Islam evidenced by the fourth of the Badami cave temples being Jain instead of Vedic. The kingdoms of South India continued to rule their lands until the Muslim invasions that established sultanates there and destroyed much of the temples and marvel examples of architectures and sculptures

Other Hindu states are now mainly known through their surviving temples and their attached sculpture. These include Badami Chalukya architecture (5th to 6th centuries), Western Chalukya architecture (11th to 12th centuries) and Hoysala architecture (11th to 14th centuries), all centred on modern Karnataka.

In east India, Odisha and West Bengal, Kalinga architecture was the broad temple style, with local variants, before the Muslim conquest.

In antiquity, Bengal was a pioneer of painting in Asia under the Pala Empire. Miniature and scroll painting flourished during the Mughal Empire. Kalighat painting or Kalighat Pat originated in the 19th century Bengal, in the vicinity of Kalighat Kali Temple of Kolkata, and from being items of souvenir taken by the visitors to the Kali temple, the paintings over a period of time developed as a distinct school of Indian painting. From the depiction of Hindu gods other mythological characters, the Kalighat paintings developed to reflect a variety of themes.

late Medieval Period and Colonial Era (c.  1526 CE - c. 1757 CE)

Although Islamic conquests in India were made as early as the first half of the 10th century, it wasn't until the Mughal Empire that one observes emperors with a patronage for the fine arts. Emperor Humayun, during his reestablishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1555, brought with him Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad, two of the finest painters from Persian Shah Tahmasp's renowned atelier.

During the reign of Akbar (1556-1605), the number of painters grew from around 30 during the creation of the in the mid-1560s, to around 130 by the mid 1590s. According to court historian Abu'l-Fazal, Akbar was hands-on in his interest of the arts, inspecting his painters regularly and rewarding the best. It is during this time that Persian artists were attracted to bringing their unique style to the empire. Indian elements were present in their works from the beginning, with the incorporation of local Indian flora and fauna that were otherwise absent from the traditional Persian style. The paintings of this time reflected the vibrancy and inclusion of Akbar's kingdom, with production of Persian miniatures, the Rajput paintings (including the Kangra school) and the Pahari style of Northern India. They also influenced the Company style watercolor paintings created during the British rule many years later.

With the death of Akbar, his son Jahangir (1605-1627) took the throne. He preferred each painter work on a single piece rather than the collaboration fostered during Akbar's time. This period marks the emergence of distinct individual styles, notably Bishan Das, Manohar Das, Abu al-Hasan, Govardhan, and Daulat. Jahangir himself had the capability to identify the work of each individual artist, even if the work was unnamed. The (Persian translation of the Hindu epic Mahabharata) and an illustrated memoir of Jahangir, named Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, were created under his rule. Jahangir was succeeded by Shah Jahan (1628-1658), whose most notable architectural contribution is the Taj Mahal. Paintings under his rule were more formal, featuring court scenes, in contrast to the personal styles from his predecessor's time. Aurangzeb (1658-1707), who held increasingly orthodox Sunni beliefs, forcibly took the throne from his father Shah Jahan. With a ban of music and painting in 1680, his reign saw the decline of Mughal patronage of the arts.

As painting declined in the imperial court, artists and the general influence of Mughal painting spread to the princely courts and cities of north India, where both portraiture, the illustration of the Indian epics, and Hindu religious painting developed in many local schools and styles. Notable among these were the schools of Rajput, Pahari, Deccan, Kangra painting.

The last empire in southern India has left spectacular remains of Vijayanagara architecture, especially at Hampi, Karnataka, often heavily decorated with sculpture. These developed the Chola tradition. After the Mughal conquest, the temple tradition continued to develop, mainly in the expansion of existing temples, which added new outer walls with increasingly large gopurams, often dwarfing the older buildings in the centre. These became usually thickly covered with plaster statues of deities and other religious figures, which need have their brightly-coloured paint kept renewed at intervals so they do not erode away.

In South-Central India, during the late fifteenth century after the Middle kingdoms, the Bahmani sultanate disintegrated into the Deccan sultanates centered at Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar, and Berar. They used vedic techniques of metal casting, stone carving, and painting, as well as a distinctive architectural style with the addition of citadels and tombs from Mughal architecture. For instance, the Baridi dynasty (1504-1619) of Bidar saw the invention of bidri ware, which was adopted from Vedic and Maurya period ashoka pillars of zinc mixed with copper, tin, and lead and inlaid with silver or brass, then covered with a mud paste containing sal ammoniac, which turned the base metal black, highlighting the colour and sheen of the inlaid metal. Only after the Mughal conquest of Ahmadnagar in 1600 did the Persian influence patronized by the Turco-Mongol Mughals begin to affect Deccan art.

British period (1857-1947)

British colonial rule had a great impact on Indian art, especially from the mid-19th century onwards. Many old patrons of art became less wealthy and influential, and Western art more ubiquitous as the British Empire established schools of art in major cities. The oldest, the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai, was established in 1850. In major cities with many Europeans, the Company style of small paintings became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company. The style mainly used watercolour, to convey soft textures and tones, in a style combining influences from Western prints and Mughal painting. By 1858, the British government took over the task of administration of India under the British Raj. Many commissions by Indian princes were now wholly or partly in Western styles, or the hybrid Indo-Saracenic architecture. The fusion of Indian traditions with European style at this time is evident from Raja Ravi Varma's oil paintings of sari-clad women in a graceful manner.

Bengal School of Art

The Bengal School of Art commonly referred as Bengal School, was an art movement and a style of Indian painting that originated in Bengal, primarily Kolkata and Shantiniketan, and flourished throughout the Indian subcontinent, during the British Raj in the early 20th century. Also known as 'Indian style of painting' in its early days, it was associated with Indian nationalism (swadeshi) and led by Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951), but was also promoted and supported by British arts administrators like E. B. Havell, the principal of the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata from 1896; eventually it led to the development of the modern Indian painting.

Tagore later attempted to develop links with Japanese artists as part of an aspiration to construct a pan-Asianist model of art. Through the paintings of 'Bharat Mata', Abanindranath established the pattern of patriotism. Painters and artists of Bengal school were Nandalal Bose, M.A.R Chughtai, Sunayani Devi (sister of Abanindranath Tagore), Manishi Dey, Mukul Dey, Kalipada Ghoshal, Asit Kumar Haldar, Sudhir Khastgir, Kshitindranath Majumdar, Sughra Rababi.

Between 1920 and 1925, Gaganendranath pioneered experiments in modernist painting. Partha Mitter describes him as "the only Indian painter before the 1940s who made use of the language and syntax of Cubism in his painting". From 1925 onwards, the artist developed a complex post-cubist style.

With the Swadeshi Movement gaining momentum by 1905, Indian artists attempted to resuscitate the cultural identities suppressed by the British, rejecting the Romanticized style of the Company paintings and the mannered work of Raja Ravi Varma and his followers. Thus was created what is known today as the Bengal School of Art, led by the reworked Asian styles (with an emphasis on Indian nationalism) of Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951), who has been referred to as the father of Modern Indian art. Other artists of the Tagore family, such as Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938) as well as new artists of the early 20th century such as Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) were responsible for introducing Avant-garde western styles into Indian Art. Many other artists like Jamini Roy and later S.H. Raza took inspiration from folk traditions. In 1944, K.C.S. Paniker founded the Progressive Painters' Association (PPA) thus giving rise to the "madras movement" in art.

In 1947, India became independent of British rule. A group of six artists - K. H. Ara, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza and Francis Newton Souza - founded the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group in the year 1952, to establish new ways of expressing India in the post-colonial era. Though the group was dissolved in 1956, it was profoundly influential in changing the idiom of Indian art. Almost all India's major artists in the 1950s were associated with the group. Some of those who are well-known today are Bal Chabda, Manishi Dey, V. S. Gaitonde, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, K. G. Subramanyan, A. Ramachandran, Devender Singh, Akbar Padamsee, John Wilkins, Himmat Shah and Manjit Bawa. Present-day Indian art is varied as it had been never before. Among the best-known artists of the newer generation include Bose Krishnamachari and Bikash Bhattacharjee.

The increase in discourse about Indian art, in English as well as vernacular Indian languages, changed the way art was perceived in the art schools. Critical approach became rigorous; critics like Geeta Kapur, R. Siva Kumar, Shivaji K. Panikkar, Ranjit Hoskote, amongst others, contributed to re-thinking contemporary art practice in India.

Chola bronze of Shiva as Nataraja ("Lord of Dance"), Tamil Nadu, 10th or 11th century.

The first known sculpture in the Indian subcontinent is from the Indus Valley civilisation (3300-1700 BC), found in sites at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in modern-day Pakistan. These include the famous small bronze male dancer Nataraja. However such figures in bronze and stone are rare and greatly outnumbered by pottery figurines and stone seals, often of animals or deities very finely depicted. After the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization there is little record of sculpture until the Buddhist era, apart from a hoard of copper figures of (somewhat controversially) c. 1500 BCE from Daimabad.

The great tradition of Indian monumental sculpture in stone appears to begin relatively late, with the reign of Ashoka from 270 to 232 BCE, and the Pillars of Ashoka he erected around India, carrying his edicts and topped by famous sculptures of animals, mostly lions, of which six survive. Large amounts of figurative sculpture, mostly in relief, survive from Early Buddhist pilgrimage stupas, above all Sanchi; these probably developed out of a tradition using wood. Indeed, wood continued to be the main sculptural and architectural medium in Kerala throughout all historic periods until recent decades.

During the 2nd to 1st century BCE in far northern India, in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara from what is now southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, sculptures became more explicit, representing episodes of the Buddha's life and teachings. Although India had a long sculptural tradition and a mastery of rich iconography, the Buddha was never represented in human form before this time, but only through some of his symbols. This may be because Gandharan Buddhist sculpture in modern Afghanistan displays Greek and Persian artistic influence. Artistically, the Gandharan school of sculpture is said to have contributed wavy hair, drapery covering both shoulders, shoes and sandals, acanthus leaf decorations, etc.

The pink sandstone Hindu, Jain and Buddhist sculptures of Mathura from the 1st to 3rd centuries CE reflected both native Indian traditions and the Western influences received through the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, and effectively established the basis for subsequent Indian religious sculpture. The style was developed and diffused through most of India under the Gupta Empire (c. 320-550) which remains a "classical" period for Indian sculpture, covering the earlier Ellora Caves, though the Elephanta Caves are probably slightly later. Later large scale sculpture remains almost exclusively religious, and generally rather conservative, often reverting to simple frontal standing poses for deities, though the attendant spirits such as apsaras and yakshi often have sensuously curving poses. Carving is often highly detailed, with an intricate backing behind the main figure in high relief. The celebrated lost wax bronzes of the Chola dynasty (c. 850-1250) from south India, many designed to be carried in processions, include the iconic form of Shiva as Nataraja, with the massive granite carvings of Mahabalipuram dating from the previous Pallava dynasty. The Chola period is also remarkable for its sculptures and bronzes. Among the existing specimens in the various museums of the world and in the temples of South India may be seen many fine figures of Siva in various forms, Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi, Siva saints and many more.

The tradition and methods of Indian cliff painting gradually evolved throughout many thousands of years - there are multiple locations found with prehistoric art. The early caves included overhanging rock decorated with rock-cut art and the use of natural caves during the Mesolithic period (6000 BCE). Their use has continued in some areas into historic times. The Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka are on the edge of the Deccan Plateau where deep erosion has left huge sandstone outcrops. The many caves and grottos found there contain primitive tools and decorative rock paintings that reflect the ancient tradition of human interaction with their landscape, an interaction that continues to this day.

The oldest surviving frescoes of the historical period have been preserved in the Ajanta Caves with Cave 10 having some from the 1st century CE, though the larger and more famous groups are from the 5th century. Despite climatic conditions that tend to work against the survival of older paintings, in total there are known more than 20 locations in India with paintings and traces of former paintings of ancient and early medieval times (up to the 8th to 10th centuries CE), although these are just a tiny fraction of what would have once existed. The most significant frescoes of the ancient and early medieval period are found in the Ajanta, Bagh, Ellora, and Sittanavasal caves, the last being Jain of the 7th-10th centuries. Although many show evidence of being by artists mainly used to decorating palaces, no early secular wall-paintings survive.

Although few Indian miniatures survive from before about 1000 CE, and some from the next few centuries, there was probably a considerable tradition. Those that survive are initially illustrations for Buddhist texts, later followed by Jain and Hindu equivalents, and the decline of Buddhist as well as the vulnerable support material of the palm-leaf manuscript probably explain the rarity of early examples.

Mughal painting in miniatures on paper developed very quickly in the late 16th century from the combined influence of the existing miniature tradition and artists trained in the Persian miniature tradition imported by the Mughal Emperor's court. New ingredients in the style were much greater realism, especially in portraits, and an interest in animals, plants and other aspects of the physical world. Deccan painting developed around the same time in the Deccan sultanates courts to the south, in some ways more vital, if less poised and elegant.

Miniatures either illustrated books or were single works for muraqqas or albums of painting and Islamic calligraphy. The style gradually spread in the next two centuries to influence painting on paper in both Muslim and Hindu princely courts, developing into a number of regional styles often called "sub-Mughal", including Rajput painting, Pahari painting, and finally Company painting, a hybrid watercolour style influenced by European art and largely patronized by the people of the British raj. In "pahari" ("mountain") centres like that of Kangra painting the style remained vital and continued to develop into the early decades of the 19th century. From the mid-19th century Western-style easel paintings became increasingly painted by Indian artists trained in Government art schools.

The Indian subcontinent has the longest continuous legacy of jewellery-making, with a history of over 5,000 years. Using jewellery as a store of capital remains more common in India than in most modern societies, and gold appears always to have been strongly preferred for the metal. India and the surrounding areas were important sources of high-quality gemstones, and the jewellery of the ruling class is typified by using them lavishly. One of the first to start jewellery-making were the people of the Indus Valley civilization. Early remains are few, as they were not buried with their owners.

Wood was undoubtedly extremely important, but rarely survives long in the Indian climate. Organic animal materials such as ivory or bone were discouraged by the Dharmic religions, although Buddhist examples exist, such as the Begram ivories, many of Indian manufacture, but found in Afghanistan, and some relatively modern carved tusks. In Muslim settings they are more common.

Obscurity shrouds the period between the decline of the Harappans and the definite historic period starting with the Mauryas, and in the historical period, the earliest Indian religion to inspire major artistic monuments was Buddhism. Though there may have been earlier structures in wood that have been transformed into stone structures, there are no physical evidences for these except textual references. Soon after the Buddhists initiated rock-cut caves, Hindus and Jains started to imitate them at Badami, Aihole, Ellora, Salsette, Elephanta, Aurangabad and Mamallapuram and Mughals. It appears to be a constant in Indian art that the different religions shared a very similar artistic style at any particular period and place, though naturally adapting the iconography to match the religion commissioning them. Probably the same groups of artists worked for the different religions regardless of their own affiliations.

Indian art also found its way into Italy, within the context of Indo-Roman trade: in 1938 the Pompeii Lakshmi was found in the ruins of Pompeii (destroyed in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE).

Buddhist art first developed during the Gandhara period and Amaravati periods around the 1st century BCE. It continued to flourish during the Gupta Periods and Pala periods that comprise the Golden Age of India, even as rulers became mostly Hindu. Buddhist art largely disappeared by the end of the first millenium, after which Hindu dynasties like the Pallava, Chola, Hoysala and Vijayanagara Empires developed their own styles.

There is no time line that divides the creation of rock-cut temples and free-standing temples built with cut stone as they developed in parallel. The building of free-standing structures began in the 5th century, while rock-cut temples continued to be excavated until the 12th century. An example of a free-standing structural temple is the Shore Temple, a part of the Mahabalipuram World Heritage Site, with its slender tower, built on the shore of the Bay of Bengal with finely carved granite rocks cut like bricks and dating from the 8th century.

Folk and tribal art in India takes on different manifestations through varied media such as pottery, painting, metalwork, paper-art, weaving and designing of objects such as jewellery and toys. These are not just aesthetic objects but in fact have an important significance in people's lives and are tied to their beliefs and rituals. The objects can range from sculpture, masks (used in rituals and ceremonies), paintings, textiles, baskets, kitchen objects, arms and weapons, and the human body itself ( tattoos and piercings). There is a deep symbolic meaning that is attached to not only the objects themselves but also the materials and techniques used to produce them.

Often puranic gods and legends are transformed into contemporary forms and familiar images. Fairs, festivals, local heroes (mostly warriors) and local deities play a vital role in these arts (Example: Nakashi art from Telangana or Cherial Scroll Painting).

Folk art also includes the visual expressions of the wandering nomads. This is the art of people who are exposed to changing landscapes as they travel over the valleys and highlands of India. They carry with them the experiences and memories of different spaces and their art consists of the transient and dynamic pattern of life. The rural, tribal and arts of the nomads constitute the matrix of folk expression. Examples of folk arts are:

1. Warli Painting - The Warli region of Maharashtra had the tribal art form known as "Warli painting" first appear. The art genre uses straightforward geometric patterns and shapes to produce images of everyday life, the natural world, and religious themes. The paintings are often created in white on a background of red or ochre.

2. Madhubani Painting: Folk art, known as "Madhubani painting", has its roots in the Mithila area of Bihar. The paintings incorporate sophisticated geometric patterns frequently and depict images of deities, nature, and everyday life in vivid colors.

3. Gond Painting: The Gond region of Madhya Pradesh had the tribal art form known as "Gond painting" first appear. The elaborate patterns and designs of the art form are frequently influenced by nature and the spiritual practices of the Gond people. The paintings are typically done in bright colors and feature bold, graphic lines.

While most tribes and traditional folk artist communities are assimilated into the familiar kind of civilized life, they still continue to practice their art. Unfortunately though, market and economic forces have ensured that the numbers of these artists are dwindling. A lot of effort is being made by various NGOs and the Government of India to preserve and protect these arts and to promote them. Several scholars in India and across the world have studied these arts and some valuable scholarship is available on them. The folk spirit has a tremendous role to play in the development of art and in the overall consciousness of indigenous cultures.

The year 1997 bore witness to two parallel gestures of canon formation. On the one hand, the influential Baroda Group, a coalition whose original members included Vivan Sundaram, Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, Bhupen Khakhar, and Nalini Malani-and which had left its mark on history in the form of the 1981 exhibition "Place for People"-was definitively historicized in 1997 with the publication of Contemporary Art in Baroda, an anthology of essays edited by Sheikh. On the other hand, the art historian R. Siva Kumar's benchmark exhibition and related publication, A Contextual Modernism, restored the Santiniketan artists- Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee, and Ramkinkar Baij -to their proper place as the originators of an indigenously achieved yet transcultural modernism in the 1930s, well before the Progressives composed their manifesto in the late 1940s. Of the Santiniketan artists, Siva Kumar observed that they "reviewed traditional antecedents in relation to the new avenues opened up by cross-cultural contacts. They also saw it as a historical imperative. Cultural insularity, they realized, had to give way to eclecticism and cultural impurity."

The idea of Contextual Modernism emerged in 1997 from R. Siva Kumar's Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism as a postcolonial critical tool in the understanding of an alternative modernism in the visual arts of the erstwhile colonies like India, specifically that of the Santiniketan artists.

Several terms including Paul Gilroy's counter culture of modernity and Tani Barlow's Colonial modernity have been used to describe the kind of alternative modernity that emerged in non-European contexts. Professor Gall argues that 'Contextual Modernism' is a more suited term because "the colonial in colonial modernity does not accommodate the refusal of many in colonized situations to internalize inferiority. Santiniketan's artist teachers' refusal of subordination incorporated a counter vision of modernity, which sought to correct the racial and cultural essentialism that drove and characterized imperial Western modernity and modernism. Those European modernities, projected through a triumphant British colonial power, provoked nationalist responses, equally problematic when they incorporated similar essentialisms."

According to R. Siva Kumar "The Santiniketan artists were one of the first who consciously challenged this idea of modernism by opting out of both internationalist modernism and historicist indigenousness and tried to create a context sensitive modernism." He had been studying the work of the Santiniketan masters and thinking about their approach to art since the early 80s. The practice of subsuming Nandalal Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Ram Kinker Baij and Benode Behari Mukherjee under the Bengal School of Art was, according to Siva Kumar, misleading. This happened because early writers were guided by genealogies of apprenticeship rather than their styles, worldviews, and perspectives on art practice.

Contextual Modernism in the recent past has found its usage in other related fields of studies, specially in Architecture.

AP State Archaeology Museum, Hyderabad

Archaeological Museum, Thrissur

City Museum, Hyderabad

Government Museum, Mathura

Government Museum, Tiruchirappalli

Hill Palace, Tripunithura, Ernakulam

Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar

Patna Museum

Pazhassi Raja Archaeological Museum, Kozhikode

Sanghol Museum

Sarnath Museum

State Archaeological Gallery, Kolkata

Victoria Jubilee Museum, Vijayawada

Other Indian Art and Architecture forms

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Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and at times eastern Afghanistan.

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Kesenian Tionghoa adalah seni rupa yang berasal dari Tiongkok dan dipraktikkan oleh seniman dari Tiongkok Raya atau Greater China. Seni yang dibuat oleh orang Tionghoa yang tinggal di luar Tiongkok juga dapat dianggap sebagai bagian dari seni Tiongkok jika didasarkan atau diambil dari budaya, warisan, dan sejarah Tiongkok. "Seni Zaman Batu" awal berasal dari 10.000 SM. dan sebagian besar terdiri dari tembikar dan pahatan sederhana. Setelah periode itu, seni Tiongkok, seperti sejarah Tiongkok, biasanya dikategorikan berdasarkan suksesi dinasti penguasa kaisar Tiongkok, yang sebagian besar berlangsung selama beberapa ratus tahun. Museum Istana di Beijing dan Museum Istana Nasional di Taipei memiliki banyak koleksi seni Tiongkok.
Seni Cina dicirikan oleh kesinambungan yang tidak biasa dalam tradisi dan rasa tradisi yang tidak setara dengan keruntuhan dan kebangkitan bertahap gaya seni klasik Barat. Seni dekoratif sangat penting dalam seni Tiongkok, dan sebagian besar karya terbaik diproduksi di bengkel atau pabrik besar oleh seniman yang pada dasarnya tidak dikenal, terutama dalam keramik Tiongkok.
Sebagian besar karya terbaik dalam tembikar, tekstil, dan pernis ukiran diproduksi dalam jangka waktu yang lama di pabrik atau bengkel kekaisaran yang, bersama dengan penggunaan yang sopan, disebarluaskan baik di dalam maupun luar negeri untuk menampilkan kekayaan dan kekuasaan. dari kaisar. Sebaliknya, tradisi lukisan tinta, yang dipraktikkan terutama oleh para akademisi dan pelukis istana, terutama pelukis lanskap, bunga dan burung, mengembangkan nilai-nilai estetika yang serupa dengan senimannya, bergantung pada imajinasi pribadi dan persepsi objektif seniman. ke barat, tetapi jauh sebelum perkembangan mereka di sana. Dengan ikatan dengan seni Barat menjadi semakin penting sejak abad ke-19, Tiongkok telah berpartisipasi dalam seni kontemporer global dengan kesuksesan yang meningkat dalam beberapa dekade terakhir.

Seni Korea meliputi tradisi kaligrafi, musik, lukisan, dan keramik, sering ditandai dengan penggunaan bentuk alami, dekorasi permukaan, dan warna atau corak yang berani.
Contoh paling awal seni Korea terdiri dari karya Zaman Batu dari 3000 SM. Ini sebagian besar terdiri dari pahatan nazar dan petroglif yang baru ditemukan kembali.
Periode awal ini diikuti oleh gaya artistik dari berbagai kerajaan dan dinasti Korea. Seniman Korea terkadang mengubah tradisi Tionghoa, lebih memilih keanggunan yang sederhana, spontanitas, dan apresiasi terhadap kemurnian alam.
Dinasti Goryeo (918-1392) merupakan salah satu periode paling produktif di berbagai bidang, khususnya keramik. Pasar seni Korea terkonsentrasi di daerah Insadong Seoul, di mana lebih dari 50 galeri kecil memamerkan dan lelang seni sesekali berlangsung. Galeri berukuran kecil secara kolaboratif dan sering menampilkan pameran yang dikurasi dan dirancang dengan baik. Setiap kota memiliki galeri regional yang lebih kecil yang menampilkan seniman lokal baik dalam media tradisional maupun kontemporer. Galeri seni cenderung memiliki campuran media. Upaya untuk menonjolkan seni konseptual Barat umumnya paling sukses di luar Korea di New York, San Francisco, London, dan Paris.

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Theme for Chinese art: "Dynastic Power"

One of the most notable themes in Chinese art is power.

Power can be expressed in many forms:

political power

religious/spiritual power

economic power

and more!

Displays of formal imperial/dynastic power are the most common - even in 20 th century. Chinese history when dynastic power has ended, displays of political power are still common.

Historical Context
Confucianism

Began by Confucius

An ethical and philosophical system that creates an ideal man who respects traditional values.

Daoism (Taoism)
Aims to find the Dao ("way") through withdrawing from society into nature to achieve serenity. The philosophy was started by Laozi (Lao-tsu).

Yin-Yang

Yin: female, soft, dark, wet, cold, passive

Yang: male, hard, light, dry, warm, active, energy

Mandate of Heaven + Dynasty Cycle

Created an attitude of the desirability of tradition, permanence, and stability à art, just like political traditions and cultural hegemony, does not change

Buddhism in China

Starting with the 1st century C.E., Buddhism brought to China new ideas about life and death, and new opportunities to assimilate and assert authority.

Chinese rock cut caves were inspired, but different from the Indian rock cut caves. It preserved an assembly hall but instead of a stupa, it contained a Buddha statue.

There were Buddhist monasteries with a residence hall for the monks. The central hall (nave) was arranged to allow approaching the Buddha.

The first patrons of Buddhism were Northern Wei rulers-a Turkic people ruling over the Han Chinese who saw in Buddhism an opportunity for consolidating their power and reduce the importance of ancestors' veneration. Yearning for assimilation and control, the foreign rulers made use of Buddhist images for authority and power.

The rock-cut caves were decorated with sculptural images made after Indian/Gandhara models and with robes decorated with linear/abstract Northern Wei style.

The later Tang dynasty leaders Emperor Gaozong (650-685) and his consort Wu Zetian, who later enthroned herself as empress (684-704), patronized Buddhist establishments and encouraged the efforts of monks to acquire and translate Buddhist texts from India.

During China's golden age, Tang rulers asserted their sovereignty with the assistance of Buddhist iconography. The official examination system enabled educated men to serve as government officials, and laid the foundation for lasting growth, prosperity, and cultural development in art. Think Buddhism with Chinese features.

From the 4th -10th CE development and flowering of Chinese Buddhism would later be exported to Korea and Japan.

Pure Land Buddhism focused on the faith in the savior Buddha Amitabha

Chan (or Zen) Buddhism: meditation/mindfulness during daily activities

still imported new Indic and Central Asian practices : the devotion to the primordial Buddha Vairocana, new bodhisattvas, and the use of the mandala's cosmic diagrams.

(8) 193. Terra cotta warriors.

Chinese (Qin). 221-209 BCE. Chinese.

Learning Objective: Chinese mausoleum
Themes:
Terra cotta warriors are works of terra cotta which were originally painted. The 6 feet tall figures were found in the Mausoleum of the first Qin emperor are mostly of men.

The figures are made from hollow clay created in an assembl

y line fashion. Then, each was fine-tuned to create a surprising amount of individualism. The work required 700,000 workers.

Function

Placed in mausoleum for Shi Huangdi

Display of Shi Huangdi's status (political and divine)

Accompany him in the afterlife, suggesting that he would rule his empire eternally

Uses peasant or lower-class labor to glorify state power

Very similar to Seated Scribe!

Content

Shi Huangdi wanted to take the whole court with him.

All pieces were buried with Shi Huangdi's tomb

8,000 terracotta warriors (6 feet tall and all unique)
Archers; foot soldiers; commanders; officials; cavalry with horses

100 wooden chariots

2 bronze chariots

30,000 weapons

Musicians, acrobats, dogs

Historical Outline

Era of Warring States leads to Zhou collapse

Shi Huangdi unifies most states under his power in 221 BCE and begins Qin Dynasty

Used centralized system

Codified written Chinese

Standardized weights and coins

Established single currency

Constructed Great Wall

Utilized Legalism

Construction began in 221 BCE when he took power

Shi Huangdi was an opium addict who believed that mercury had life-giving power and surrounded himself with it. (a river close by has unusually high levels of mercury)

Discovered in 1974 by local farmers digging for a well

It was believed a legend until this point

Center tumulus is not excavated (probably where he is buried)

They estimate they are not halfway done

(8) 194. Funeral banner of Lady Dai.

Chinese (Han). 180 BCE. Chinese.

Learning Objective: Chinese funeral banner
Themes:
Funerary
Afterlife
Status
Textile
Portrait
Ceremony
Materials with significance
Human and divine

Funeral banner of Lady Dai is an artwork of painted silk that measure 6 feet by 7 inches long. This is an early example of painted naturalistic scenes in Chinese art.

During this time, we begin to see some of the Chinese 2D characteristics:

heavy black calligraphic line

use of red and black

stylized figures

This is the earliest known Chinese portrait. Painted silk was a common and expensive artform in China.

Function

This work was a sign of status, as painted silk was an expensive artform.

It was used to attract the spirit of the deceased to its tomb, where it could be properly started on its afterlife journey- instead of remaining on earth to bother the living. (This is like Tut's tomb)

It was part of the funeral procession and was carried in front, before being draped upon her coffin.

Here is What We See

Vertical divisions

Left: yin (female component = moon)

Center: yin + yang

Right: yang (male component = sun)

Horizontal divisions
Heaven

Dragons, toads, moon, crow on red sun

At the very top, a twisted red dragon, is an imperial ancestor (to show her noble lineage)

At the bottom of the cross of the T are two kneeling guides who will shepherd her to the afterlife

Earth (where Lady Dai and her attendants are)

She carries her long cane (which was found in her tomb; she had sciatica - leg pain from pressure on nerves in lower back)

Accompanied by mourner-attendants who bid her farewell

Underworld (body of Lady Dai and her mourners; underworld is not equivalent to Hell)

Below her, and with dragons wrapped through it, is a bi (pronounced "bee"; round circular disc with a hole in the middle; symbol of heaven)

Sacrificial funerary rituals take place

Vessels for food and wine while corpse is wrapped in robe

Shows her journey to Heaven

Long dragons frame the scene - symbol of the supernatural

She is wearing her own funeral banner over her shoulders

A Market for Art

During the Han Dynasty the Silk Road trade was incredibly popular and wealthy individuals in China invested in art.

Who was Lady Dai?

She was the wife of Marquis of Dai, a high-ranking civil servant. The lady died around the age of 50. Lady Dai lived in Han Dynasty which was the Golden Age of Classical China with a highly stratified society.

Only elites could afford elaborate rituals.

The Find

The tombs of Marquis of Dai, Lady Dai and her son were all discovered in 1971. Lady Dai was put to rest in seven nested lacquer coffins. Her body was found wrapped in 20 layers of silk. The airtight tomb was 36 feet underground in a clay lined and charcoal packed hole. (Charcoal absorbs moisture)

All the above led to a very well-preserved body. Her skin was still elastic, joints flexible, she had eyelashes and nostril hair. Blood remained in her veins, and all organs were intact.

She died of a heart attack. There were 138 melon seeds in her body which suggests she died shortly after eating the fruit.

(8) 195. Buddha at Longmen Caves.

Chinese (Sui, Tang, Song). 493-1127 CE. Chinese.

Learning Objective: Chinese Buddhist sculpture
Themes:
Politics
Propaganda
Religion
Place of worship
Rulers

Buddha at Longmen Caves is located at Longmen Caves, in Luoyang, China. Made from hard, gray limestone the largest Buddha measures 57 feet. These were carved in situ into living rock as high relief. Here there are 2,300 caves and niches that extends for over a mile.

The Buddha and bodhisattvas display a new, softer, and rounder modeling, as well as facial expressions. Vajrapani and lokapala display a more engaging and animated musculature, with forceful poses. These would have been painted in brilliant blues, reds, browns, and golds.

Why this was Created

This is a place of Buddhist worship.

The patrons were emperors (and one empress) and this was the display of power and piety of these people. Rulers wielded Buddhism to affirm their piety, superiority, and tolerance. Specifically, this revealed the strength and spirituality of Tang Dynasty. It was a metaphor for political power.

This arrangement with Buddha in the center emphasized a correct religious order.

Similarly, the Tang Dynasty was struggling to balance bureaucrats and aristocrats, who consistently posed a threat to the emperors. For emperors to sponsor productions of artworks such as these was to show that there was a likeness between the emperors and Buddha. Thus, aristocrats and bureaucrats should be subservient to the emperor, just as bodhisattvas and disciples were to Buddha.

This sculptural arrangement intentionally mirrored the political situation - one person is supreme.

Content

Buddha at Longmen Caves contains in total almost 110,000 Buddhist stone statues, more than 60 stupas, and 2800 inscriptions.

A Look at Fengxian Cave

The specific cave we are examining is called Fengxian Cave. Here 9 figures pose as a group.
From Left to right:

Vajrapani

Lokapala

Bodhisattva

Disciple

Vairocana Buddha (Buddha who represents all the infinite wisdom in the universe),

Disciple

Bodhisattva

Lokapala

Vajrapani

A bodhisattva are Buddhists who do not pass on to nirvana, but who stays to help.

Vajrapani are Chinese guardians of Buddha, who wields thunderbolts. The violence is justified only if there is a threat made to Buddha.

Lokapala are heavenly kings who watch over one of each of the cardinal directions.

There are many smaller figures of deities, monks, and donors surrounding the nine main figures.

Context

Most of the carvings date between the end of the 5 th century and the middle of the 8 th century (Northern Wei through early Tang). Wei had moved capital to Luoyang in 494 CE.

Tang Dynasty was considered the age of Buddhism in China

Buddhism and Confucianism each vied for power over emperors.

Many Chinese, Indian, Central Asian, and Southeast Asian monks traveled through Asia, spreading Buddhism's messages.

Alternating periods of Chinese Buddhism's popularity or lack thereof prevented constant flow of work.

Largest period of construction (and the construction of Fengxian Caves) was sponsored by Emperor Gaozong, and his wife and the one and only empress of China, Empress Wu.

Cross Cultural Comparison

Fengxian (Ancestor Worshipping Cave) Temple (673-75 C.E., Tang dynasty, limestone. Luoyang, Henan province)

situated high above the riverbed, the array of the 9 colossal statues sponsored by Emperor Gaozong and his wife (future Empress Wu) dominate the Longmen site

the high relief sculptures carved into hard, gray limestone are widely spaced in a semi-circle with a central monumental Buddha standing more than 55 feet high, pedestal included.

flanked on each side by a monk, a bodhisattva, a heavenly king, and a thunderbolt holder

depicts the supreme Vairochana (Primordial) Buddha of Mahayana Buddhism

the pairing of religious and military figures on either side of a large central Buddha symbolized the religious and military factions that together supported a strong ruler.

This is an innovative composition in which the religious system mirrors the imperial system, reinforcing the Mandate of Heaven ideas with Buddhism iconism. The message is that the Tang emperor is the earthly representative of the supreme Vairochana Buddha.

The opulence, Buddha's lotus position, the halo and flaming mandorla carved into the wall behind suggest the harmonious paradise of the Pure Land Buddhism. The clear and symmetrical ordering of the statues recalls a Confucian context.

Buddha, monks (arhats) and bodhisattvas display rounder and serene facial expressions. The heavenly guardians and the thunderbolt holder (vajrapani) are more realistic, engaging, and animated, with realistic musculature and forceful poses.

Buddha's features (iconography): lotus pose, elongated earlobes, downcast eyes, a halo, and mandorla carved on the rock behind, Gandharan robes falling in concentric circles.

Tradition

The Fengxian (Ancestor Worshipping Cave) illustrates the Pure Land Buddhism which added mystical elements to the basic Buddhist teachings. This was popular in China and Japan. By living a moral life, through faith, trust, and a personal relationship with the (savior) Amitabha Buddha, believers reach the Pure Land a realm free of spiritual corruption, where it is easier to achieve enlightenment

Buddhist symbolism supports the Mandate of Heaven, an ancient Chinese belief held that gods granted the emperors the right to rule based on their ability to govern well and justly.

(9) 214. Moai on platform (ahu).

Rapa Nui (Easter Island). c. 1100-1600 C.E. Volcanic tuff figures on basalt base.

The size of the stone figures announces their legitimacy, power, and life force. Just like Buddha they used to be living creatures, i.e. honored ancestors. Most of them do not face the ocean but look inland watching over their descendants.

The moai are endowed with a spiritual force called MANA.

The carvers "awaken" the states from the compressed volcanic ash, insert eyes of white coral with inlaid pupils of red or black rock which makes their eyes staring. They are called "living faces" (Buddha's eyes look down with compassion)

While moai slender arms are pressed close to the sides, Buddha's hands and their codified mudras are an indication of his message to the world of believers.

They share elongated earlobes as a status sign which in Buddhism also translated in the willingness to hear the suffering.

Also, both statues have topknots.

Made of red stone the moai topknots are gigantic weighing as much as 10 ton.

Fan Kuan. Chinese. (Song). 1000 CE. Chinese.

Learning Objective: Chinese silk scroll

Themes:

Landscape
Status
Man v. nature
Text and image
Materials with significance

Museum: National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan

Travelers Among Mountains and Streams, by artist Fan Kuan is a work comprised of ink and color on silk. It measures 7 feet by 3 feet and 4 inches.

This work has:

Crisp brushwork

Painting on silk

Height is emphasized by filling up the composition

There are gaps between the foreground, middleground, and background. This suggests space in between. Negative space implies space is moving backwards and receding.

Scrolls were selected by artists based on color and texture and usually have the title up on the top right.

Style Features

There are six components that Fan Kuan was taught by his master, as were many literati.

What was the Function of a Scroll?

Scrolls were expensive, a sign of status, and something you would display to your guests. These artworks were not permanently displayed. They were meant to be admired and studied but carefully packed away.

One can study the image, meditate upon it and generally slow down. This provokes the same response as gazing at a beautiful vista would.

There is immensity of nature. Man is dwarfed by nature. There is also beauty in nature. Men can get lost in nature and revel at its immensity.

A Display of Daoist Attitude

Scrolls could also display the Daoist attitude of Yin and Yang.

Daoism was popular amongst the elite

Yin: female; dark; receptive; yielding; weak

Yang: male; light; assertive; creative; strong

The interaction of these complementary ideas is necessary to natural order

The Content of Travelers Among Mountains and Streams.

A group of travelers with pack mules travel through the mountainside and pass along a stream

Qualities of yin and yang

Some parts are empty and barren (yin), others are crowded and full (yang)

Mountains (yang) and sky (yin)

Water (yin) and sunlight (yang)

Gritty mountainside takes up 2/3 of the picture

Based on real geological traits (vegetation tends to only grow in fine soil and mountains tend to have deep crevices)

This is probably a constructed landscape (this was not seen as a lie or fabrication, but rather that man could create a perfect landscape)

Historical Context

During the chaos of the Five Kingdoms period (between the Tang and Song dynasties), many scholars and artists fled to the mountains. Known as literati these people were disenchanted with human affairs and turned towards nature.

Scenes that depicted majestic landscapes developed into an ironically popular style in urban China. China elevated landscape paintings to an important subject for art, hundreds of years before Western artists would.

About the Artist

Fan Kuan, was an artist and a Daoist hermit, whom very little is known about. He is famous for landscapes in the Song period, and this is possibly his only surviving work.

(8) 204. The David Vases.

Chinese (Yuan). 1351 CE. Chinese.

Learning Objective: Chinese porcelain

Themes:

Offering
Cross-cultural
Decorative arts
Commemoration
Ceremony
Text and image
Animals

Museum: British Museum, London

The David Vases a set of two vases made from white porcelain with cobalt-blue underglaze each stand 2 feet tall.

Porcelain is a very specific kind of ceramic that is hard, white, brittle, and shiny. It gets the name from Marco Polo. Porcelain is close to the Italian name for a cowrie shell, and he thought it looked as shiny as a shell.

Underglaze means the decoration is applied to the surface before it is glazed. This makes the decoration durable.
Parts of the Vase
Focus

The David Vases are one of the most famous cultural specimens of Chinese porcelain art. As part of the collection of Sir David Percival, they received the eponymous title! Sir Percival was known to possess a vast collection of Chinaware. He bought 1500 pieces of china during the Chinese Civil War, in the early 20th century, from Dowager Empress Cixi. She sold them to gain funds for the war.

The pair of artifacts exhibit a far eastern and middle eastern merger concerning the shape and the motifs they manifest. The viewer should deliberately focus on this aspect of cultural exchange. At the same time, they have an inscription on the neck, which stands out vividly. The inscription mentions the name and date of the artifact.

Content

The two David Vases are identical with similar forms, colors, and materials. Made from porcelain, they are supposedly denoted to the deteriorated versions made in bronze, which was prevalent in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The identical vases possess the shape of an elongated vase with a handle on the neck above the shoulder. The form has a cylindrical base that tapers inwards to acquire a balanced grip on the ground. Above the same, two moldings create initial lower sections. The main body of the vase forms an arch near the shoulder, which concludes with molding. The elongated neck, a bit lesser than the length of the main body, joins to the thick rim, forming the head of the vase. The handles are shaped in the form of an elephant head and trunk on both sides.

The artisans, maintaining the minimalistic approach, have used blue pigment on the white porcelain. The design of the vases is a blend of animals and decorative foliage. The lower cylindrical body is divided into equal sections comprising symbolic motifs. The following section displays floral motifs while the main body has a single dragon with an undulating body covering the entire circumference. Following the molding with a decorative pattern, the first section has the form of a flying phoenix amidst clouds. Divided by protruding partitions, the upper neck section has a pattern of successively repetitive vertical leaves. The head of the vase shows alternating floral motifs with foliage.

Function

The David Vases do not have a special function to serve because they were for the altar of a Daoist temple. However, they have a vivid inscription at the cusp of the shoulder and the neck above the band of the dragon. The inscription mentions the name of the official who commissioned these elegant pair of blue and white Chinese wares.

Porcelain was used to create the initial vases. They were then painted with blue pigment. Artists deglazed at the end, thereby increasing the longevity of the pigments. This process is called underglaze. Hence, the vases are still intact and continue to gleam the space.

Tradition

Although the material of porcelain indicates the Chinese traditions, the visual elements are borrowed from the Middle eastern regions of art. The middle east Mesopotamia zone was an artistic hub that created many copper-inlaid-with-gold vases. The designs, apart from arabesque, also had human figures and inscriptions, which served as a document to the history of the ware. Hence, these traditions seemed to have penetrated in Chinese workshops with the Mongol invasion. The kingdom of Mongols had expanded over nearly all of Asia.

China was the lead producer of porcelain, and hence the products were typically known as chinaware. And, as it appears, the blue and white porcelain products are quintessentially Chinese. Some of the kilns made by China could reach 2200 Fahrenheit.

Patron

Because of the easy to read and distinct inscription, we know that these vases were commissioned by Zhang Wenjin of Yushan county in 1351. Along with The David Vases, he also presented an incense burner to a Daoist temple in Xingyua (modern-day Wuyan county). Yushan county is situated 120 km from Jingdezhen, where the vases were apparently made.

The inscription descriptively mentions the professional background of Wenjin who was in the salt trade. He made these vases as an offering to the temple to appease the god for his sins. At the same time, he also wanted to protect his family from evil.
The inscription reads:
信州路。玉山縣。順城鄉。德教里。荊塘社。奉聖弟子。張文進。喜捨。香炉。花瓶。一付。祈保。合家清吉。子女平安。至正十一年。四月。良辰。謹記。星源。祖殿。胡淨一元帥。打供。

Translation

"Zhang Wenjin, from Jingtang community, Dejiao village, Shuncheng township, Yushan county, Xinzhou circuit, a disciple of the Holy Gods, is pleased to offer a set comprising one incense burner and a pair of flower vases to General Hu Jingyi at the original palace in Xingyuan, as a prayer for the protection and blessing of the whole family and the peace of his sons and daughters. Carefully offered on an auspicious day in the 4th month, 11th year of the Zhizheng reign."

Setting

During this period of the 14th century, Mongols had captured the entire stretch of the middle east to the far east. This stimulated an enormous amount of exchange in art, culture, and commerce between the Yuan dynasty of China and the Ilkhan empire of Iran. The blue pigment or cobalt in chinaware was imported from the Iranian Ilkhan empire. At the same time, the form of the vases also reflects a similarity with the bronze vases, which was a popular art activity in the middle east. The motifs and the pattern were also a middle east influence.

(8) 206. Forbidden City.

Ming Dynasty. 15 th century. CE and later.

Learning Objective: Chinese palace
Themes:
Domestic
Politics
Power
Propaganda
Man vs. nature
Public
Entryways
Appropriation
Cross-cultural
Status
Architecture

Forbidden City located in Beijing, China is a stunning Chinese Palace made of stone masonry, marble, brick, wood, and ceramic tile. It sits in the center of the city on 178 acres.

Most of the building is timber and brick, with sloping rooflines and glazed roof tiles. The emphasis is on traditional craftsmanship through the support of Chinese laborers. Tile roofs curve upward to allow light in and keep rain out.
The Significance of Numbers
Extensive use of the number 3 and multiples of 3 are used throughout. There are three tiered roofs, and the staircases have 9 steps.

Number 3 is associated with harmony between yin and yang

Number 9 is associated with divinity of emperor

The Meaning of Color

The use of color in the Forbidden City also has meaning. These are the four main colors.

SUB-IMAGE 5 Floorplan

The courtyard style residence uses a geometric organization of space that is aligned with the cardinal directions.

Outer court represented Earth

Pointed towards the South.

Belonged to realm of state affairs and only men had access to its spaces.

Included: emperor's formal reception halls, places for religious rituals and state ceremonies.

Hall of Supreme Harmony represented central focus.

Inner court represented Heaven

Pointed towards the North

Private space

Eastern and Western sides reserved for retired emperor and empress dowager

Also included Buddhist and Daoist temples building during Ming Dynasty

Symbolism

The symbolism shows the relationship between Heaven and Earth. Emperor is the Son of Heaven and can mediate both worlds.

Power is conveyed visually and there is a spatial representation of power. This shows the emperor's power over laws and regulations since he can regulate and reorganize nature.

The architects followed ideal cosmic order and social hierarchy in Confucianism.

Function

The complex was to showcase Yongle's magnificence during turbulent years after the overthrow of his nephew. It was a visual assertion of imperial power with ceremonial space, ritual space and living space.

It was named the Forbidden Palace because only royal court could enter.

The complex was a political and ritual center for China for 500+ years. It was a place of power and propaganda that legitimized rulers and became visual evidence for the Mandate of Heaven.

SUB-IMAGE 1 North Gate (Gate of Divine Might)

Here are some key points about the North Gate:

Walls are 30 feet high to keep people out

Designed to withstand cannons

Gate from which troops would often leave

3 openings: middle one was reserved for the emperor only

Heavily guarded day and night

SUB-IMAGE 2 Tiananmen Gate (Front Gate) (Gate of Heavenly Peace)

This gate has been destroyed and rebuilt several times.

There are Five entryways:

The largest in the center was used as passage for Ming and Qing emperors.

The side ones are smaller and were used for officials.

The double-eaved roof is guarded by two pairs of Ming stone lions.

Mao Zedong

Today the gate is characterized by a giant framed portrait of Mao Zedong weighing 1.5 tons. Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

There are two placards:

Left: Long Live the People's Republic of China

Right: Long Live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples

The phrases have significant meaning as "Long Live" was reserved for Emperors of China. But afterward it was available to common people because Mao had liberated it...just like Forbidden City!

In 1989, three dissidents attacked the portrait with eggs during the Tiananmen Square protests. They were sent to prison for 17 years (released 2006).

SUB-IMAGE 3 Hall of Supreme Harmony

The Emperor's seat is in here and was meant for grand ceremonies such as enthronements and weddings. From here, the emperor could establish cosmic order and mediate between both worlds. This is the middle of the site.

9 main bays wide and 9 dragons inside (9 is a special number)

Bureaucrats and officials would gather in front of the gate at 3 am waiting for the emperor to walk by at 5am.

SUB-IMAGE 4 Palace of Tranquility and Longevity

The Northeastern section was a complex built by the Qianlong Emperor in anticipation of his retirement in the 18 th century. He planned to retire and abdicate, then settle down in modest quarters here, along with his major art collection.

This part of the complex is called the Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service and this room is the theater room. The layout mirrors the arrangement of the Forbidden City.

The finest craftsmen of the day spent five years building just this palace. He never spent a night here.

In the 1920s, the palace was chained shut and largely forgotten. It has now been restored to what was imagined it would have been like.

If he didn't sleep here, what did he do here?

There were gardens, banquet rooms, prayer halls, an opera house, and a theater room. It was a place to meditate, write poetry, and enjoy company of concubines.

It was a simple rectangular room with translucent embroidered scenes, jade-inlaid wall hangings and Chinese carved decoration. There were also panoramic murals painted on silk, wisteria painted on ceilings, along with magpies flying over the tiled rooves of the palace. This was a blend of traditional Chinese painting with the Western use of perspective and optical illusion ( trompe l'oeil). This was a testament to the emperor's patronage of Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian artist who was paid to come in and paint.

The small pavilion was equipped with a stage and surrounded with bamboo fence.

Context

The Ming in Ming Dynasty means brilliant. It is meant to be a brilliant return to the past.

The construction of the Forbidden city was the result of a scandalous coup plotted by Zhu Di (soon to be Yongle emperor). Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu emperor. When Hongwu died in 1398, his first son was named next emperor. But when he died it was the first son's child who became emperor (Jianwen Emperor).

Jianwen Emperor began executing his uncles, to remove them as threats. This angered Zhu Di who overthrew him and established himself as Yongle Emperor (Yongle means perpetual happiness). To solidify his power, the Yongle emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and began building a new palace. He needed to show that he had the Mandate of Heaven, to display power and legitimacy and to protect himself.

The Qing Dynasty continue to live and rule here. The last occupant was Puyi who was last emperor and was expelled by Chinese nationalists. Later it was liberated by Mao as a symbol of dynastic overthrow and the new Communist state of China

Forbidden City Imperial Power and Authority

How can we attribute the art-historical period during which the Forbidden City was constructed? How do both the plan and the architecture demonstrate the culture and/or patron's function and/or purpose of the structure?

The Forbidden City designates the Beijing palace of the Chinese emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties who ruled China from the 15th century until the early 20th century. The planning of the imperial palace took place during the reign of the 3rd Qing Emperor Yongle and it was done according to the Chinese traditions.

The city was rectangular just like the world according to Chinese traditions and its name "Purple City" corresponded to the central star of the Chinese sky the "small purple star" (the Western Polar star).

The plan and the architecture of the city reflect the ideal cosmic order in Confucian ideology. The imperial palace was planned on a north-south axis, with a parade avenue which crossed the whole city and connected the gates. The first two gates, the Meridian and Supreme Harmony Gates open to courtyards. The palace rules emphasized the segregation according to rank to underline the authority of the emperor.

The Meridien Gate had 5 Portals:

The central gate was reserved for the emperor.

The other middle gates were reserved for family and officials

The outermost gates were used for servants.

The second courtyard leads to three halls:

the Hall of Supreme Harmony,

the Hall of Central Harmony, and

the Hall of Protecting Harmony.

These halls belonged to realm of state affairs and were reserved to men. They are elevated on a monumental three-tiered white marble terrace. Their tiled roofs are two-tiered and their wooden eaves are painted in intricate patterns all demonstrating the power and authority of the emperor. The roofs are yellow which is the imperial color. Their ridges are decorated with animal ornaments and heavenly guardians and the more important the building, the greater the number of clay figures.

The roof of the Hall of Harmony is crowned with two huge dragon ornaments weighing almost 4 tones each. Here is where the dragon throne was located. The dragon symbolized the power of the emperor.

The three Halls are the last buildings in which officials had access. The rest of the city was reserved for the imperial family, which earned it the nickname of Forbidden City.

The segregation from commoners and officials was complete and emphasized the divine role and duty of the emperor. Symbolically the outer South court represented Earth, and the inner Northern court represented Heaven. Only the Emperor as the Son of Heaven and could mediate both worlds.

The main palaces of the private quarters, the emperor's Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Union and empress Palace of Earthly Tranquility are also elevated. Most have two-tiered roofs and intricate caisson ceilings. The symbolism of the dragons continues in the inner court with the Nine Dragons tiled screen of the retired emperor palace.

The grandeur of the inner court surpasses the one of the outer court. The Palace of Heavenly Purity was so large and inconvenient for daily life that after Kangxi, the emperors chose to reside in a smaller Hall quoting their filial piety towards the greatest of the Chinese emperors.

(8) 212. Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan.

Based on an oil painting by Liu Chunhua. Chinese (PRC). 1969 CE. Socialist Realism.

Learning Objective: Socialist Realism
Themes:
Politics
Propaganda
Power
Ideal man
Print
Interpretation of history

Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan was made by an unknown artist but based on an oil painting by Liu Chunhua. This color lithograph produced in the late 1960s measures 2 feet by 4 inches.

The work features a low horizon line to enlarge the figure and atmospheric perspective.

It is painted with Western realism as it is modeled, in 3D, has precision, and accuracy with form. There is realism of fabric, body, and landscape.

Mao is idealized, luminous, lighter than the background so he stands out. When this painting was first made, he was in his 70s, but he appears much younger.

As for colors there is no use of traditional reds. Instead, purples, greens, browns are used. The symbolic colors were abandoned for realistic colors.

All About Color Lithographs

When an image is popular artists want to make prints of it for reproduction.
Here are the steps:

Draw image the with and oily crayon on a flat stone

Cover the stone with water. It is repelled from the oily crayon.

Cover the plate with oil-based ink. It is repelled from the places where the water was and latches onto the oily crayon.

Press the paper down on top. Apply pressure

To make a color lithograph, you would need multiple stones - one for each color.

Function

This work was intended to be propaganda, emotionally moving and present an interpretation of history. It was made when Mao was not in a position of strength. He has found himself in this trouble because of the failure of the Great Leap Forward.

The point of this work was to help Mao regain power and mend the country. This was to convince others that Mao could lead the country again, like he had through the revolution, despite the Great Leap Forward.

The emphasize was on Mao's grassroots beginnings and his inherent strength. It shows him as a revolutionary who was committed to championing the common people and doing what was right by addressing the lives of the working class.

This work was described by Communist party officials as a "model work".

Mao looks the heroic, ennobled, aggrandized leader, who is honorable, successful, and determined.

The image was widely published in newspapers and journals, as well as reproduced in the form of posters, statues, and kitchenware. Some believe there were more than 900 million copies made.

The Visuals

Context

In the early 1920s, Mao and other communists helped guide the 13,000 miners' strike at the Anyuan Coal Mine to protest the treatment of workers and demand higher wages.

This resulted in higher wages, better conditions, an education program, and widespread support for the Communists. Mao emerged as one of the most significant and well-liked leaders.
Mao ruled from 1949 - 1976.
Great Leap Forward (1958 - 1962) was Mao's plan to industrialize China while maintaining the basic agricultural/pastoral structure of China. The "solution" was to have farmers create steel mills in their backyards. Millions died as not enough food was produced, steel mills caught fire and many other catastrophes. The plan backfires tremendously

Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966 continued for a few more years as a reaction to Mao realizing he was on the brink of losing power. Mao tried to turn frustration towards him into frustration towards the traditions of Chinese culture. Mao argued that his plan would have worked had it not been for Chinese traditions that stood in the way.

Mao mobilized peasants (Red Army) and together they tortured traditional artists, scholars, and professors, while they destroyed thousands of books, historical objects, and artworks ( anything Confucian or Buddhist they could get their hands on).

Mao encouraged artists to create "art for the people" that would convey communist ideas in ways accessible to the masses. Realistic images of workers, soldiers, and peasants began to replace traditional ink/silk images of landscapes.

Liu Chunhua's image was painted in 1969 in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. Liu Chunhua was a member of the Red Guard.

Social Realism

This work used socialist realism to portray Chairman Mao as a revolutionary leader committed to championing the common people. Some examples of European social realism are shown above..

Korean Art

Historical Context and Artistic Innovations: Korea

Three Kingdoms Period: Korean peninsula divided between Silla, Paekcho, and Koguryo kingdoms

Adoption of Buddhism in 6th century

Interactions between Korea and China were quite common (sinification)

Crowns, burial objects, and jewelry: commonly constructed using gold metallurgy

Portrait styles adopted from China

(8) 196. Gold and Jade Crown.

Korean (Three Kingdoms Period, Silla Kingdom). 5 th-6 th century. Korean.

Learning Objective: Korean headdress

Themes:

Headdress
Status
Power
Funerary
Ceremony
Nature
Religion
Materials with significance

Museum: Gyeongiu National Museum in South Korea

Gold and Jade Crown is a metalwork object, worn on the forehead, that measures 1 foot and 4 inches. The crown is lavish with ornamentation and elongated branch-like protrusions from which tiny gold discs and jade ornaments are attached.

The crown required very delicate and precise hammering as gold is a soft metal and jade is a hard material.

Function

Works such as these were found in burials for royalty. Initially, historians believed this to be the sole purpose. Objects that were important in life were taken to the grave, but these crowns were also used in special and occasional ceremonial rites of the Silla royalty.

Silla used shamanistic practices in their ceremonies where Kings and Queens were significant players. The gold indicated the power of the wearer. A crown is also a visual marker of status.

Symbols and Meanings

Three tree-shaped vertical elements evoke a sacred tree that once stood. It is believed to be an axis-mundi. Jade ornaments symbolized ripe fruit hanging from the tree branches as fertility and abundance. The antlers symbolized the power and speed of a deer. It is a sacred animal in Korea.

Context

In the 5 th and 6 th centuries, Korea was divided into three kingdoms, with the Silla kingdom being the most powerful and wealthiest of all three.

Prior to the adoption of Buddhism, Koreans practiced shamanism. This is a type of nature worship which requires the expertise or mediation of a figure called a shaman who can facilitate communication between the gods and people. In shamanism gods control nature. Humans are at the mercy of nature. The shaman intervenes on behalf of the people.

The Glitter of Gold

Chinese emissaries described the kingdom as a country of gold. Silla kings began to associate with gold and use it to identify royalty.

Silla was particularly famous for its craftsmen and items created out of gold. Through collections unearthed in Silla tombs historians have determined that kings and queens lived in large royal palaces, and wore robes of pure silk embellished with gold, as well as belts and crowns of solid gold.

Jewelry was part of the ensemble with earrings, rings for every finger, and armloads of bracelets crafted in gold. Royalty sat down to lavish meals that were served in gold and silver vessels and plated on gold plates.

The earliest golden objects unearthed were in the Wolseng-ro Tomb in Gyeongju. It was constructed in the last quarter of the fourth century. Two large pendants were found made of pure gold. At the top are gold hoops, from which fall long chains, embellished with delicate pieces of gold. Historians believe these were hung from a headband on either side of the forehead.

Later, six royal mound tombs provided further insight into the lives of the Silla royals. Dating back to the early Silla period, between the first quarter of the 5 th to the first quarter of the 6 th century the tombs each contained a royal golden crown. Hwangnam Daechong, a tomb measuring 80 meters in diameter had a crown with a matching belt, necklaces, rings, earrings, and vessels all made from gold. The fact that royal deceased were buried with the gold objects shows the high regard the Silla people had for the precious metal.

Two Types of Crowns

Two types of crowns were discovered.

The first is the conical cap (magwan), a small hat worn over a topknot. Originally, these were made of birch wood and crafted into a cone shape. Conical caps were worn on the head and strapped below the chin. Fine silk fabric was placed over top, with precious metal objects attached. These crowns did not survive, but the ornamentation did, allowing for historians to reconstruct what the crowns would have looked like.

The southern mound at Hwangnam contained a magwan made of silver and gilt bronze. There were also decorative elements to adorn it including a gold winged object, measuring just over 16 inches high and gold rectangular plates with discs of gold circles hanging from wires. Each of the rectangles measure just over 3 inches each. While nearby at the Geumgwachong Tomb or Gold Crown Tomb, a golden magwan crown was unearthed, measuring 7 inches high.

The second type of crown is the daewag or headband style from which vertical elements hang down. These crowns are made from thin gold sheets and lined with fabric, to provide the skin with comfort. In the early stages the daewag was made of a high purity gold with a minimum of decoration. Later the crowns became highly decorative but were crafted from lower purity gold.

Belts

Gold belts were another symbol of Silla royalty. These were crafted from:

The plaques were linked together and contained engravings of dragons, phoenixes and palmettes. Heart shaped gold charms were attached to the plaques.

Pendants also held charms such as knives, tweezers, medicine bottles, fish, and jade pieces.

More About Royalty: Queen Seondeok's Reign in Silla Korea
Under the Reign of Korean's First Female Sovereign Silla Experienced a Flourish of Arts and Science
The ancient Kingdom of Silla was ruled by a woman from 632 to 647 CE. Her name was Queen Seondeok, and she was Korea's very first female sovereign.

The queen's father King Jinpyeong ruled for an impressive 53 years between 579-632 CE. He had no male heir, and the crown was passed on to his daughter. When she took the throne, she also took the word wang or king-just like the queens in Egypt had before her. Seondeok was the Silla's 27 th ruler. She inherited a prosperous fortune. Compassionately her first objective was to help the poor in the state.

Seondeok was also a fighter. She refused to give up land the Silla owned. She sent a 10, 000-man army to rescue the famous general Kin Yu-Sin. He was being held by rival King Bojang of Gogurye for ransom. The demand was for Seondeok to give up territory the Silla has taken. Seeing the fierce army, the king released the general immediately!

Silla's neighbors were not without power. The queen had already established trading and cultural ties with the Tang Court of China. The two states formed an army. Yet, warring in Korea continued until 668 CE after the queen's rule had ended.

Artistic Accomplishments

Cheomseongdae

During her time Buddhism grew increasingly popular. The queen saw an extensive building program especially when it came to Buddhist temples. While these were made of wood and did not survive, examples of stone pagodas still do.

The most notable work is the granite built Cheomseongdae observatory in Gyeongju, the Silla capital. It stands 9 meters high. The blocks are large rectangles set in a circular formation, forming a bottle like shape.

There is a window with 12 layers of bricks below it and 12 layers of bricks above it. The sun's rays are captured during the spring and summer equinoxes, given its south facing views. It was initially thought that the building functioned as a sundial, as astronomy and astrology were important parts of Korean society that helped with agriculture. It also lent authority to rulers as the chosen ones.

Another theory is that Cheomseongdae was meant as a replica of Mount Sumeru, the holy Buddhist mountain. This would indicate the sight was a place to worship and pray. The female like form could also mean that it was built to represent the Ishtar/Inanna who was connected to the heavens. One final theory is that it was suppose to represent the Queen herself.

Hwangnyongsa Temple

Hwangnyongsa Temple is a Buddhist temple which translates into English as Temple of the Illustrious Dragon, also in Gyeongju. Myth has it that a yellow dragon was spotted at this exact location, symbolizing the defeat of all enemies of Silla.

The project began with the breaking of the ground by King Jinheung, in 553 CE. The site measured 280 by 280 meters, with a huge Buddha at a height of 4 meters. The queen added a nine-story pagoda for which she hired master architect Abiji from Baekje. It also included a massive bell. Everything was destroyed by the Mongols in 1238 CE, but the foundation remains for visitors to see.

Death of the Queen

Not everyone agreed Seondeok should rule. Fuming aristocrats thought the throne should now be granted to someone outside of the bloodline. A rebellion ensued, that was thwarted by general Kin Yu-Sin and the queen's nephew.

She would later die of illness and was entombed within the sacred mountain of Nangsan, Gyeongju.

The Second Queen

After the rule of Queen Seondeok, her cousin Jindeok (r. 647-654 CE) took the throne. She would further help Silla dominate the Korean peninsula.

(8) 205. Portrait of Sin Sukju.

Imperial Bureau of Painting. Korean. 15 th century. Korean.

Learning Objective: Korean silk scroll
Themes:
Ideal man
Portrait
Cross-cultural
Politics
Appropriation
Status
Commemoration

Museum: Goryeong Sin Family Collection in Korea

Portrait of Sin Sukju from the Imperial Bureau of Painting is a hanging scroll made from ink and color on silk. The work measures 5 feet 4 inches by 3 feet 6 inches.

In accordance with Korean portraiture conventions, court artists painted subjects in:

Function

This hanging scroll was meant to be displayed. Silk is a sign of status.

Sin Sukju (1417-1475) is depicted as a "meritorious subject" and celebrated as Prime Minister. He was an official honored for his distinguished service at court and his loyalty to the king. These types of portraits were common for government workers.

These portraits were cherished by families and worshipped for generations. This is similar to Head of Roman Patrician with a focus on ancestral rituals.

Content

Sin Sukju is dressed in his official robes, with a black silk hat on his head. He is shown as a Neoconfucian scholar. He sits with his hands folded neatly and concealed within his sleeves. Excessive fabric is a sign of wealth (think of Arnolfini Portrait!).

He wears a rank badge on his chest that was typically made of embroidered silk. This indicates the status of the official which ranged from emperor to local official. Images of birds identified rank. Sin Sukju's badge shows a pair of peacocks amongst flowers and clouds.

Context

Sin Sukju was Prime Minister from 1461 - 1464, and again through 1471 - 1475.

The Imperial Bureau of Painting was trained to capture the likeness of sitters, while adhering to pictorial conventions for illustrating government members. Imperial Bureau was the government school of artists that standardized painted images. Since images were so standardized, artists likely specialized in one area such as the face, hands, or robe.

Sinification refers to the diffusion of Chinese culture to other regions. Koreans adopted not only Confucianism but also traditions of Chinese paintings. This was a sign of cross-culturation.

Notice the painting of a Chinese bureaucrat on the left

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Theme for Chinese art: "Dynastic Power" One of the most notable themes in Chinese art is power. Power can be expressed in many forms: political power religious/spiritual power economic power and more! Displays of formal imperial/dynastic power are the most common - even in 20 th century.

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Seni Jepang mencakup berbagai gaya dan media artistik, termasuk tembikar kuno, patung, lukisan tinta dan kaligrafi di atas sutra dan kertas, lukisan ukiyo-e dan cetakan balok kayu, keramik, origami, dan baru-baru ini manga dan anime. Ia memiliki sejarah panjang, terbentang dari awal pemukiman manusia di Jepang sekitar milenium ke-10 SM. SM meluas ke negara saat ini.
Jepang menghadapi serangan ide-ide baru yang tiba-tiba, diikuti oleh kontak minimal yang lama dengan dunia luar. Seiring waktu, orang Jepang mengembangkan kemampuan untuk menyerap, meniru, dan akhirnya mengadopsi unsur-unsur budaya asing yang melengkapi preferensi estetika mereka. Seni kompleks paling awal di Jepang muncul sehubungan dengan agama Buddha pada abad ke-7 dan ke-8. Saat orang Jepang berpaling dari Cina pada abad ke-9 dan mulai mengembangkan bentuk ekspresi pribumi, seni sekuler menjadi semakin penting; Sejak akhir abad ke-15, seni religius dan sekuler berkembang pesat. Setelah Perang Onin (1467-1477), Jepang memasuki masa kekacauan politik, sosial, dan ekonomi yang berlangsung lebih dari satu abad. Di negara bagian yang lahir di bawah Keshogunan Tokugawa, agama yang terorganisir memainkan peran yang jauh lebih kecil dalam kehidupan masyarakat dan seni yang bertahan sebagian besar bersifat sekuler. Periode Meiji (1868–1912) melihat masuknya gaya Barat secara tiba-tiba yang tetap penting.
Melukis adalah ekspresi artistik paling populer di Jepang, yang dilakukan oleh para amatir dan profesional. Hingga zaman modern, orang Jepang menulis dengan kuas, dan pengetahuan mereka tentang teknik kuas membuat mereka sangat peka terhadap nilai dan estetika lukisan. Dengan bangkitnya budaya populer di zaman Edo, pencetakan balok kayu menjadi bentuk penting dan tekniknya disempurnakan untuk menghasilkan cetakan berwarna. Orang Jepang selama periode itu menganggap patung sebagai sarana ekspresi artistik yang kurang simpatik; Sebagian besar patung Jepang diasosiasikan dengan agama, dan penggunaan mediumnya menurun seiring dengan menurunnya kepentingan agama Buddha tradisional.
Tembikar Jepang termasuk yang terbaik di dunia dan termasuk benda Jepang paling awal yang diketahui; Porselen ekspor Jepang merupakan industri penting di beberapa daerah. Pernis Jepang juga merupakan salah satu seni dan kerajinan terkemuka di dunia, dan karya berhias maki-e yang sangat indah diekspor ke Eropa dan Tiongkok dan tetap menjadi ekspor penting hingga abad ke-19.Preferensi Jepang untuk bahan alami dan interaksi ruang interior dan eksterior terlihat jelas dalam arsitekturnya.

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Japanese art consists of a wide range of art styles and media that includes ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, paintings and woodblock prints, ceramics, origami, bonsai, and more recently manga and anime. It has a long history, ranging from the beginnings of human habitation in Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BCE, to the present day.

Japan has alternated between periods of exposure to new ideas, and long periods of minimal contact with the outside world. Over time the country absorbed, imitated, and finally assimilated elements of foreign culture that complemented already-existing aesthetic preferences. The earliest complex art in Japan was produced in the 7th and 8th centuries in connection with Buddhism. In the 9th century, as the Japanese began to turn away from China and develop indigenous forms of expression, the secular arts became increasingly important; until the late 15th century, both religious and secular arts flourished. After the Ōnin War (1467-1477), Japan entered a period of political, social, and economic turmoil that lasted for over a century. In the state that emerged under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate, organized religion played a much less important role in people's lives, and the arts that survived were primarily secular. The Meiji Period (1868-1912) saw an abrupt influx of Western styles, which have continued to be important.

Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateurs and professionals alike. Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to the values and aesthetics of painting. With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, ukiyo-e, a style of woodblock prints, became a major form and its techniques were fine-tuned to create mass-produced, colorful pictures; in spite of painting's traditional pride of place, these prints proved to be instrumental in the Western world's 19th-century dialogue with Japanese art. The Japanese, in this period, found sculpture a much less sympathetic medium for artistic expression: most large Japanese sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium's use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism.

Japanese pottery is among the finest in the world and includes the earliest known Japanese artifacts; Japanese export porcelain has been a major industry at various points. Japanese lacquerware is also one of the world's leading arts and crafts, and works gorgeously decorated with were exported to Europe and China, remaining important exports until the 19th century. In architecture, Japanese preferences for natural materials and an interaction of interior and exterior space are clearly expressed.

Middle Jōmon vase; circa 3000-2000 BCE

The first settlers of Japan were the Jōmon people ( c. 10,500 - c. 300 BCE), named for the cord markings that decorated the surfaces of their clay vessels, were nomadic hunter-gatherers who later practiced organized farming and built cities with populations of hundreds if not thousands. They built simple houses of wood and thatch set into shallow earthen pits to provide warmth from the soil. They crafted lavishly decorated pottery storage vessels, clay figurines called , and crystal jewels.

Early Jōmon period

During the Early Jōmon period (5000-2500 BCE), villages started to be discovered and ordinary everyday objects were found such as ceramic pots for boiling water. The pots found during this time had flat bottoms and elaborate designs made out of materials such as bamboo. It is believed that some early Jōmon figurines may have been used as fertility objects based on their breasts and broad hips.

Middle Jōmon period

Jar; middle to late Jomon period; 35th-11th century BCE

The Middle Jōmon period (2500-1500 BCE), differed from the Early Jōmon Period in many ways. These people were less nomadic and began to settle in villages. They created useful tools that to process the food they gathered and hunted, which made life easier. Through the numerous aesthetically pleasing ceramics found during this period, it is evident that they had a stable economy and more leisure time. In addition, the people of the Middle Jōmon period differed from their ancestors in their development of vessels for specific functions, for example, pots for storage. The decorations on these vessels were more realistic than those on early Jōmon ceramics.

Late and Final Jōmon period

Dogū figurine from the site Ebisuda of Ōsaki, Miyagi prefecture (1000-400 BCE)

During the Late and Final Jōmon period (1500-300 BCE), the weather grew colder, prompting settlers to move away from the mountains. The main food source was fish, which led them to develop fishing tools and techniques. In addition, the increase in the number of vessels suggests that each household had its own stock. Some vessels found during the Late and Final Jōmon Period were damaged which might indicate that they were used for rituals. In addition, figurines were found with distinctive fleshy bodies and goggle-like eyes.

Dogū figurines

Dogū ("earthen figure") are small humanoid and animal figurines dated to the end of the Jōmon period. They were produced all over Japan, except Okinawa. According to some scholars, the dogū were effigies of people and might have been used in sympathetic magic. Dogū are small clay figures, typically 10 to 30 centimetres (4 to 12 inches) high. Most are female, with large eyes, small waists and wide hips. Many have large bellies, suggesting that they were mother goddesses.

The next wave of immigrants was the Yayoi people, named for the district in Tokyo where remnants of their settlements first were found. These people, arriving in Japan about 300 BCE, brought their knowledge of wetland rice cultivation, the manufacture of copper weapons and bronze bells (), and wheel-thrown, kiln-fired ceramics.

Tomb of Emperor Nintoku located in Sakai, Japan. The keyhole-like tomb is 486m long, 305m wide at the bottom and 245m in diameter.

The third stage in Japanese prehistory, the Kofun period (c. 300 - 710 AD), represents a modification of Yayoi culture, attributable either to internal development or external force. This period is most notable for its tomb culture and other artifacts such as bronze mirrors and clay sculptures called which were erected outside these tombs. Throughout the Kofun period, the characteristics of these tombs evolved from smaller tombs erected on hilltops and ridges to much larger tombs built on flat land. The largest tomb in Japan, the tomb of Emperor Nintoku, houses 46 burial mounds and is shaped like a keyhole, a distinct characteristic found within later Kofun tombs.

A dragon-head pitcher with Pegasus pattern incised, gilded bronze　with silver, Asuka period, 7th century, former Horyu-ji Temple treasures

During the Asuka and Nara periods, so named because the seat of Japanese government was located in the Asuka Valley from 542 to 645 and in the city of Nara until 784, the first significant influx of continental Asian culture took place in Japan.

The transmission of Buddhism provided the initial impetus for contacts between China and Japan. The Japanese recognized the facets of Chinese culture that could profitably be incorporated into their own: a system for converting ideas and sounds into writing; historiography; complex theories of government, such as an effective bureaucracy; and, most important for the arts, new technologies, new building techniques, more advanced methods of casting in bronze, and new techniques and media for painting.

Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, however, the major focus in contacts between Japan and the Asian continent was the development of Buddhism. Not all scholars agree on the significant dates and the appropriate names to apply to various time periods between 552, the official date of the introduction of Buddhism into Japan, and 784, when the Japanese capital was transferred from Nara. The most common designations are the Suiko period, 552-645; the Hakuhō period, 645-710, and the Tenpyō period, 710-784.

The earliest Japanese sculptures of the Buddha are dated to the 6th and 7th century. They ultimately derive from the 1st- to 3rd-century AD Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, characterized by flowing dress patterns and realistic rendering, on which Chinese artistic traits were superimposed. After the Chinese Northern Wei buddhist art had infiltrated a Korean peninsula, Buddhist icons were brought to Japan by Various immigrant groups. Particularly, the semi-seated Maitreya form was adapted into a highly developed Ancient Greek art style which was transmitted to Japan as evidenced by the Kōryū-ji Miroku Bosatsu and the Chūgū-ji Siddhartha statues. Many historians portray Korea as a mere transmitter of Buddhism. The Three Kingdoms, and particularly Baekje, were instrumental as active agents in the introduction and formation of a Buddhist tradition in Japan in 538 or 552. They illustrate the terminal point of the Silk Road transmission of art during the first few centuries of our era. Other examples can be found in the development of the iconography of the Japanese Fūjin Wind God, the Niō guardians, and the near- Classical floral patterns in temple decorations.

The earliest Buddhist structures still extant in Japan, and the oldest wooden buildings in the Far East are found at the Hōryū-ji to the southwest of Nara. First built in the early 7th century as the private temple of Crown Prince Shōtoku, it consists of 41 independent buildings. The most important ones, the main worship hall, or Kondō (Golden Hall), and Gojū-no-tō (Five-story Pagoda), stand in the center of an open area surrounded by a roofed cloister. The Kondō, in the style of Chinese worship halls, is a two-story structure of post-and-beam construction, capped by an , or hipped-gabled roof of ceramic tiles.

Inside the Kondō, on a large rectangular platform, are some of the most important sculptures of the period. The central image is a Shaka Trinity (623), the historical Buddha flanked by two bodhisattvas, sculpture cast in bronze by the sculptor Tori Busshi (flourished early 7th century) in homage to the recently deceased Prince Shōtoku. At the four corners of the platform are the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions, carved in wood around 650. Also housed at Hōryū-ji is the Tamamushi Shrine, a wooden replica of a Kondō, which is set on a high wooden base that is decorated with figural paintings executed in a medium of mineral pigments mixed with lacquer.

Temple building in the 8th century was focused around the Tōdai-ji in Nara. Constructed as the headquarters for a network of temples in each of the provinces, the Tōdaiji is the most ambitious religious complex erected in the early centuries of Buddhist worship in Japan. Appropriately, the 16.2-m (53-ft) Buddha (completed 752) enshrined in the main Buddha hall, or Daibutsuden, is a Rushana Buddha, the figure that represents the essence of Buddhahood, just as the Tōdaiji represented the center for Imperially sponsored Buddhism and its dissemination throughout Japan. Only a few fragments of the original statue survive, and the present hall and central Buddha are reconstructions from the Edo period.

Clustered around the Daibutsuden on a gently sloping hillside are a number of secondary halls: the (Lotus Sutra Hall), with its principal image, the Fukukenjaku Kannon (不空羂索観音立像, the most popular bodhisattva), crafted of dry lacquer (cloth dipped in lacquer and shaped over a wooden armature); the (戒壇院, Ordination Hall) with its magnificent clay statues of the Four Guardian Kings; and the storehouse, called the . This last structure is of great importance as an art-historical cache, because in it are stored the utensils that were used in the temple's dedication ceremony in 752, the eye-opening ritual for the Rushana image, as well as government documents and many secular objects owned by the Imperial family.

Choukin (or chōkin), the art of metal engraving or sculpting, is thought to have started in the Nara period.

Taizokai (womb realm) Mandala on a silk hanging scroll, 9th century CE

In 794 the capital of Japan was officially transferred to Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto), where it remained until 1868. The term Heian period refers to the years between 794 and 1185, when the Kamakura shogunate was established at the end of the Genpei War. The period is further divided into the early Heian and the late Heian, or Fujiwara era, the pivotal date being 894, the year imperial embassies to China were officially discontinued.

Early Heian art: In reaction to the growing wealth and power of organized Buddhism in Nara, the priest Kūkai (best known by his posthumous title Kōbō Daishi, 774-835) journeyed to China to study Shingon, a form of Vajrayana Buddhism, which he introduced into Japan in 806. At the core of Shingon worship is mandalas, diagrams of the spiritual universe, which then began to influence temple design. Japanese Buddhist architecture also adopted the stupa, originally an Indian architectural form, in its Chinese-style pagoda.

The temples erected for this new sect were built in the mountains, far away from the Court and the laity in the capital. The irregular topography of these sites forced Japanese architects to rethink the problems of temple construction, and in so doing to choose more indigenous elements of design. Cypress-bark roofs replaced those of ceramic tile, wood planks were used instead of earthen floors, and a separate worship area for the laity was added in front of the main sanctuary.

The temple that best reflects the spirit of early Heian Shingon temples is the Murō-ji (early 9th century), set deep in a stand of cypress trees on a mountain southeast of Nara. The wooden image (also early 9th century) of Shakyamuni, the "historic" Buddha, enshrined in a secondary building at the Murō-ji, is typical of the early Heian sculpture, with its ponderous body, covered by thick drapery folds carved in the honpa-shiki (rolling-wave) style, and its austere, withdrawn facial expression.

Fujiwara art: In the Fujiwara period, Pure Land Buddhism, which offered easy salvation through belief in Amida (the Buddha of the Western Paradise), became popular. This period is named after the Fujiwara family, then the most powerful in the country, who ruled as regents for the Emperor, becoming, in effect, civil dictators. Concurrently, the Kyoto nobility developed a society devoted to elegant aesthetic pursuits. So secure and beautiful was their world that they could not conceive of Paradise as being much different. They created a new form of Buddha hall, the Amida hall, which blends the secular with the religious, and houses one or more Buddha images within a structure resembling the mansions of the nobility.

The Hō-ō-dō (Phoenix Hall, completed 1053) of the Byōdō-in, a temple in Uji to the southeast of Kyoto, is the exemplar of Fujiwara Amida halls. It consists of a main rectangular structure flanked by two L-shaped wing corridors and a tail corridor, set at the edge of a large artificial pond. Inside, a single golden image of Amida ( c. 1053) is installed on a high platform. The Amida sculpture was executed by Jōchō, who used a new canon of proportions and a new technique (), in which multiple pieces of wood are carved out like shells and joined from the inside. Applied to the walls of the hall are small relief carvings of celestials, the host believed to have accompanied Amida when he descended from the Western Paradise to gather the souls of believers at the moment of death and transport them in lotus blossoms to Paradise. paintings on the wooden doors of the Hō-ō-dō, depicting the Descent of the Amida Buddha, are an early example of Yamato-e, Japanese-style painting, and contain representations of the scenery around Kyoto.

"YUGIRI" of Genji Monogatari Emaki

E-maki: In the last century of the Heian period, the horizontal, illustrated narrative handscroll, known as (絵巻, lit. "picture scroll"), came to the fore. Dating from about 1130, the Genji Monogatari Emaki, a famous illustrated Tale of Genji represents the earliest surviving yamato-e handscroll, and one of the high points of Japanese painting. Written about the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Shōshi, the novel deals with the life and loves of Genji and the world of the Heian court after his death. The 12th-century artists of the e-maki version devised a system of pictorial conventions that convey visually the emotional content of each scene. In the second half of the century, a different, livelier style of continuous narrative illustration became popular. The Ban Dainagon Ekotoba (late 12th century), a scroll that deals with an intrigue at court, emphasizes figures in active motion depicted in rapidly executed brush strokes and thin but vibrant colors.

E-maki also serve as some of the earliest and greatest examples of the ("men's pictures") and ("women's pictures") styles of painting. There are many fine differences in the two styles, appealing to the aesthetic preferences of the genders. But perhaps most easily noticeable are the differences in subject matter. Onna-e, epitomized by the Tale of Genji handscroll, typically deals with court life, particularly the court ladies, and with romantic themes. Otoko-e often recorded historical events, particularly battles. The Siege of the Sanjō Palace (1160), depicted in the "Night Attack on the Sanjō Palace" section of the Heiji Monogatari handscroll is a famous example of this style.

Muchaku by Unkei, Kōfuku-ji, 1212, National Treasure

In 1180, a war broke out between the two most powerful warrior clans: the Taira and the Minamoto; five years later the Minamoto emerged victorious and established a de facto seat of government at the seaside village of Kamakura, where it remained until 1333. With the shift of power from the nobility to the warrior class, the arts had to satisfy a new audience: men devoted to the skills of warfare, priests committed to making Buddhism available to illiterate commoners, and conservatives, the nobility and some members of the priesthood who regretted the declining power of the court. Thus, realism, a popularizing trend, and a classical revival characterize the art of the Kamakura period. In the Kamakura period, Kyoto and Nara remained the centres of artistic production and high culture.

Sculpture: The Kei school of sculptors, particularly Unkei, created a new, more realistic style of sculpture. The two Niō guardian images (1203) in the Great South Gate of the Tōdai-ji in Nara illustrate .Unkei's dynamic supra-realistic style. The images, about 8 m (about 26 ft) tall, were carved of multiple blocks in a period of about three months, a feat indicative of a developed studio system of artisans working under the direction of a master sculptor. Unkei's polychromed wood sculptures (1208, Kōfuku-ji, Nara) of two Indian sages, Muchaku and Seshin, the legendary founders of the Hossō sect, are among the most accomplished realistic works of the period; as rendered by Unkei, they are remarkably individualized and believable images. One of the most famous works of this period is an Amitabha Triad (completed in 1195), in Jōdo-ji in Ono, created by Kaikei, Unkei's successor.

Calligraphy and painting: The Kegon Engi Emaki, the illustrated history of the founding of the Kegon sect, is an excellent example of the popularizing trend in Kamakura painting. The Kegon sect, one of the most important in the Nara period, fell on hard times during the ascendancy of the Pure Land sects. After the Genpei War (1180-1185), Priest Myōe of Kōzan-ji sought to revive the sect and also to provide a refuge for women widowed by the war. The wives of samurai had been discouraged from learning more than a syllabary system for transcribing sounds and ideas (see kana), and most were incapable of reading texts that employed Chinese ideographs ( kanji).

Thus, the Kegon Engi Emaki combines passages of text, written with a maximum of easily readable syllables, and illustrations that have the dialogue between characters written next to the speakers, a technique comparable to contemporary comic strips. The plot of the e-maki, the lives of the two Korean priests who founded the Kegon sect, is swiftly paced and filled with fantastic feats such as a journey to the palace of the Ocean King, and a poignant mom story.[clarification needed ]

A work in a more conservative vein is the illustrated version of Murasaki Shikibu's diary. E-maki versions of her novel continued to be produced, but the nobility, attuned to the new interest in realism yet nostalgic for past days of wealth and power, revived and illustrated the diary in order to recapture the splendor of the author's times. One of the most beautiful passages illustrates the episode in which Murasaki Shikibu is playfully held prisoner in her room by two young courtiers, while, just outside, moonlight gleams on the mossy banks of a rivulet in the imperial garden.

During the Muromachi period (1338-1573), also called the Ashikaga period, a profound change took place in Japanese culture. The Ashikaga clan took control of the shogunate and moved its headquarters back to Kyoto, to the Muromachi district of the city. With the return of government to the capital, the popularizing trends of the Kamakura period came to an end, and cultural expression took on a more aristocratic, elitist character. Zen Buddhism, the Ch'an sect traditionally thought to have been founded in China in the 6th century, was introduced for a second time into Japan and took root.

Karesansui of Ryōan-ji, Kyoto

Painting: Because of secular ventures and trading missions to China organized by Zen temples, many Chinese paintings and objects of art were imported into Japan and profoundly influenced Japanese artists working for Zen temples and the shogunate. Not only did these imports change the subject matter of painting, but they also modified the use of color; the bright colors of Yamato-e yielded to the monochromes of painting in the Chinese manner, where paintings generally only have black and white or different tones of a single color.

The hungry ghosts of Kyoto

Typical of early Muromachi painting is the depiction by the priest-painter Kao (active early 15th century) of the legendary monk Kensu (Hsien-tzu in Chinese) at the moment he achieved enlightenment. This type of painting was executed with quick brush strokes and a minimum of detail. Catching a Catfish with a Gourd (early 15th century, Taizō-in, Myōshin-ji, Kyoto), by the priest-painter Josetsu (active c.  1400), marks a turning point in Muromachi painting. Executed originally for a low-standing screen, it has been remounted as a hanging scroll with inscriptions by contemporary figures above, one of which refers to the painting as being in the "new style". In the foreground a man is depicted on the bank of a stream holding a small gourd and looking at a large slithery catfish. Mist fills the middle ground, and the background mountains appear to be far in the distance. It is generally assumed that the "new style" of the painting, executed about 1413, refers to a more Chinese sense of deep space within the picture plane.

The foremost artists of the Muromachi period are the priest-painters Shūbun and Sesshū. Shūbun, a monk at the Kyoto temple of Shōkoku-ji, created in the painting Reading in a Bamboo Grove (1446) a realistic landscape with deep recession into space. Sesshū, unlike most artists of the period, was able to journey to China and study Chinese painting at its source. Landscape of the Four Seasons ( Sansui Chokan; c.  1486) is one of Sesshu's most accomplished works, depicting a continuing landscape through the four seasons.

Himeji Castle, built in 1580-1609

In the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1603), a succession of military leaders, such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, attempted to bring peace and political stability to Japan after an era of almost 100 years of warfare. Oda, a minor chieftain, acquired power sufficient to take de facto control of the government in 1568 and, five years later, to oust the last Ashikaga shōgun. Hideyoshi took command after Oda's death, but his plans to establish hereditary rule were foiled by Ieyasu, who established the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603.

Cypress Trees Byōbu, folding screen by Kanō Eitoku, 1590

Painting: The most important school of painting in the Momoyama period was that of the Kanō school, and the greatest innovation of the period was the formula, developed by Kanō Eitoku, for the creation of monumental landscapes on the sliding doors enclosing a room. The decoration of the main room facing the garden of the Jukō-in, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji (a Zen temple in Kyoto), is perhaps the best extant example of Eitoku's work. A massive tree and twin pines are depicted on pairs of sliding screens in diagonally opposite corners, their trunks repeating the verticals of the corner posts and their branches extending to left and right, unifying the adjoining panels. Eitoku's screen, Chinese Lions, also in Kyoto, reveals the bold, brightly colored style of painting preferred by the samurai.

Hasegawa Tōhaku, a contemporary of Eitoku, developed a somewhat different and more decorative style for large-scale screen paintings. In his Maple Screen (楓図), now in the temple of Chishaku-in ( ja:智積院), Kyoto, he placed the trunk of the tree in the center and extended the limbs nearly to the edge of the composition, creating a flatter, less architectonic work than Eitoku, but a visually gorgeous painting. His sixfold screen, (松林図), is a masterly rendering in monochrome ink of a grove of trees enveloped in mist.

Wind God and Thunder God, Tawaraya Sōtatsu, 17th century

The Tokugawa shogunate gained undisputed control of the government in 1603 with a commitment to bring peace and economic and political stability to the country; in large measure it was successful. The shogunate survived until 1867, when it was forced to capitulate because of its failure to deal with pressure from Western nations to open the country to foreign trade. One of the dominant themes in the Edo period was the repressive policies of the shogunate and the attempts of artists to escape these strictures. The foremost of these was the closing of the country to foreigners and the accoutrements of their cultures, and the imposition of strict codes of behaviour affecting every aspect of life, the clothes one wore, the person one married, and the activities one could or should not pursue.

In the early years of the Edo period, however, the full impact of Tokugawa policies had not yet been felt, and some of Japan's finest expressions in architecture and painting were produced: Katsura Palace in Kyoto and the paintings of Tawaraya Sōtatsu, pioneer of the Rinpa school.

Woodblock printing: Woodblock prints were originally used to translate Buddhist scriptures in the eighth century in Japan. Woodblock printing consist of the engraving of images or pictures on a piece of wood, which is then pressed against a piece of paper. In the eighth century woodblock was considered a convenient method of the reproduction of printed text until further innovations allowed for color to be translated on paper or better known as Nishik-e prints. Wood block printing was the common method of printing from the eleventh until the nineteenth century. Nishiki-e prints produced goods such as calendars that were commonly sold to wealthy members of society during the Edo period. In the Edo period these prints were depicted events and scenes of prominent actors. Ukiyo then was associated to woodblock printing in the early Edo period. These Ukiyo paintings depicted daily lives of prominent members of society. Ukiyo first started out as hand sculpted scrolls depicted life as a normal commoner.

Architecture: Katsura Detached Palace, built in imitation of Genji's palace, contains a cluster of shoin buildings that combine elements of classic Japanese architecture with innovative restatements. The whole complex is surrounded by a beautiful garden with paths for walking. Many of powerful daimyōs (feudal lords) built a Circuit style Japanese garden in the territory country, and competed for the beauty.

Painting: Sōtatsu evolved a superb decorative style by re-creating themes from classical literature, using brilliantly colored figures and motifs from the natural world set against gold-leaf backgrounds. One of his finest works is the pair of screens, Waves at Matsushima, in the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. A century later, Kōrin reworked Sōtatsu's style and created visually gorgeous works uniquely his own. Perhaps his finest are the screen paintings of Red and White Plum Blossoms.

Sculpture: The Buddhist monk Enkū carved 120,000 Buddhist images in a rough, individual style.

Three Beauties of the Present Day, by Utamaro, c. 1793

The print Red Fuji from Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

Sudden Shower at the Atake Bridge, Hiroshige, 1856

Ukiyo-e and nanga (bunjinga)

The school of art best known in the West is that of the ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints of the demimonde, the world of the kabuki theater and the pleasure districts. Ukiyo-e prints began to be produced in the late 17th century; in 1765 Harunobu produced the first polychrome print. Print designers of the next generation, including Torii Kiyonaga and Utamaro, created elegant and sometimes insightful depictions of courtesans.

In the 19th century the dominant figures were Hokusai and Hiroshige, the latter a creator of romantic and somewhat sentimental landscape prints. The odd angles and shapes through which Hiroshige often viewed landscape, and the work of Kiyonaga and Utamaro, with its emphasis on flat planes and strong linear outlines, had a profound impact on such Western artists as Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh. Via artworks held in Western museums, these same printmakers would later exert a powerful influence on the imagery and aesthetic approaches used by early Modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington and H.D.

A school of painting contemporary with ukiyo-e was nanga, or bunjinga, a style based on paintings executed by Chinese scholar-painters. Just as ukiyo-e artists chose to depict figures from life outside the strictures of the Tokugawa shogunate, bunjin artists turned to Chinese culture. The exemplars of this style are Ike no Taiga, Yosa Buson, Tanomura Chikuden, and Yamamoto Baiitsu ( ja:山本梅逸).

Ceramics

Traditional, mostly stoneware, styles continued in many parts of Japan, but Japanese ceramics were transformed around the start of the Edo period, by a large influx of Korean potters, captured or persuaded to emigrate in the course of the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s. Many of these were settled on the southern island of Kyushu, and they brought with them experience of versions of the Chinese-style chambered climbing kiln, called noborigama in Japan, which allowed high temperatures with more precise control. By around 1620 they had discovered deposits of kaolinite, and started to make porcelain for the first time in Japan. The early wares (called "Early Imari") were relatively small and imitated the Chinese underglaze blue and white porcelain, which Japan had been importing for some time.

The porcelain industry greatly expanded in the late 1650s, as the collapse of the Chinese industry from civil war led to very large orders from the Chinese traders and the Dutch East India Company, by then the traders only permitted to do business in Japan. The first great period of Japanese export porcelain lasted until about the 1740s, and the great bulk of Japanese porcelain was made for export, mostly to Europe, but also the Islamic world to the west and south of Japan. Japanese pottery is among the finest in the world.

(old Kutani) five colours Iroe type sake ewer with bird and flower design in overglaze enamel, Edo period, 17th century

Lacquerware:

With the development of economy and culture, the artistic quality of lacquered furniture has improved. Hon'ami Kōetsu and Ogata Kōrin brought the designs of the Rinpa school of painting into lacquerware. From the middle of the Edo period, for portable medicine containers began to be decorated gorgeously with maki-e and raden, and it became popular among samurai class and wealthy merchants in the class, and at the end of the Edo period, it changed from practical accessories to art collections. The export of lacquerware continued following the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Marie Antoinette and Maria Theresa are known as collectors of Japanese lacquerware in this period.

When the Emperor of Japan regained ruling power in 1868, Japan was once again invaded by new and alien forms of culture. During the Prewar period, The introduction of Western cultural values led to a dichotomy in Japanese art, as well as in nearly every other aspect of culture, between traditional values and attempts to duplicate and assimilate a variety of clashing new ideas. This split remained evident in the late 20th century, although much synthesis had by then already occurred, and created an international cultural atmosphere and stimulated contemporary Japanese arts toward ever more innovative forms.

The government took an active interest in the art export market, promoting Japanese arts at a succession of world's fairs, beginning with the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. As well as heavily funding the fairs, the government took an active role organising how Japan's culture was presented to the world. It created a semi-public company - the Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha (First Industrial Manufacturing Company) - to promote and commercialize exports of art and established the Hakurankai Jimukyoku (Exhibition Bureau) to maintain quality standards. For the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, the Japanese government created a Centennial Office and sent a special envoy to secure space for the 30,000 items that would be displayed. The Imperial Household also took an active interest in arts and crafts, commissioning works ("presentation wares") as gifts for foreign dignitaries. In 1890, the Teishitsu Gigeiin ( Artist to the Imperial Household) system was created to recognise distinguished artists; seventy were appointed from 1890 to 1944. Among these were the painter and lacquer artist Shibata Zeshin, ceramicist Makuzu Kōzan, painter Hashimoto Gahō, and cloisonné enamel artist Namikawa Yasuyuki.

As Western imports became popular, demand for Japanese art declined within Japan itself. In Europe and America, the new availability of Japanese art led to a fascination for Japanese culture; a craze known in Europe as Japonisme. Imperial patronage, government sponsorship, promotion to new audiences, and Western technology combined to foster an era of Japanese artistic innovation. In the decorative arts, Japanese artists reached new levels of technical sophistication.

Today, Masayuki Murata owns more than 10,000 Meiji art works and is one of the most enthusiastic collectors. From that time, most of the excellent works of Meiji Art were bought by foreign collectors and only a few of them remained in Japan, but because he bought back many works from foreign countries and opened the Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum, the study and reevaluation of Meiji Art rapidly advanced in Japan from the 21st century. Nasser Khalili is also one of the world's most dedicated collectors of Meiji art, and his collection encompasses many categories of Meiji art. The Japanese Imperial Family also owns excellent works of Meiji Art, some of which were donated to the state and are now stored in the Museum of the Imperial Collections.

By the early 20th century, European art forms were well introduced and their marriage produced notable buildings like the Tokyo Train Station and the National Diet Building that still exist today. Tokyo Station, a building of Giyōfū architecture, full of bricks and pseudo-European style. This style of building was built in urban areas.

Many artistic new Japanese gardens were built by Jihei Ogawa.

Mr Kume [Kume Keiichiro], by Kuroda Seiki, Kuroda Kinenkan

The first response of the Japanese to Western art forms was open-hearted acceptance, and in 1876 the Technological Art School ( ja:工部美術学校) was opened, employing Italian instructors to teach Western methods. The second response was a pendulum swing in the opposite direction spearheaded by Okakura Kakuzō and the American Ernest Fenollosa, who encouraged Japanese artists to retain traditional themes and techniques while creating works more in keeping with contemporary taste. This was a strategy that eventually served to extend the influence of Japanese art as far as Calcutta, London, and Boston in the years leading up to World War I. Out of these two poles of artistic theory-derived from Europe and from East Asia respectively-developed ("Western-style painting") and Nihonga ("Japanese painting"), categories that have maintained currency.

Flower and bird pattern vase by Namikawa Yasuyuki

During the Meiji era, Japanese cloisonné enamel reached a technical peak, producing items more advanced than any that had existed before. The period from 1890 to 1910 was known as the "Golden age" of Japanese enamels. Artists experimented with pastes and with the firing process to produce ever larger blocks of enamel, with less need for cloisons (enclosing metal strips). Thus enamels became a more pictorial medium, with designs similar to, or copied from, traditional paintings. Enamels with a design unique to Japan, in which flowers, birds and insects were used as themes, became popular. In particular, the works of Namikawa Yasuyuki and Namikawa Sōsuke were exhibited at world's fairs and won many awards. Along with the two Namikawa, the Ando Cloisonné Company has produced many high-quality cloisonne. Japanese enamels were regarded as unequalled thanks to the new achievements in design and colouring.

Maki-e Fuji Tagonoura, Shibata Zeshin, 1872

The Meiji era saw a renewed interest in lacquer as artists developed new designs and experimented with new textures and finishes. (decorating the lacquer in gold or silver dust) was the most common technique for quality lacquerware in this period. Shibata Zeshin was a lacquerer who gained a high reputation for his works from the Bakumatsu to the Meiji period. Lacquerware called Shibayama and Somada, created in the Edo period, became popular for its showy style, inlaid with gold, silver, shellfish, ivory, and colorful metal and glass, and reached its peak during this period. Lacquer from Japanese workshops was recognised as technically superior to what could be produced anywhere else in the world.

Koro, silver decorated with precious metals and rock crystal, 1890

At the start of the Meiji era, Japanese metalwork was almost totally unknown outside the country, unlike lacquer and porcelain which had previously been exported. Metalwork was connected to Buddhist practice, for example in the use of bronze for temple bells and incense cauldrons, so there were fewer opportunities for metalworkers once Buddhism was displaced as the state religion. International exhibitions brought Japanese cast bronze to a new foreign audience, attracting strong praise. The past history of samurai weaponry equipped Japanese metalworkers to create metallic finishes in a wide range of colours. By combining and finishing copper, silver and gold in different proportions, they created specialised alloys including shakudō and shibuichi. With this variety of alloys and finishes, an artist could give the impression of full-colour decoration.

Basket of Flowers. circa 1900, Meiji period. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.

In the Meiji period, Japanese clothes began to be westernized and the number of people who wore kimono decreased, so the craftsmen who made and with ivory and wood lost their demand. Therefore, they tried to create a new field, ivory sculptures for interior decoration, and many elaborate works were exported to foreign countries or purchased by the Imperial Family. In particular, the works of Ishikawa Komei and Asahi Gyokuzan won praise in Japan.

Earthenware bowl by Yabu Meizan, circa 1910

Technical and artistic innovations of the Meiji era turned porcelain into one of the most internationally successful Japanese decorative art forms. Satsuma ware was a name originally given to pottery from Satsuma province, elaborately decorated with gilt and enamel. These wares were highly praised in the West. Seen in the West as distinctively Japanese, this style actually owed a lot to imported pigments and Western influences, and had been created with export in mind. Workshops in many cities raced to produce this style to satisfy demand from Europe and America, often producing quickly and cheaply. So the term "Satsuma ware" came to be associated not with a place of origin but with lower-quality ware created purely for export. Despite this, artists such as Yabu Meizan and Makuzu Kōzan maintained the highest artistic standards while also successfully exporting. From 1876 to 1913, Kōzan won prizes at 51 exhibitions, including the World's fair and the National Industrial Exhibition.

A composite imaginary view of Japan: silk textile artwork

The 1902 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica wrote, "In no branch of applied art does the decorative genius of Japan show more attractive results than that of textile fabrics, and in none has there been more conspicuous progress during recent years." Very large, colourful pictorial works were being produced in Kyoto. Embroidery had become an art form in its own right, adopting a range of pictorial techniques such as chiaroscuro and aerial perspective.

Immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945, large numbers of Japanese artists fell under the influence of, or even joined, the Japan Communist Party, which had just been legalized by the U.S.-led military occupation of Japan after many years of suppression by the prewar and wartime Japanese police. This had to do with the success of the Communist Party had in peddling the notion in the early postwar years that the party had been the only group in Japan to have resisted wartime militarism. In addition, the Japanese word for "vanguard" (前衛, zen'ei), as in "vanguard of the communist revolution," happens to be the same word used for "avant-garde" as in the artistic avant-garde. The Japan Communist Party soon came to dominate the major art societies and exhibitions in Japan, and thus the predominant form of art in the immediate aftermath of the war was socialist realism that depicted the suffering of the poor and the nobility of the working class, in line with Communist Party doctrine that all art should serve the purpose of advancing the cause of revolution. In 1952, the Communist Party even ordered artists such as Hiroshi Katsuragawa and other members of the newly formed Avant-Garde Art Association (前衛美術会, Zen'ei Bijutsukai) out into the mountains to produce socialist realist art in support of "mountain guerrilla squads" that were attempting to foment a violent revolution in Japan.

Over the course of the 1950s, many Japanese artists became increasingly disillusioned with the rigid and limited definition of "art" enforced by the Communist Party. However, due to the ongoing preeminence of Communist Party members and supporters in the senior ranks of artistic societies and exhibition juries, artists found it extremely difficult to even show their art unless they conformed to the Party's guidelines. Some artists shied away from formal public exhibitions. Others sought recognition, financial support, and opportunities to show their art overseas, such as the Gutai group of conceptual artists, founded in 1954. Still other artists made use of the few unjuried, "independent" exhibitions in Japan, such as the Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun, which anyone could enter.

A final straw came with the massive 1960 Anpo Protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (known as " Anpo" in Japanese"), due to the extremely passive role played by the supposedly "vanguard" Communist Party. When the protests failed to stop the treaty, a round of recriminations led to further disillusionment with the Communist Party and socialist realist art, causing many more artists to break away from the Party's influence.

With the dominance of socialist realism fading, the 1960s witnessed an explosion of new art forms in Japan, as the arts expanded in new directions that might best be termed "postmodern." Artist collectives such as Neo-Dada Organizers, Zero Dimension, and Hi-Red Center explored concepts such as "non-art" and "anti-art," and conducted a variety of audacious "events," "happenings," and other forms of performance art designed to erode the boundaries between art and daily life. The Mono-ha group similarly pushed the boundaries dividing art, space, landscape, and the environment. Other artists, such as graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo, drew inspiration from 1960s counterculture and the explosion of new forms of adult-oriented manga comics. In the performing arts, Tatsumi Hijikata pioneered a new form of postmodern dance called Butoh, and playwrights such as Jūrō Kara and Satō Makoto created the Angura style of radical "underground" theater. And in photography, photographers such as Daidō Moriyama pioneered an extremely influential new school of postwar photography that emphasized spontaneity over carefully staged composition and celebrated the characteristics " are, bure, bokeh" (literally "rough, blurred, out-of-focus").

The proliferation of new types of art was supported by the tremendous growth of Japan's economy in the 1960s, remembered as the " Japanese economic miracle." Over the course of the 1960s, the Japanese economy grew by over 10% per year. Rising wealth created a new class of consumers who could afford to spend money on art and support different types of art and artists. For the first time in Japan's modern history, it became viable for significant numbers of artists to make a living purely through selling their art. The 1960s construction boom in Japan, which leveled the old wood-and-paper traditional Japanese architecture and replaced it with sparkling mega-cities of glass and steel, helped inspire brand new schools of Japanese architecture, such as the Metabolism (architecture) movement led by Kenzō Tange, that boldly broke free from conventional models and proved influential around the world.

At the same time, however, the art world remained dominated by cliques that promoted the works of certain (usually male) artists over others. As it became much easier for Japanese to travel overseas in the 1960s, some female artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono found better reception overseas, and decamped for artistic centers such as London, Paris, and New York, as did many male artists as well.

The triumph of the new forms of Japanese art was cemented at the 1970 Osaka World's Fair, where dozens of avant-garde and conceptual artists were hired to design pavilions and artistic experiences for fair-goers. Japanese avant-garde art had gone global, and had become something even the conservative government was proud to display to the world.

The 1970s and 1980s saw Japanese art continue in many of the directions begun in the 1950s and 1960s, but often with much bigger budgets and more expensive materials, as Japan's economy kept rapidly expanding, and eventually grew into one of the largest economic bubbles in history. With Japanese currency becoming incredibly strong in the wake of the 1985 Plaza Accord, Japanese individuals and institutions became major players in the international art market. Extraordinarily wealthy Japanese mega-corporations began constructing their own private art museums and acquiring collections of modern and contemporary art, and Japanese artists greatly benefited from these expenditures as well.

In particular, artistic production continued to trend away from traditional painting and sculpture in the direction of graphic design, pop art, wearable art, performance art, conceptual art, and installation art. Various types of "hybrid" art increasingly came into vogue. As technology advanced, artists increasingly incorporated electronics, video, computers, synthesized music and sounds, and video games into their art. The aesthetics of manga and anime, which so many younger artists had grown up immersed in, exerted an increasing if sometimes quite subtle influence. Above all, artists eschewed anything redolent of "high art" or "fine art" in favor of the personal, the eclectic, the fantastic or phantasmagoric, and the playful. In edition, female artists such as Mika Yoshizawa became more and more accepted and supported by the art world in Japan.

Japanese contemporary art takes as many forms and expresses as many different ideas as worldwide contemporary art in general. It ranges from advertisements, anime, video games, and architecture as already mentioned, to sculpture, painting, and drawing in all their myriad forms. Japanese artists have made especially notable contributions to global contemporary art in the fields of architecture, video games, graphic design, fashion, and perhaps above all, animation. While anime at first were derived primarily from manga stories,[citation needed ] diverse anime abounds today, and many artists and studios have risen to great fame as artists; Hayao Miyazaki and the artists and animators of Studio Ghibli are generally regarded to be among the best the anime world has to offer.

At the same time, many Japanese artists continue to use traditional Japanese artistic techniques and materials inherited from premodern times, such as traditional forms of Japanese paper and ceramics and painting with black and color ink on paper or silk. Some of these artworks depict traditional subject matters in traditional styles, while others explore new and different motifs and styles, or create hybrids of traditional and contemporary art forms, while using traditional media or materials. Still others eschew native media and styles, embracing Western oil paints or any number of other forms.

In sculpture, the same holds true; some artists stick to the traditional modes, some doing it with a modern flair, and some choose Western or brand new modes, styles, and media. Yo Akiyama is just one of many modern Japanese sculptors. He works primarily in clay pottery and ceramics, creating works that are very simple and straightforward, looking like they were created out of the earth itself. Another sculptor, using iron and other modern materials, built a large modern art sculpture in the Israeli port city of Haifa, called Hanabi (Fireworks). Nahoko Kojima is a contemporary Kirie artist who has pioneered the technique of Paper Cut Sculpture which hangs in 3D.

Takashi Murakami is arguably one of the most well-known Japanese modern artists in the Western world. Murakami and the other artists in his studio create pieces in a style, inspired by anime, which he has dubbed " superflat". His pieces take a multitude of forms, from painting to sculpture, some truly massive in size. But most if not all show very clearly this anime influence, utilizing bright colors and simplified details.

Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Chiharu Shiota, Daidō Moriyama, Mariko Mori, Aya Takano, and Tabaimo are considered significant artists in the field of contemporary Japanese art. The Group 1965, an artists' collective, counts contemporary artist Makoto Aida among its members.

Noh is a stylized dance drama that originated in the 14th century. Performers wear various masks and play the roles of kami, onryō (vengeful spirits), and historical and legendary figures.

Many traditional forms of Japanese music, dance, and theater have survived in the contemporary world, enjoying some popularity through reidentification with Japanese cultural values. Traditional music and dance, which trace their origins to ancient religious use- Buddhist, Shintō, and folk-have been preserved in the dramatic performances of Noh, kabuki, and bunraku theater. Ancient court music and dance forms deriving from continental sources were preserved through Imperial household musicians and temple and shrine troupes. Some of the oldest musical instruments in the world have been in continuous use in Japan from the Jōmon period, as shown by finds of stone and clay flutes and zithers having between two and four strings, to which Yayoi period metal bells and gongs were added to create early musical ensembles. By the early historical period (6th to 7th centuries), there were a variety of large and small drums, gongs, chimes, flutes, and stringed instruments, such as the imported mandolin-like biwa and the flat six-stringed zither, which evolved into the thirteen-stringed koto. These instruments formed the orchestras for the 7th-century continentally derived ceremonial court music ( gagaku), which, together with the accompanying bugaku (a type of court dance), are the most ancient of such forms still performed at the Imperial court, ancient temples, and shrines. Buddhism introduced the rhythmic chants, still used, that underpin Shigin, and that were joined with native ideas to underlay the development of vocal music, such as in Noh.

Japanese art is characterized by unique polarities. In the ceramics of the prehistoric periods, for example, exuberance was followed by disciplined and refined artistry. Another instance is provided by two 16th-century structures that are poles apart: the Katsura Detached Palace is an exercise in simplicity, with an emphasis on natural materials, rough and untrimmed, and an affinity for beauty achieved by accident; Nikkō Tōshō-gū is a rigidly symmetrical structure replete with brightly colored relief carvings covering every visible surface. Japanese art, valued not only for its simplicity but also for its colorful exuberance, has considerably influenced 19th-century Western painting and 20th-century Western architecture.

Japan's aesthetic conceptions, deriving from diverse cultural traditions, have been formative in the production of unique art forms. Over the centuries, a wide range of artistic motifs developed and were refined, becoming imbued with symbolic significance. Like a pearl, they acquired many layers of meaning and a high luster. Japanese aesthetics provide a key to understanding artistic works perceivably different from those coming from Western traditions.

Within the East Asian artistic tradition, China has been the acknowledged teacher and Japan the devoted student. Nevertheless, several Japanese arts developed their own style, which can be differentiated from various Chinese arts. The monumental, symmetrically balanced, rational approach of Chinese art forms became miniaturized, irregular, and subtly suggestive in Japanese hands. Miniature rock gardens, diminutive plants (), and (flower arrangements), in which the selected few represented a garden, were the favorite pursuits of refined aristocrats for a millennium, and they have remained a part of contemporary cultural life.

The diagonal, reflecting a natural flow, rather than the fixed triangle, became the favored structural device, whether in painting, architectural or garden design, dance steps, or musical notations. Odd numbers replace even numbers in the regularity of a Chinese master pattern, and a pull to one side allows a motif to turn the corner of a three-dimensional object, thus giving continuity and motion that is lacking in a static frontal design. Japanese painters used the devices of the cutoff, close-up, and fade-out by the 12th century in yamato-e, or Japanese-style, scroll painting, perhaps one reason why modern filmmaking has been such a natural and successful art form in Japan. Suggestion is used rather than direct statement; oblique poetic hints and allusive and inconclusive melodies and thoughts have proved frustrating to the Westerner trying to penetrate the meanings of literature, music, painting, and even everyday language.

The Japanese began defining such aesthetic ideas in a number of evocative phrases by at least the 10th or 11th century. The courtly refinements of the aristocratic Heian period evolved into the elegant simplicity seen as the essence of good taste in the understated art that is called . Two terms originating from Zen Buddhist meditative practices describe degrees of tranquility: one, the repose found in humble melancholy (), the other, the serenity accompanying the enjoyment of subdued beauty (). Zen thought also contributed a penchant for combining the unexpected or startling, used to jolt one's consciousness toward the goal of enlightenment. In art, this approach was expressed in combinations of such unlikely materials as lead inlaid in lacquer and in clashing poetic imagery. Unexpectedly humorous and sometimes grotesque images and motifs also stem from the Zen (conundrum). Although the arts have been mainly secular since the Edo period, traditional aesthetics and training methods, stemming generally from religious sources, continue to underlie artistic productions.

Modern Japanese art is often heavily influenced by the nation's unique relationship with technology, frequently marrying traditional forms and concepts with new aesthetics and anxieties of the technological present, as well as being heavily influenced by the nation's varied economic history following the Second World War. Modern Japanese art engages heavily with themes of isolation and depersonalization, as well as the growing power and influence of digital technologies and the degree to which Japanese culture is affected by and exerts influence on an increasingly globalized and interconnected world.

As Japan was one of the first nations to be connected to the Internet on a large scale and one of the first countries to adopt widespread cellphone use, Japanese art was among the first forms of art to critically evaluate the dramatic social effects that ubiquitous connectivity have had on society. Conversely, the amount of Japanese art distributed on the Internet meant that Japanese art and aesthetics, including mass-culture art such as manga and anime, were enormously influential on Internet culture throughout the 1990s and 2000s, an influence that is not only still felt today, but also encouraged Japanese artists to continue to critically explore the nature of online life.

Japanese art has also been influenced by the increasing role of the nation's mass-culture art in global pop culture. Manga, anime, video games, mass market movies and associated cultural products have continued to become larger and more influential within the world of Japanese art since the 1970s, and themes expressed in these works have often mirrored the nation's current anxieties. The aesthetic language and conventions of these media have increasingly come to represent the totality of Japanese art and culture abroad as well; the aesthetic of , for example, originally was derived from traditional concepts within Japanese art dating back to the 15th century, but was explored within popular manga and anime series in postwar Japan, and today is commonly seen as central to contemporary Japanese culture.

A drawing style common in manga. In recent decades, manga has not only become globally popular, but now also defines a key Japanese aesthetic. Over time, the art styles commonly found in manga have shifted in response to artistic evolutions.

"Osaka Kawaii" exhibit at Japan Expo 2014. Japan has attempted to use the popularity of Japanese art to bolster the nation's soft power through initiatives such as Cool Japan.

A Japanese flip phone typical of the 2000s with phone charms. These phones and charms were symbolic of youth culture in the early Heisei era, and remained prevalent in Japan long after the advent of the smartphone made flip phones obsolete elsewhere.

A hologram of Hatsune Miku performs in concert. Originally developed as a voice synthesizer, Miku became emblematic of kawaii culture, questions about artificiality, the growth of grassroots music production and the changing nature of the artist.

Kizuna Ai, the first large-scale VTuber, a virtual anime-inspired character portrayed in real time by an actor through the use of motion tracking software. VTubers became popular in Japan in the mid-2010's, before rapidly growing in popularity worldwide.

Traditional Japanese Aesthetics are forms of beauty in Japanese culture that derive from the earliest centuries. At least over two-hundred years ago. Some of these early aesthetics make up the Japanese aesthetic as a whole: Syncretic Buddhist Art, Wabi-Sabi, Miyabi, Shibui, and Jo-ha-Kyu.

"Fujisan" white Raku ware tea bowl (chawan) by Hon'ami Kōetsu, Edo period (National Treasure)

This aesthetic in Japanese culture is known for many things such as beauty in all things, even those that are imperfect. Modesty and unconventional things are what are seen as the wabi-sabi aesthetic. Wabi and sabi both make up the aesthetic of beauty in incompleteness together. When separated, both serve as differing terms. Wabi stands for fresh, simple work, denoting all complication and having a very rustic feel to all it relates too. Being made from nature and made from man itself in a tandem. If made by accident, it brings about a certain uniqueness to the work. Sabi is beauty and how it originates from age. The cycle of life plays a great role in sabi, adding to the aesthetic that sense of beauty in works that receive mending damage from aging over time. When bringing wabi and sabi together, it creates the aesthetic that every simple piece developed does not require a complicated design. Nor does it require absolute completeness for beauty to be found in it, and with age comes more delicate beauty.

Wabi-sabi has always been related to tea ceremonies in Japanese culture. It is said that these ceremonies are profound wabi-sabi events. Wabi-sabi is also related to activities such as architecture, fashion, and philosophy. All of these portions of wabi-sabi all share belief in the same theme: all imperfections such as incomplete work holds undeniable beauty. However, not everyone, of course, favors the idea behind wabi-sabi. While this is true, there are many who wish to keep the belief alive despite what others believe. Overall, wabi-sabi seems to be a very mindful approach to everyday life. A calm way to see things, and a way to live without coming off as judgmental. When understanding wabi-sabi, there are terms that strongly relate to the aesthetic as well.

Fukinsei: asymmetry, irregularity.

Kanso: simplicity.

Koko: basic, weathered.

Shizen: without pretense, natural.

Yugen: subtly profound grace, not obvious.

Datsuzoku: unbounded by convention, free.

Seijaku: tranquility, silence.

Each of these terms are used to break down the complete understanding of wabi-sabi. It more so relates to the philosophy aspect of the entire aesthetic and how to view one's surroundings. These can allude to several things including the ideas in humans, the themes behind certain aspects of life, or nature itself. Each term leads back to the point that wabi-sabi is an aesthetic that is about appreciating the small things that are imperfect and or incomplete.[citation needed ]

In the ongoing history of Japan, miyabi can stand for many things. However, it seems to be centered around the concept of elegance, beauty, refinement, and courtliness. For this, it is one of the older aesthetics among most of the Japanese aesthetics in the culture. That would explain why it is not as popular as the rest which may be newer compared to miyabi. It is a term that is also used to express aristocratic culture. Miyabi eliminates all forms of rudeness and crudity from the culture. This brings about the proper picture and form of aristocratic culture. Miyabi brings about these changes. Miyabi ensures that refinement of love, literature, feeling, and art is celebrated within the Japanese culture. Refinement is welcomed.

Shibui is coming to understand an object or an art piece for what it is. Locating simple and subtle beauty in certain things is a goal when it comes to designing or reviewing certain designs. In many ways, shibui is very similar to wabi-sabi but is not wabi-sabi. Shibui appreciates items and objects for simply being. There is no complication or irrational thinking when it comes down to shibui. Akin to certain aesthetics in the Japanese culture, there are a couple of terms in relation to Shibui: shibumi is the taste of shibui; Shibusa is the state of shibui.

Both these terms relate to subtle, unobtrusive beauty. There are several items and objects that can be considered a part of the shibui aesthetic, not just art or fashion. It can also be people, animals, songs, movies, several different types of media can be seen as shibui. For example, a pair of shoes, a camera, a moped bike, and several different pieces of art or objects used for everyday activity can be seen as shibui. Direct and simple is the way of shibui. Nothing over the top or too flashy.

This is an aesthetic that originated from the Noh Theatre and even appeared in the 14th century. It is used in different art forms in Japan even still today. It is a movement that has been applied in several different arts with jo, ha, and kyu standing for individual things to make up its definition: jo, 'beginning'; ha, 'break', 'crack'; kyu: 'rapid', 'over'

Essentially, what this aesthetic means is that when it comes down to pieces that deal with movement, things should start slowly with proper build-up. Almost akin to how a story is told. Then once it reaches its climax, it speeds up. When it reaches its end, then that is when things begin to rapidly speed up until all of a sudden it has reached an ending.

Traditionally, the artist was a vehicle for expression and was personally reticent, in keeping with the role of an artisan or entertainer of low social status. The calligrapher, a member of the Confucian literati class, or samurai class in Japan, had a higher status, while artists of great genius were often recognized in the Kamakura period by receiving a name from a feudal lord and thus rising socially. The performing arts, however, were generally held in less esteem, and the purported immorality of actresses of the early Kabuki theater caused the Tokugawa government to bar women from the stage; female roles in Kabuki and Noh thereafter were played by men.

After World War II, artists typically gathered in arts associations, some of which were long-established professional societies while others reflected the latest arts movement. The Japan Artists League, for example, was responsible for the largest number of major exhibitions, including the prestigious annual Nitten ( Japan Art Exhibition). The PEN Club of Japan (PEN stands for prose, essay, and narrative), a branch of an international writers' organization, was the largest of some thirty major authors' associations. Actors, dancers, musicians, and other performing artists boasted their own societies, including the Kabuki Society, organized in 1987 to maintain this art's traditional high standards, which were thought to be endangered by modern innovation. By the 1980s, however, avant-garde painters and sculptors had eschewed all groups and were "unattached" artists.

There are a number of specialized universities for the arts in Japan, led by the national universities. The most important is the Tokyo Arts University, one of the most difficult of all national universities to enter. Another seminal center is Tama Art University, which produced many of Japan's late 20th-century innovative young artists. Traditional training in the arts, derived from Chinese traditional methods, remains; experts teach from their homes or head schools working within a master-pupil relationship. A pupil does not experiment with a personal style until achieving the highest level of training, or graduating from an arts school, or becoming head of a school. Many young artists have criticized this system as stifling creativity and individuality. A new generation of the avant-garde has broken with this tradition, often receiving its training in the West. In the traditional arts, however, the master-pupil system preserves the secrets and skills of the past. Some master-pupil lineages can be traced to the Kamakura period, from which they continue to use a great master's style or theme. Japanese artists consider technical virtuosity as the sine qua non of their professions, a fact recognized by the rest of the world as one of the hallmarks of Japanese art.

The national government has actively supported the arts through the Agency for Cultural Affairs, set up in 1968 as a special body of the Ministry of Education. The agency's budget for FY 1989 rose to ¥37.8 billion after five years of budget cuts, but still represented much less than 1 percent of the general budget. The agency's Cultural Affairs Division disseminated information about the arts within Japan and internationally, and the Cultural Properties Protection Division (文化財保護部, now 文化財部) protected the nation's cultural heritage. The Cultural Affairs Division is concerned with such areas as art and culture promotion, arts copyrights, and improvements in the national language. It also supports both national and local arts and cultural festivals, and it funds traveling cultural events in music, theater, dance, art exhibitions, and filmmaking. Special prizes are offered to encourage young artists and established practitioners, and some grants are given each year to enable them to train abroad. The agency funds national museums of modern art in Kyoto and Tokyo and The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, which exhibit both Japanese and international shows. The agency also supports the Japan Art Academy, which honors eminent persons of arts and letters, appointing them to membership and offering ¥3.5 million in prize money. Awards are made in the presence of the Emperor, who personally bestows the highest accolade, the Order of Culture. Tokyo University of the Arts also taking active roles on several art events in previous years. Their other campuses are also involving varied courses.

Arts patronage and promotion by the government are broadened to include a new cooperative effort with corporate Japan to provide funding beyond the tight budget of the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Many other public and private institutions participate, especially in the burgeoning field of awarding arts prizes. A growing number of large corporations join major newspapers in sponsoring exhibitions and performances and in giving yearly prizes. The most important of the many literary awards given are the venerable Naoki Prize and the Akutagawa Prize, the latter being the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize in the United States.

In 1989 an effort to promote cross-cultural exchange led to the establishment of a Japanese " Nobel Prize" for the arts, the Premium Imperiale, by the Japan Art Association. This prize of US$100,000 was funded largely by the mass media conglomerate Fujisankei Communications Group and was awarded on a worldwide selection basis.

A number of foundations promoting the arts arose in the 1980s, including the Cultural Properties Foundation set up to preserve historic sites overseas, especially along the Silk Road in Inner Asia and at Dunhuang in China. Another international arrangement was made in 1988 with the United States Smithsonian Institution for cooperative exchange of high-technology studies of Asian artifacts. The government plays a major role by funding the Japan Foundation, which provides both institutional and individual grants, effects scholarly exchanges, awards annual prizes, supported publications and exhibitions, and sends traditional Japanese arts groups to perform abroad. The Arts Festival held for two months each fall for all the performing arts is sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Major cities also provides substantial support for the arts; a growing number of cities in the 1980s had built large centers for the performing arts and, stimulated by government funding, were offering prizes such as the Lafcadio Hearn Prize initiated by the city of Matsue. A number of new municipal museums were also providing about one-third more facilities in the 1980s than were previously available. In the late 1980s, Tokyo added more than twenty new cultural halls, notably, the large Bunkamura built by Tokyu Group and the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. All these efforts reflect a rising popular enthusiasm for the arts. Japanese art buyers swept the Western art markets in the late 1980s, paying record highs for impressionist paintings and US$51.7 million alone for one blue period Picasso.

This article was originally based on material from WebMuseum Paris - Famous Artworks exhibition [1].

Japan - This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division.

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Japanese art consists of a wide range of art styles and media that includes ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, paintings and woodblock prints, ceramics, origami, bonsai, and more recently manga and anime. It has a long history, ranging from the beginnings of human habitation in Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BCE, to the present day.

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Kesenian Partha dan Sassanid mengacu pada dua periode seni di Iran dan tanah yang dia kuasai pada zaman kuno.

Mendahului dinasti Sasanian,Parthia adalah campuran seni asli Iran dan pengaruh Helenistik.
Bagian-bagian tersebut terkena pengaruh budaya lain yang menghalangi mereka untuk menciptakan gaya yang pasti; Namun, mereka adalah karya seni yang unik di Timur Tengah, dengan karakter di depannya. Bagian-bagian tersebut berkontribusi pada gaya Helenistik dari patung yang berdiri bebas.

Sassaniyah membentuk gaya unik yang memanifestasikan dirinya dalam arsitektur, relief, pengerjaan logam, lukisan, dan ukiran pada subjek yang diminati kerajaan. Tampilan depan diperkecil dan diganti dengan profil tiga perempat.

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Parthian and Sassanian art refers to two periods in art in Iran and its held lands in ancient times. Parthian preceded the Sasanian Dynasty and was a mixture of indigenous Iranian art and Hellenistic influence.

The Parthians were subject to the influence of other cultures which prevented them from establishing definitive styles; however, they were unique art in the Middle East for having front-facing figures. The Parthians participated in the Hellenistic fashion of free-standing sculpture.

The Sassanids established a more unique style expressed in architecture, relief, metalwork, painting, and carving covering subjects that were of royal interest. The frontal view went into disfavor, replaced by a three-quarter profile.

Art History: Parthian and Sassanian Art Origins and Historical Importance:
Parthian Art:
Parthian Art begins with an inscription by King Darius I referring to Parthava as the land of modern-day Iran, and later the entire empire of the region. While scholars date the era to 247 BC, the exact origins are unknown to history. The first known ruler was Arsaces who extended the lands south of the Caspian Sea.

Most of the art of the central lands of Parthia is lost, but there are remaining examples from the edges of the empire which was compromised of Mesopotamia, the Iranian Plateau, and Syria. The everyday objects and lesser arts are not as common as those items that were made for royals, noblemen, and important people in the cities.

The stylistic norms of the period were intellectual approaches to figure making, ornate dress, front-facing figures, and high levels of detail. Borrowed techniques and styles from each individual region and from Hellenist and other foreign cultures were combined with Parthian art to create eclectic variances.

Parthian sculpture, especially in Palmyra, depicted the deceased and decorated burial grounds. The women are usually dressed in the fashion of the Hellenistic culture, but conversely, the men are dressed in traditional Iranian pants. Both wear heavy jewelry and faces seem to be stylized to flatter the deceased. Sculptors also worked in relief, with two main styles, a heavy one that is nearly sculpture and flat relief that is only a few centimeters in depth. Reliefs were often rough because of the surfaces available and were composed in the same manner as paintings. Here, too, figures are seen in profile.
Sassanian Art:
The Sassanid Dynasty ruled for 400 years from their defeat of the Parthians in 224 AD to Islamic takeover around 650 AD. The art of the period focuses on chivalry, royalty, hunting, and battle and bear an early resemblance to the composition of coats of arms. Sassanid art and architecture had a great influence on the later Islamic cultures of the area and therefore much of European Islamic and Byzantine architecture, particularly in regard to arches.

Sculpture, with the exception of the Colossal Statue of Shapur I, is mostly absent in free-standing form but abounds in relief, both in number and in quality. They focus on significant events in the lives of the nobility and rulers. Some include communion with the gods. Some reliefs were painted in their day, and give the detail and depth of the compositions would have been magnificent to the viewer.

Metalworkers created art unique to the Sassanids. Shells made of silver and gold are opened to an etched scene. Subjects are whimsical. For example, a prince might be shown hunting astride a horse that is midair as he is about to catch a lion; another scene might include mythological or fantastical creatures.

Coins showed great detail in portraying the ruler of the time. The coins are so distinctive that they are used to date other art and artifacts. The front of the coin sometimes shows a family member along with the profile of the ruler, and the back may show an eternal fire along with other elements.

Decorative wall art included both painting and stucco relief. Not much is left of the paintings of the period, but it is known that a school for painting was founded by Mani. Stucco was used to cover bricks, which were thought to be ugly, and then etched with patterns of florals and animals before being painted white.

Parthian and Sassanian Art Key Highlights:

The Silk Road ran through the Parthian territory and was under their control which resulted in very wealthy Parthian merchants able to trade in the wares from distant lands and also to ply their own native arts, particularly textiles.

The Colossal Statue of Shapur I is a sculpture of a Sassanid King carved from a stalagmite and towering inside a cave. It is no longer attached but still remains, albeit limbless.

Parthian and Sassanian Art Top Works:

Coin of Gondophares

Coin of Mithradates I

Baal Temple - Palmyra

Sculpture of Musa - Susa

Statue of Hercules

Parthian Nobleman - Bronze; Shami

Boar Hunt in Taq-e-Bostan

Palace at Firuzabad (Arches)

The Most Loved Art Stories by Our Readers

Parthian and Sassanian Art - Major Artworks

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Art History: Parthian and Sassanian Art Definition, Scultpures & Paintings

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Parthian and Sassanian art refers to two periods in art in Iran and its held lands in ancient times. Parthian preceded the Sasanian Dynasty and was a mixture of indigenous Iranian art and Hellenistic influence. The Parthians were subject to the influence of other cultures which prevented them from establishing definitive styles; however, they were unique art in the Middle East for having front-facing figures.

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Seni Islam adalah bagian dari budaya Islam dan termasuk seni rupa yang diciptakan oleh orang-orang yang tinggal di daerah yang dihuni atau dikuasai oleh penduduk Muslim sejak abad ke-7. Seni Islam menggunakan tradisi khas di banyak negara, waktu, dan genre yang berbeda. adalah konsep yang pertama kali digunakan oleh sejarawan seni Barat pada akhir abad ke-19. Seni publik Islam secara tradisional bersifat non-representasional terlepas dari penggunaan ekstensif bentuk tumbuhan, biasanya dalam bentuk spiral arabesque. Ini sering dikombinasikan dengan kaligrafi Islam, desain geometris dalam gaya yang biasanya ditemukan dalam berbagai bahan mulai dari tembikar kecil atau logam hingga desain dekoratif besar pada ubin eksterior dan interior bangunan besar seperti masjid. Bentuk seni Islami lainnya termasuk lukisan miniatur Islami, benda-benda seperti kaca atau keramik Islami, dan seni tekstil seperti karpet dan sulaman.
Perkembangan awal seni Islam dipengaruhi oleh seni Romawi, seni Kristen awal (terutama seni Bizantium), dan seni Sassanid, dan kemudian oleh pengaruh tradisi pengembara di Asia Tengah. Seni Cina secara signifikan memengaruhi lukisan, keramik, dan tekstil Islam. Sejak awal, seni Islam didasarkan pada versi tertulis Alquran dan karya-karya keagamaan penting lainnya, terbukti dengan peran penting yang dimainkan oleh kaligrafi, yang mewakili kata. sebagai sarana wahyu ilahi. Seni Islam religius ditandai dengan kurangnya figur dan penggunaan ekstensif desain bunga kaligrafi, geometris, dan abstrak. Dalam seni sekuler dunia Islam, penggambaran bentuk manusia dan hewan secara historis berkembang di hampir semua budaya Islam, meskipun sebagian karena konflik sentimen agama, makhluk hidup dalam lukisan sering diberi gaya, menghasilkan berbagai desain figur dekoratif.
Baik benda seni religi maupun sekuler sering kali memiliki referensi, gaya, dan bentuk yang sama. Ini termasuk kaligrafi, arsitektur, tekstil dan perabotan seperti karpet dan kayu. Kerajinan tangan sekuler meliputi produksi tekstil seperti pakaian, karpet atau tenda, serta barang-barang rumah tangga yang terbuat dari logam, kayu atau bahan lainnya. Selain itu, lukisan miniatur figuratif memiliki tradisi yang kaya, khususnya lukisan Persia, Mughal, dan Ottoman. Gambar-gambar ini sering dimaksudkan untuk mengilustrasikan kisah-kisah sejarah atau puitis yang terkenal. Namun, beberapa interpretasi Islam memasukkan larangan penggambaran makhluk hidup, juga dikenal sebagai anikonisme. Anikonisme Islam sebagian berasal dari larangan penyembahan berhala dan sebagian lagi dari keyakinan bahwa penciptaan makhluk hidup adalah hak prerogatif Tuhan.

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Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced in the Islamic world. Islamic art is difficult to characterize because it covers a wide range of lands, periods, and genres, including Islamic architecture, Islamic calligraphy, Islamic miniature, Islamic glass, Islamic pottery, and textile arts such as carpets and embroidery. It comprises both religious and secular art forms. Religious art is represented by calligraphy, architecture and furnishings of religious buildings, such as mosque fittings (e.g., mosque lamps and Girih tiles), woodwork and carpets. Secular art also flourished in the Islamic world, although some of its elements were criticized by religious scholars.

Early development of Islamic art was based on Islamic ideals, which were reflected in the art. For example, Minars were constructed to help the Muezzin in spreading the recitation of the Adhan. Islamic art was also represented differently from culture to culture and molded with local traditions. Though the concept of "Islamic art" has been criticised by some modern art historians as an illusory Eurocentric construct, the similarities between art produced at widely different times and places in the Islamic world, especially in the Islamic Golden Age, have been sufficient to keep the term in wide use by scholars.

Islamic art is often characterized by recurrent motifs, such as the use of geometrical floral or vegetal designs in a repetition known as the arabesque. The arabesque in Islamic art is often used to symbolize the transcendent, indivisible and infinite nature of God. Mistakes in repetitions may be intentionally introduced as a show of humility by artists who believe only God can produce perfection, although this theory is disputed.

Some interpretations of Islam include a ban of depiction of animate beings, also known as aniconism. Islamic aniconism stems in part from the prohibition of idolatry and in part from the belief that creation of living forms is God's prerogative. Muslims have interpreted these prohibitions in different ways in different times and places. Religious Islamic art has been typically characterized by the absence of figures and extensive use of calligraphic, geometric and abstract floral patterns. However, representations of Islamic religious figures are found in some manuscripts from Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India. These pictures were meant to illustrate the story and not to infringe on the Islamic prohibition of idolatry, but many Muslims regard such images as forbidden. In secular art of the Muslim world, representations of human and animal forms historically flourished in nearly all Islamic cultures, although, partly because of opposing religious sentiments, figures in paintings were often stylized, giving rise to a variety of decorative figural designs.

Calligraphic design is omnipresent in Islamic art, where, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, religious exhortations, including Qur'anic verses, may be included in secular objects, especially coins, tiles and metalwork, and most painted miniatures include some script, as do many buildings. Use of Islamic calligraphy in architecture extended significantly outside of Islamic territories; one notable example is the use of Chinese calligraphy of Arabic verses from the Qur'an in the Great Mosque of Xi'an. Other inscriptions include verses of poetry, and inscriptions recording ownership or donation. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic and scripts, which can be found adorning and enhancing the visual appeal of the walls and domes of buildings, the sides of minbars, and metalwork. Islamic calligraphy in the form of painting or sculptures are sometimes referred to as quranic art.

East Persian pottery from the 9th to 11th centuries decorated only with highly stylised inscriptions, called "epigraphic ware", has been described as "probably the most refined and sensitive of all Persian pottery". Large inscriptions made from tiles, sometimes with the letters raised in relief, or the background cut away, are found on the interiors and exteriors of many important buildings. Complex carved calligraphy also decorates buildings. For most of the Islamic period the majority of coins only showed lettering, which are often very elegant despite their small size and nature of production. The tughra or monogram of an Ottoman sultan was used extensively on official documents, with very elaborate decoration for important ones. Other single sheets of calligraphy, designed for albums, might contain short poems, Qur'anic verses, or other texts.

Although there has been a tradition of wall-paintings, especially in the Persianate world, the best-surviving and highest developed form of painting in the Islamic world is the miniature in illuminated manuscripts, or later as a single page for inclusion in a or bound album of miniatures and calligraphy. The tradition of the Persian miniature has been dominant since about the 13th century, strongly influencing the Ottoman miniature of Turkey and the Mughal miniature in India. Miniatures were especially an art of the court, and because they were not seen in public, it has been argued that constraints on the depiction of the human figure were much more relaxed, and indeed miniatures often contain great numbers of small figures, and from the 16th century portraits of single ones. Although surviving early examples are now uncommon, human figurative art was a continuous tradition in Islamic lands in secular contexts, notably several of the Umayyad Desert Castles (c. 660-750), and during the Abbasid Caliphate (c. 749-1258).

The largest commissions of illustrated books were usually classics of Persian poetry such as the epic , although the Mughals and Ottomans both produced lavish manuscripts of more recent history with the autobiographies of the Mughal emperors, and more purely military chronicles of Turkish conquests. Portraits of rulers developed in the 16th century, and later in Persia, then becoming very popular. Mughal portraits, normally in profile, are very finely drawn in a realist style, while the best Ottoman ones are vigorously stylized. Album miniatures typically featured picnic scenes, portraits of individuals or (in India especially) animals, or idealized youthful beauties of either sex.

Chinese influences included the early adoption of the vertical format natural to a book, which led to the development of a birds-eye view where a very carefully depicted background of hilly landscape or palace buildings rises up to leave only a small area of sky. The figures are arranged in different planes on the background, with recession (distance from the viewer) indicated by placing more distant figures higher up in the space, but at essentially the same size. The colours, which are often very well preserved, are strongly contrasting, bright and clear. The tradition reached a climax in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but continued until the early 19th century, and has been revived in the 20th.

No Islamic artistic product has become better known outside the Islamic world than the pile carpet, more commonly referred to as the Oriental carpet ( oriental rug). Their versatility is utilized in everyday Islamic and Muslim life, from floor coverings to architectural enrichment, from cushions to bolsters to bags and sacks of all shapes and sizes, and to religious objects (such as a prayer rug, which would provide a clean place to pray). They have been a major export to other areas since the late Middle Ages, used to cover not only floors but tables, for long a widespread European practice that is now common only in the Netherlands. Carpet weaving is a rich and deeply embedded tradition in Islamic societies, and the practice is seen in large city factories as well as in rural communities and nomadic encampments. In earlier periods, special establishments and workshops were in existence that functioned directly under court patronage.

Very early Islamic carpets, i.e. those before the 16th century, are extremely rare. More have survived in the West and oriental carpets in Renaissance painting from Europe are a major source of information on them, as they were valuable imports that were painted accurately. The most natural and easy designs for a carpet weaver to produce consist of straight lines and edges, and the earliest Islamic carpets to survive or be shown in paintings have geometric designs, or centre on very stylized animals, made up in this way. Since the flowing loops and curves of the arabesque are central to Islamic art, the interaction and tension between these two styles was long a major feature of carpet design.

There are a few survivals of the grand Egyptian 16th century carpets, including one almost as good as new discovered in the attic of the Pitti Palace in Florence, whose complex patterns of octagon roundels and stars, in just a few colours, shimmer before the viewer. Production of this style of carpet began under the Mamluks but continued after the Ottomans conquered Egypt. The other sophisticated tradition was the Persian carpet which reached its peak in the 16th and early 17th century in works like the Ardabil Carpet and Coronation Carpet; during this century the Ottoman and Mughal courts also began to sponsor the making in their domains of large formal carpets, evidently with the involvement of designers used to the latest court style in the general Persian tradition. These use a design style shared with non-figurative Islamic illumination and other media, often with a large central motif, and always with wide and strongly demarcated borders. The grand designs of the workshops patronized by the court spread out to smaller carpets for the merely wealthy and for export, and designs close to those of the 16th and 17th centuries are still produced in large numbers today. The description of older carpets has tended to use the names of carpet-making centres as labels, but often derived from the design rather than any actual evidence that they originated from around that centre. Research has clarified that designs were by no means always restricted to the centre they are traditionally associated with, and the origin of many carpets remains unclear.

As well as the major Persian, Turkish and Arab centres, carpets were also made across Central Asia, in India, and in Spain and the Balkans. Spanish carpets, which sometimes interrupted typical Islamic patterns to include coats of arms, enjoyed high prestige in Europe, being commissioned by royalty and for the Papal Palace, Avignon, and the industry continued after the Reconquista. Armenian carpet-weaving is mentioned by many early sources, and may account for a much larger proportion of East Turkish and Caucasian production than traditionally thought. The Berber carpets of North Africa have a distinct design tradition. Apart from the products of city workshops, in touch with trading networks that might carry the carpets to markets far away, there was also a large and widespread village and nomadic industry producing work that stayed closer to traditional local designs. As well as pile carpets, kelims and other types of flat-weave or embroidered textiles were produced, for use on both floors and walls. Figurative designs, sometimes with large human figures, are very popular in Islamic countries but relatively rarely exported to the West, where abstract designs are generally what the market expects.

Early Islamic columns followed the style seen in the classic period of the Mediterranean. Classic columns can be seen in earlier mosques such as the Great Mosque of Damascus and Córdoba. These columns can vary in form from being completely smooth, and having vertical or twisting fluting. In the 7th and 8th century, the Mosque of the Prophet Medina, was rebuilt using a style known as hypostyle. Hypostyle mosques usually entail multiple columns that support a smooth and even wall. In India, traditionally Indian stone columns of different shapes such a circles, squares and octagons, were incorporated into some mosques. Finally, engaged columns were introduced into decorate Islamic buildings.

Islamic arches, similar to columns, followed a style similar to Roman architecture. Arches became quite prominent to Islamic architecture during the 8th-10th centuries. There are three distinct shapes of Islamic arches which include horseshoe, keel, and polylobuled. However, in ancient India, Islamic arches take shape after being pointed, lobed, or ogee.

Islamic art has very notable achievements in ceramics, both in pottery and tiles for walls, which in the absence of wall-paintings were taken to heights unmatched by other cultures. Early pottery is often unglazed, but tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters. The first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating to around the 8th century. Another significant contribution was the development of stonepaste ceramics, originating from 9th century Iraq. The first industrial complex for glass and pottery production was built in Raqqa, Syria, in the 8th century. Other centers for innovative pottery in the Islamic world included Fustat (from 975 to 1075), Damascus (from 1100 to around 1600) and Tabriz (from 1470 to 1550). Lusterwares with iridescent colours may have continued pre-Islamic Roman and Byzantine techniques, but were either invented or considerably developed on pottery and glass in Persia and Syria from the 9th century onwards.

Islamic pottery was often influenced by Chinese ceramics, whose achievements were greatly admired and emulated. This was especially the case in the periods after the Mongol invasions and those of the Timurids. Techniques, shapes and decorative motifs were all affected. Until the Early Modern period Western ceramics had very little influence, but Islamic pottery was very sought after in Europe, and often copied. An example of this is the albarello, a type of maiolica earthenware jar originally designed to hold apothecaries' ointments and dry drugs. The development of this type of pharmacy jar had its roots in the Islamic Middle East. Hispano-Moresque examples were exported to Italy, stimulating the earliest Italian examples, from 15th century Florence.

The Hispano-Moresque style emerged in Al-Andaluz or Muslim Spain in the 8th century, under Egyptian influence, but most of the best production was much later, by potters presumed to have been largely Muslim but working in areas reconquered by the Christian kingdoms. It mixed Islamic and European elements in its designs, and much was exported across neighbouring European countries. It had introduced two ceramic techniques to Europe: glazing with an opaque white tin-glaze, and painting in metallic lusters. Ottoman İznik pottery produced most of the best work in the 16th century, in tiles and large vessels boldly decorated with floral motifs influenced, once again, by Chinese Yuan and Ming ceramics. These were still in earthenware; there was no porcelain made in Islamic countries until modern times, though Chinese porcelain was imported and admired.

The medieval Islamic world also had pottery with painted animal and human imagery. Examples are found throughout the medieval Islamic world, particularly in Persia and Egypt.

For most of the Middle Ages Islamic glass was the most sophisticated in Eurasia, exported to both Europe and China. Islam took over much of the traditional glass-producing territory of Sassanian and Ancient Roman glass, and since figurative decoration played a small part in pre-Islamic glass, the change in style is not abrupt, except that the whole area initially formed a political whole, and, for example, Persian innovations were now almost immediately taken up in Egypt. For this reason it is often impossible to distinguish between the various centres of production, of which Egypt, Syria and Persia were the most important, except by scientific analysis of the material, which itself has difficulties. From various documentary references glassmaking and glass trading seems to have been a speciality of the Jewish minority in several centres.

Between the 8th and early 11th centuries the emphasis in luxury glass is on effects achieved by "manipulating the surface" of the glass, initially by incising into the glass on a wheel, and later by cutting away the background to leave a design in relief. The very massive Hedwig glasses, only found in Europe, but normally considered Islamic (or possibly from Muslim craftsmen in Norman Sicily), are an example of this, though puzzlingly late in date. These and other glass pieces probably represented cheaper versions of vessels of carved rock crystal (clear quartz), themselves influenced by earlier glass vessels, and there is some evidence that at this period glass cutting and hardstone carving were regarded as the same craft. From the 12th century the industry in Persia and Mesopotamia appears to decline, and the main production of luxury glass shifts to Egypt and Syria, and decorative effects of colour on smooth surfaced glass. Throughout the period local centres made simpler wares such as Hebron glass in Palestine.

Lustre paintig, by techniques similar to lustreware in pottery, dates back to the 8th century in Egypt, and became widespread in the 12th century. Another technique was decoration with threads of glass of a different colour, worked into the main surface, and sometimes manipulated by combing and other effects. Gilded, painted and enamelled glass were added to the repertoire, and shapes and motifs borrowed from other media, such as pottery and metalwork. Some of the finest work was in mosque lamps donated by a ruler or wealthy man. As decoration grew more elaborate, the quality of the basic glass decreased, and it "often has a brownish-yellow tinge, and is rarely free from bubbles". Aleppo seems to have ceased to be a major centre after the Mongol invasion of 1260, and Timur appears to have ended the Syrian industry about 1400 by carrying off the skilled workers to Samarkand. By about 1500 the Venetians were receiving large orders for mosque lamps.

Medieval Islamic metalwork offers a complete contrast to its European equivalent, which is dominated by modelled figures and brightly coloured decoration in enamel, some pieces entirely in precious metals. In contrast surviving Islamic metalwork consists of practical objects mostly in brass, bronze, and steel, with simple, but often monumental, shapes, and surfaces highly decorated with dense decoration in a variety of techniques, but colour mostly restricted to inlays of gold, silver, copper or black niello. The most abundant survivals from medieval periods are fine brass objects, handsome enough to preserve, but not valuable enough to be melted down. The abundant local sources of zinc compared to tin explains the rarity of bronze. Household items, such as ewers or water pitchers, were made of one or more pieces of sheet brass soldered together and subsequently worked and inlaid.

The use of drinking and eating vessels in gold and silver, the ideal in ancient Rome and Persia as well as medieval Christian societies, is prohibited by the Hadiths, as was the wearing of gold rings. One thing Islamic metalworkers shared with European ones was high social status compared to other artists and craftsmen, and many larger pieces are signed.

Islamic work includes some three-dimensional animal figures as fountainheads or aquamaniles, but only one significant enamelled object is known, using Byzantine cloisonne techniques. The Pisa Griffin is the largest surviving bronze animal, probably from 11th century Al-Andaluz. More common objects given elaborate decoration include massive low candlesticks and lamp-stands, lantern lights, bowls, dishes, basins, buckets (these probably for the bath), and ewers, as well as caskets, pen-cases and plaques. Ewers and basins were brought for hand-washing before and after each meal, so are often lavishly treated display pieces. A typical 13th century ewer from Khorasan is decorated with foliage, animals and the Signs of the Zodiac in silver and copper, and carries a blessing. Specialized objects include knives, arms and armour (always of huge interest to the elite) and scientific instruments such as astrolabes, as well as jewellery. Decoration is typically densely packed and very often includes arabesques and calligraphy, sometimes naming an owner and giving a date.

High levels of achievement were reached in other materials, including hardstone carvings and jewellery, ivory carving, textiles and leatherwork. During the Middle Ages, Islamic work in these fields was highly valued in other parts of the world and often traded outside the Islamic zone. Apart from miniature painting and calligraphy, other arts of the book are decorative illumination, the only type found in Qur'an manuscripts, and Islamic book covers, which are often highly decorative in luxury manuscripts, using either the geometric motifs found in illumination, or sometimes figurative images probably drawn for the craftsmen by miniature painters. Materials include coloured, tooled and stamped leather and lacquer over paint.

Egyptian carving of rock crystal into vessels appears in the late 10th century, and virtually disappears after about 1040. There are a number of these vessels in the West, which apparently came on the market after the Cairo palace of the Fatimid Caliph was looted by his mercenaries in 1062, and were snapped up by European buyers, mostly ending up in church treasuries. From later periods, especially the hugely wealthy Ottoman and Mughal courts, there are a considerable number of lavish objects carved in semi-precious stones, with little surface decoration, but inset with jewels. Such objects may have been made in earlier periods, but few have survived.

Older wood carving is typically relief or pierced work on flat objects for architectural use, such as screens, doors, roofs, beams and friezes. An important exception are the complex muqarnas and mocárabe designs giving roofs and other architectural elements a stalactite-like appearance. These are often in wood, sometimes painted on the wood, but often plastered over before painting; the examples at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain are among the best known. Traditional Islamic furniture, except for chests, tended to be covered with cushions, with cupboards rather than cabinets for storage, but there are some pieces, including a low round (strictly twelve-sided) table of about 1560 from the Ottoman court, with marquetry inlays in light wood, and a single huge ceramic tile or plaque on the tabletop. The fine inlays typical of Ottoman court furniture may have developed from styles and techniques used in weapons and musical instruments, for which the finest craftsmanship available was used. There are also intricately decorated caskets and chests from various periods. A spectacular and famous (and far from flat) roof was one of the Islamic components of the 12th century Norman Cappella Palatina in Palermo, which picked from the finest elements of Catholic, Byzantine and Islamic art. Other famous wooden roofs are in the Alhambra in Granada.

Ivory carving centred on the Mediterranean, spreading from Egypt, where a thriving Coptic industry had been inherited; Persian ivory is rare. The normal style was a deep relief with an even surface; some pieces were painted. Spain specialized in caskets and round boxes, which were probably used to keep jewels and perfumes. They were produced mainly in the approximate period 930-1050, and widely exported. Many pieces are signed and dated, and on court pieces the name of the owner is often inscribed; they were typically gifts from a ruler. As well as a court workshop, Cordoba had commercial workshops producing goods of slightly lower quality. In the 12th and 13th century workshops in Norman Sicily produced caskets, apparently then migrating to Granada and elsewhere after persecution. Egyptian work tended to be in flat panels and friezes, for insertion into woodwork and probably furniture - most are now detached from their settings. Many were calligraphic, and others continued Byzantine traditions of hunting scenes, with backgrounds of arabesques and foliage in both cases.

Despite Hadithic sayings against the wearing of silk, the Byzantine and Sassanian traditions of grand figured silk woven cloth continued under Islam. Some designs are calligraphic, especially when made for palls to cover a tomb, but more are surprisingly conservative versions of the earlier traditions, with many large figures of animals, especially majestic symbols of power like the lion and eagle. These are often enclosed in roundels, as found in the pre-Islamic traditions. The majority of early silks have been recovered from tombs, and in Europe reliquaries, where the relics were often wrapped in silk. European clergy and nobility were keen buyers of Islamic silk from an early date and, for example, the body of an early bishop of Toul in France was wrapped in a silk from the Bukhara area in modern Uzbekistan, probably when the body was reburied in 820. The Shroud of St Josse is a famous samite cloth from East Persia, which originally had a carpet-like design with two pairs of confronted elephants, surrounded by borders including rows of camels and an inscription in Kufic script, from which the date appears to be before 961. Other silks were used for clothes, hangings, altarcloths, and church vestments, which have nearly all been lost, except for some vestments.

Ottoman silks were less exported, and the many surviving royal kaftans have simpler geometric patterns, many featuring stylized "tiger-stripes" below three balls or circles. Other silks have foliage designs comparable to those on Iznik pottery or carpets, with bands forming ogival compartments a popular motif. Some designs begin to show Italian influence. By the 16th century Persian silk was using smaller patterns, many of which showed relaxed garden scenes of beautiful boys and girls from the same world as those in contemporary album miniatures, and sometimes identifiable scenes from Persian poetry. A 16th-century circular ceiling for a tent, 97 cm across, shows a continuous and crowded hunting scene; it was apparently looted by the army of Suleiman the Magnificent in his invasion of Persia in 1543-45, before being taken by a Polish general at the Siege of Vienna in 1683. Mughal silks incorporate many Indian elements, and often feature relatively realistic "portraits" of plants, as found in other media.

The development and refinement of Indonesian cloth was closely linked to Islam. The Islamic prohibition on certain images encouraged batik design to become more abstract and intricate. Realistic depictions of animals and humans are rare on traditional batik. However, mythical serpents, humans with exaggerated features and the Garuda of pre-Islamic mythology are common motifs.

Although its existence pre-dates Islam, batik reached its zenith in royal Muslim courts such as Mataram and Yogyakarta, whose sultans encouraged and patronised batik production. Today, batik is undergoing a revival, and cloths are used for additional purposes such as wrapping the Quran.

Influences from the Sassanian artistic tradition include the image of the king as a warrior and the lion as a symbol of nobility and virility. Bedouin tribal traditions mixed with the more sophisticated styles of the conquered territories. For an initial period coins had human figures in the Byzantine and Sassanian style, perhaps to reassure users of their continued value, before the Islamic style with lettering only took over.

Religious and civic architecture were developed under the Umayyad Caliphates (661-750), when new concepts and new plans were put into practice.

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is one of the most important buildings in all of Islamic architecture, marked by a strong Byzantine influence ( mosaic against a gold ground, and a central plan that recalls that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre), but already bearing purely Islamic elements, such as the great epigraphic frieze. The desert palaces in Jordan and Syria (for example, Mshatta, Qusayr 'Amra, and Hisham's Palace) served the caliphs as living quarters, reception halls, and baths, and were decorated, including some wall-paintings, to promote an image of royal luxury.

Work in ceramics was still somewhat primitive and unglazed during this period. Some metal objects have survived from this time, but it remains rather difficult to distinguish these objects from those of the pre-Islamic period.

'Abd al-Malik introduced standard coinage that featured Arabic inscriptions, instead of images of the monarch. The quick development of a localized coinage around the time of the Dome of the Rock's construction demonstrates the reorientation of Umayyad acculturation. This period saw the genesis of a particularly Islamic art.

In this period, Umayyad artists and artisans did not invent a new vocabulary, but began to prefer those received from Mediterranean and Iranian late antiquity, which they adapted to their own artistic conceptions. For example, the mosaics in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus are based on Byzantine models but replace the figurative elements with images of trees and cities. The desert palaces also bear witness to these influences. By combining the various traditions that they had inherited, and by readapting motifs and architectural elements, artists created little by little a typically Muslim art, particularly discernible in the aesthetic of the arabesque, which appears both on monuments and in illuminated Qurans.

The Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) witnessed the movement of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, and then from Baghdad to Samarra. The shift to Baghdad influenced politics, culture, and art. Art historian Robert Hillenbrand (1999) likens the movement to the foundation of an "Islamic Rome", because the meeting of Eastern influences from Iranian, Eurasian steppe, Chinese, and Indian sources created a new paradigm for Islamic art. Classical forms inherited from Byzantine Europe and Greco-Roman sources were discarded in favor of those drawn from the new Islamic hub. Even the design of the city of Baghdad placed it in the "navel of the world", as 9th-century historian al-Ya'qubi wrote.

Samarra witnessed the "coming of age" of Islamic art. Polychrome painted stucco allowed for experimentation in new styles of moulding and carving. The Abbasid period also coincided with two major innovations in the ceramic arts: the invention of faience, and of metallic lusterware. Hadithic prohibition of the use of golden or silver vessels led to the development of metallic lusterware in pottery, which was made by mixing sulphur and metallic oxides to ochre and vinegar, painted onto an already glazed vessel and then fired a second time. It was expensive, and difficult to manage the second round through the kiln, but the wish to exceed fine Chinese porcelain led to the development of this technique.

Though the common perception of Abbasid artistic production focuses largely on pottery, the greatest development of the Abbasid period was in textiles. Government-run workshops known as produced silks bearing the name of the monarch, allowing for aristocrats to demonstrate their loyalty to the ruler. Other silks were pictorial. The utility of silk-ware in wall decor, entrance adornment, and room separation was not as important as its cash value along the Silk Road.

Islamic calligraphy began to be used in surface decoration on pottery during this period. Illuminated qur'ans gained attention, letter-forms now more complex and stylized to the point of slowing down the recognition of the words themselves.

Medieval period (9th-15th centuries)

Al-Andalus was a great cultural center of the Middle Ages. Besides the great universities, which taught philosophies and sciences yet unknown in Christendom (such as those of Averroes), the territory was an equally vital center for art.

The art of north Africa is not as well studied. The Almoravid and Almohad dynasties are characterized by a tendency toward austerity, for example in mosques with bare walls. Nevertheless, luxury arts continued to be produced in great quantity. The Marinid and Hafsid dynasties developed an important, but poorly understood, architecture, and a significant amount of painted and sculpted woodwork.

The Fatimid Caliphate, which reigned in Egypt from 909 and 1171, introduced crafts and knowledge from politically-troubled Baghdad to their capital of Cairo.

By 1070, the Seljuq Empire emerged as the dominant political force in the Muslim world after they liberated Baghdad and defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert. During the rule of Malik-Shah I, the Seljuks excelled in architecture at the same time in Syria, the atabegs (governors of Seljuk princes) assumed power. Quite independent, they capitalized on conflicts with the Frankish crusaders. In 1171, Saladin seized Fatimid Egypt, and installed the transitory Ayyubid dynasty on the throne. This period is notable for innovations in metallurgy and the widespread manufacture of the Damascus steel swords and daggers and the production ceramics, glass and metalwork of a high quality were produced without interruption, and enamelled glass became another important craft.

Iran and the north of India, the Tahirids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids struggled for power in the 10th century, and art was a vital element of this competition. Great cities were built, such as Nishapur and Ghazni, and the construction of the Great Mosque of Isfahan (which would continue, in fits and starts, over several centuries) was initiated. Funerary architecture was also cultivated, while potters developed quite individual styles: kaleidoscopic ornament on a yellow ground; or marbled decorations created by allowing colored glazes to run; or painting with multiple layers of slip under the glaze.

The Seljuqs, nomads of Turkic origin from present-day Mongolia, appeared on the stage of Islamic history toward the end of the 10th century. They seized Baghdad in 1048, before dying out in 1194 in Iran, although the production of "Seljuq" works continued through the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century under the auspices of smaller, independent sovereigns and patrons. During their time, the center of culture, politics and art production shifted from Damascus and Baghdad to Merv, Nishapur, Rayy, and Isfahan, all in Iran.

Popular patronage expanded because of a growing economy and new urban wealth. Inscriptions in architecture tended to focus more on the patrons of the piece. For example, sultans, viziers or lower ranking officials would receive often mention in inscriptions on mosques. Meanwhile, growth in mass market production and sale of art made it more commonplace and accessible to merchants and professionals. Because of increased production, many relics have survived from the Seljuk era and can be easily dated. In contrast, the dating of earlier works is more ambiguous. It is, therefore, easy to mistake Seljuk art as new developments rather than inheritance from classical Iranian and Turkic sources.

Innovations in ceramics from this period include the production of minai ware and the manufacture of vessels, not out of clay, but out of a silicon paste (" fritware"), while metalworkers began to encrust bronze with precious metals. Across the Seljuk era, from Iran to Iraq, a unification of book painting can be seen. These paintings have animalistic figures that convey strong symbolic meaning of fidelity, treachery, and courage.

A rich civilization developed under these "little khans", who were originally subservient to the Yuan emperor, but rapidly became independent. Architectural activity intensified as the Mongols became sedentary, and retained traces of their nomadic origins, such as the north-south orientation of the buildings. At the same time a process of "iranisation" took place, and construction according to previously established types, such as the "Iranian plan" mosques, was resumed. The art of the Persian book was also born under this dynasty, and was encouraged by aristocratic patronage of large manuscripts such as the Jami' al-tawarikh by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani. New techniques in ceramics appeared, such as the lajvardina (a variation on luster-ware), and Chinese influence is perceptible in all arts.

The Golden Horde and the Timurids

The early arts of the nomads of the Golden Horde are poorly understood. Research is only beginning, and evidence for town planning and architecture has been discovered. There was also a significant production of works in gold, which often show a strong Chinese influence. Much of this work is preserved today in the Hermitage.

Syria, Iraq, Anatolia

The Seljuq Turks pushed beyond Iran into Anatolia, winning a victory over the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Manzikert (1071), and setting up a sultanate independent of the Iranian branch of the dynasty. Their power seems largely to have waned following the Mongol invasions in 1243, but coins were struck under their name until 1304. Architecture and objects synthesized various styles, both Iranian and Syrian, sometimes rendering precise attributions difficult. The art of woodworking was cultivated, and at least one illustrated manuscript dates to this period.

Caravanserais dotted the major trade routes across the region, placed at intervals of a day's travel. The construction of these caravanserai inns improved in scale, fortification, and replicability. Also, they began to contain central mosques.

Islamic book painting witnessed its first golden age in the thirteenth century, mostly from Syria and Iraq. Influence from Byzantine visual vocabulary (blue and gold coloring, angelic and victorious motifs, symbology of drapery) combined with Mongoloid facial types in 12th-century book frontispieces.

Earlier coinage necessarily featured Arabic epigraphs, but as Ayyubid society became more cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, coinage began to feature astrological, figural (featuring a variety of Greek, Seleucid, Byzantine, Sasanian, and contemporary Turkish rulers' busts), and animal images.

Hillenbrand suggests that the medieval Islamic texts called , copied and illustrated by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti were some of the earliest " coffee table books". They were among the first texts to hold up a mirror to daily life in Islamic art, portraying humorous stories and showing little to no inheritance of pictorial tradition.

The Indian subcontinent, some northern parts of which conquered by the Ghaznavids and Ghurids in the 9th century, did not become autonomous until 1206, when the Muizzi, or slave-kings, seized power, marking the birth of the Delhi Sultanate. Later other competing sultanates were founded in Bengal, Kashmir, Gujarat, Jaunpur, Malwa, and in the north Deccan (the Bahmanids). They separated themselves little by little from Persian traditions, giving birth to an original approach to architecture and urbanism, marked in particular by interaction with Hindu art. Study of the production of objects has hardly begun, but a lively art of manuscript illumination is known. The period of the sultanates ended with the arrival of the Mughals, who progressively seized their territories.

The Ottoman Empire, whose origins lie in the 14th century, continued in existence until shortly after World War I. This impressive longevity, combined with an immense territory (stretching from Anatolia to Tunisia), led naturally to a vital and distinctive art, including plentiful architecture, mass production of ceramics for both tiles and vessels, most notably Iznik ware, important metalwork and jewellery, Turkish paper marbling Ebru, Turkish carpets as well as tapestries and exceptional Ottoman miniatures and decorative Ottoman illumination.

The Ottomans are also known for their development of a bright red pigment, "Iznik red", in ceramics, which reached their height in the 16th century, both in tile-work and pottery, using floral motifs that were considerably transformed from their Chinese and Persian models. From the 18th century, Ottoman art came under considerable European influence, the Turks adopting versions of Rococo which had a lasting and not very beneficial effect, leading to over-fussy decoration. European-style painting was slow to be adopted, with Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910) for long a somewhat solitary figure. He was a member of the Ottoman administrative elite who trained in Paris, and painted throughout his long career as a senior administrator and curator in Turkey. Many of his works represent Orientalism from the inside, as it were.

The Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent lasted from 1526 until (technically) 1858, although from the late 17th century power flowed away from the emperors to local rulers, and later European powers, above all the British Raj, who were the main power in India by the late 18th century. The period is most notable for luxury arts of the court, and Mughal styles heavily influenced local Hindu and later Sikh rulers as well. The Mughal miniature began by importing Persian artists, especially a group brought back by Humayun when in exile in Safavid Persia, but soon local artists, many Hindu, were trained in the style. Realistic portraiture, and images of animals and plants, was developed in Mughal art beyond what the Persians had so far achieved, and the size of miniatures increased, sometimes onto canvas. The Mughal court had access to European prints and other art, and these had increasing influence, shown in the gradual introduction of aspects of Western graphical perspective, and a wider range of poses in the human figure. Some Western images were directly copied or borrowed from. As the courts of local Nawabs developed, distinct provincial styles with stronger influence from traditional Indian painting developed in both Muslim and Hindu princely courts.

The arts of jewelry and hardstone carving of gemstones, such as jasper, jade, adorned with rubies, diamonds and emeralds are mentioned by the Mughal chronicler Abu'l Fazl, and a range of examples survive; the series of hard stone daggers in the form of horses' heads is particularly impressive.

From the 15th century, the number of smaller Islamic courts began to fall, as the Ottoman Empire, and later the Safavids and European powers, swallowed them up; this had an effect on Islamic art, which was usually strongly led by the patronage of the court. From at least the 18th century onwards, elite Islamic art was increasingly influenced by European styles, and in the applied arts either largely adopted Western styles, or ceased to develop, retaining whatever style was prevalent at some point in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. Many industries with very long histories, such as pottery in Iran, largely closed, while others, like metalwork in brass, became generally frozen in style, with much of their production going to tourists or exported as oriental exotica.

The carpet industry has remained large, but mostly uses designs that originated before 1700, and competes with machine-made imitations both locally and around the world. Arts and crafts with a broader social base, like the zellige mosaic tiles of the Maghreb, have often survived better. Islamic countries have developed modern and contemporary art, with very vigorous art worlds in some countries, but the degree to which these should be grouped in a special category as "Islamic art" is questionable, although many artists deal with Islam-related themes, and use traditional elements such as calligraphy. Especially in the oil-rich parts of the Islamic world much modern architecture and interior decoration makes use of motifs and elements drawn from the heritage of Islamic art.

1. Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Richard Ettinghausen and ^ Oleg Grabar, 2001, Islamic Art and Architecture: 650-1250, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-08869-4, p.3; Brend, 10

2. ^ J. M. Bloom; S. S. Blair (2009). Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, Vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. vii. ISBN 978-0-19-530991-1.

3. ^ Melikian, Souren (December 5, 2008). "Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art: Despite flaws, a house of masterpieces". International Herald Tribune. This is a European construct of the 19th century that gained wide acceptance following a display of Les Arts Musulmans at the old Trocadero palace in Paris during the 1889 Exposition Universelle. The idea of "Islamic art" has even less substance than the notion of "Christian art" from the British Isles to Germany to Russia during the 1000 years separating the reigns of Charlemagne and Queen Victoria might have.

4. ^ Blair, Shirley S.; Bloom, Jonathan M. (2003). "The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field". The Art Bulletin. 85 (1): 152-184. doi:10.2307/3177331. JSTOR 3177331.

5. ^ Alexenberg, Melvin L. (2006). The future of art in a digital age: from Hellenistic to Hebraic consciousness. Intellect Ltd. p. 55. ISBN 1-84150-136-0.

6. ^ Esposito, John L. (2011). What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 14-15.

7. ^ "Figural Representation in Islamic Art". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

8. ^ J. Bloom; S. Blair (2009). Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 192 and 207. ISBN 978-0-19-530991-1.

9. Davies, Penelope J.E. Denny, Walter B. Hofrichter, Frima Fox. Jacobs, Joseph. Roberts, Ann M. Simon, ^ David L. Janson's History of Art, Prentice Hall; 2007, Upper Saddle, New Jersey. Seventh Edition, ISBN 0-13-193455-4 pg. 298

10. King and Sylvester: Spanish carpets: 11-12, 50-52; Balkans: 77 and ^ passim

11. ^ Graves, Margaret (2 June 2009). "Columns in Islamic Architecture".

12. ^ Graves, Margaret (2009). "Arches in Islamic Architecture". doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T2082057.

13. ^ Henderson, J.; McLoughlin, S. D.; McPhail, D. S. (2004). "Radical changes in Islamic glass technology: evidence for conservatism and experimentation with new glass recipes from early and middle Islamic Raqqa, Syria". Archaeometry. 46 (3): 439-68. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4754.2004.00167.x.

14. ^ Baer, Eva (1983). Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art. State University of New York Press. pp. 58, 86, 143, 151, 176, 201, 226, 243, 292, 304. ISBN 0-87395-602-8.

15. Endnote 111 in ^ Roman glass: reflections on cultural change, Fleming, Stuart. see also endnote 110 for Jewish glassworkers

16. ^ "Base of a ewer with Zodiac medallions [Iran] (91.1.530)". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2011; see also on astrology, Carboni, Stefano. Following the Stars: Images of the Zodiac in Islamic Art. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), 16. The inscription reads: "Bi-l-yumn wa al-baraka..." meaning "With bliss and divine grace..."

17. ^ Fatimid Rock Crystal Ewers, Most Valuable Objects in Islamic Art

18. ^ Louvre, Suaire de St-Josse Archived 2011-06-23 at the Wayback Machine. Exhibited as no. 4 in Arts, 74.

Books and journals

"Arts": Jones, Dalu & Michell, George, (eds); The Arts of Islam, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1976, ISBN 0-7287-0081-6

Ali, Wijdan (2001). "From the Literal to the Spiritual: The Development of the Prophet Muhammad's Portrayal from 13th Century Ilkhanid Miniatures to 17th Century Ottoman Art" (PDF). EJOS. 4 (7). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-12-03.

Blair, S. Bloom, J. 'The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field'. The Art Bulletin, 2003, 85, 1, 152-184, PDF

Bloom, Sheila and Jonathan, eds., Rivers of Paradise: Water in Islamic Art and Culture, Yale University Press, 2009.

Canby, Sheila R. (ed). Shah Abbas; The Remaking of Iran, 2009, British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0-7141-2452-0

Ettinghausen, Richard; Grabar, Oleg; Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn (2003). Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250 (2nd ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08869-4.

King, Donald and Sylvester, David eds. The Eastern Carpet in the Western World, From the 15th to the 17th century, Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1983, ISBN 0-7287-0362-9

Hillenbrand, Robert. Islamic Art and Architecture, Thames & Hudson World of Art series; 1999, London. ISBN 978-0-500-20305-7

Levey, Michael; The World of Ottoman Art, 1975, Thames & Hudson, ISBN 0-500-27065-1

Madden, Edward H. (1975). "Some Characteristics of Islamic Art". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 33 (4): 423-430. doi:10.2307/429655. JSTOR 429655.

Mason, Robert B. (1995). "New Looks at Old Pots: Results of Recent Multidisciplinary Studies of Glazed Ceramics from the Islamic World". Muqarnas: Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture. Brill Academic Publishers. XII. ISBN 90-04-10314-7.

Rawson, Jessica, Chinese Ornament: The lotus and the dragon, 1984, British Museum Publications, ISBN 0-7141-1431-6

Rogers J.M. and Ward R.M.; Süleyman the Magnificent, 1988, British Museum Publications ISBN 0-7141-1440-5

Savage, George. Porcelain Through the Ages, Penguin, (2nd edn.) 1963

Sinclair, Susan. Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World. Volume 1: Art. 2012, BRILL

Media related to Islamic art at Wikimedia Commons

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Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced in the Islamic world. Islamic art is difficult to characterize because it covers a wide range of lands, periods, and genres, including Islamic architecture, Islamic calligraphy, Islamic miniature, Islamic glass, Islamic pottery, and textile arts such as carpets and embroidery.

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Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is completely in the Northern Hemisphere. East Timor and the southern portion of Indonesia are the only parts that are south of the Equator.

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History of Art and Graphic Design Development in Indonesia

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History of Art and Graphic Design Development in Indonesia

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Berikut timeline desain grafis di Indonesia:

1. Mesin cetak pertama kali dibawa ke Indonesia (Batavia) pada tahun 1659
2. Iklan pertama di Hindia Belanda:
17 Agustus 1744
3. Percetakan negara pertama didirikan di Indonesia (Batavia) pada tahun 1893
4. Terbentuknya yayasan PERSAGI tahun 1938
5. Poster "Boeng, ajo boeng!"
6. Pendirian Akademi Seni Rupa Indonesia pada tahun 1950
7. Munculnya majalah dan iklan setelah kemerdekaan tahun 1950
8. Logo menjadi populer (1950-1972)
9. Peristiwa Desember Hitam
10 Gerakan Kesenian Baru (1975-1979, 1987)
11. Tahun 1977 DKV diperkenalkan
12. Pameran desain grafis pertama di Indonesia tahun 1980
13. Organisasi desain grafis pertama di Indonesia pada tahun 1980
14. Fakultas Seni rupa dan desain ITB diresmikan pada tahun 1984
15 DKV ISI di Yogyakarta, 1984
16. Lomba Poster dan Stiker UP3DN Terbesar dan Terpopuler; 1987
17 tahun 1998; nilai tukar rupiah menembus 17.000 per dolar
18 22 Oktober 1998 DKV Binus University resmi berada di bawah payung Fakultas Teknik

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Pita Maha adalah perkumpulan pelukis Bali yang didirikan oleh Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati, I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, Walter Spies, dan Rudolf Bonet pada 29 Januari 1936. Perkumpulan ini menghasilkan gaya seni Bali yang berbeda dan bermula dari Ubud menjadi ke kota lainnya. Pita Maha berasal dari bahasa Kawi yang mempunyai arti Nenek Moyng.
Pada tahun 1930-an, banyak turis Eropa dan Amerika datang ke pulau Bali dan membeli banyak karya seni Bali, akhirnya semakin banyak seniman atau pengrajin Bali, namun kualitas seni juga ikut menurun dikarenakan para seniman hanya mengejar penjualan.
Akhirnya, seorang bangsawan Bali, Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati dan yang lainnya berusaha menaikkan kembali mutu seni di Bali dengan cara mengumpulkan para seniman dan mengarahkan untuk menjelajahi tema-tema dan subjek-subjek baru.

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Mooi Indie adalah aliran seni lukis Hindia Belanda pada abad ke-19. Para Seniman saat itu hanya melukis pemandangan alam Hindia Belanda agar menarik daya wisata.
Ciri-ciri lukisan Mooi Indie;
1. Pemandangan alam, seperti gunung, hutan, sungai, sawah, dan sebagainya
2. Menggambarkan wanita Hindia Belanda yang sedang beraktifitas
3. Laki-laki juga bisa muncul sebagai objek, biasanya sebagai bangsawan, orang pedesaan dan penari
4. Penggunaan warnanya teduh, terang dan damai

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Persatuan Ahli Gambar Indonesia adalah sebuah organisasi yang didirikan oleh para ahli gambar Indonesia pada bulan oktober tahun 1938. Organisasi ini diketuai oleh Agus Djaya sekaligus pendiri PERSAGI dan S. Sudjojono sebagai sekertaris. PERSAGI didirikan untuk membatasi hegemoni para peseni Belanda dan Eropa yang tinggal di Indonesia.
Para pelukis PERSAGI, berupaya membangun 'Gaya Indonesia Baru' yang dikembangkan dari paduan antara nilai tradisional dan modern.
Adapun faktor-faktor yang melatarbelakangi berdirinya PERSAGI;
1. Suasana politik yang menginginkan kebebasan dan kemerdekaan serta persamaan hak.
2. Terinspirasi oleh "Budi Utomo", "Taman Siswa" dan "Sumpah Pemuda" yang dianggap sebagai langkah awal upaya mencapai kemerdekaan
3. Perkembangan kegiatan budaya yang dimuat dalam media cetak mendorong terjadinya diskusi di kalangan seniman
4. Sistem pendidikan nasional terus berkembang

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Di masa awal Kemerdekaan Indonesia ada beberapa peran yang dilakukan oleh para seniman saat itu:
1. Poster Boeng Ajo Boeng
2. Membuat poster gotong royong
3. Gambar bernada revolusi sering mengisi surat kabar/koran
4. Seniman ikut Laskar
5. Seniman Solidaritas Non Hirarki

Diawal kemerdekaan Indonesia, para seniman banyak mengambil seni yang bertemakan perjuangan dan itu dibuktikan dengan dalam sejumlah poster yang disebarkan saat itu. Dulu, disaat masa penjajahan Jepang, para seniman masih takut mengungkapkan ekspresinya dengan seni, sedangkan saat ini, kita bebas menggunakan seni sesuai ekspresi kita.

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Perkembangan seni tidak hanya ada pada gayanya, namun ada juga pada teknologinya, seperti video, foto dan lain-lain.
Melalui jaringan internet, perkembangan seni menjadi bekembang pesat, contohnya ada pada pemasarannya yang menjadi lebih cepat dan mudah.
Memasarkan karya seni juga dapat dilakukan dengan melakukan pameran seni. Bahkan saat ini, tempat pameran seni juga dilakukan sebagai sarana mengenal seni dengan fasilitas yang bisa dikatakan lebih dari cukup.
Bukan hanya galeri seni saja yang berperan dalam perkembangan seni kontemporer, namun ada kritikus seni yang mengangkat nama seorang seniman Indonesia.
Hal itu membuat para seniman menjadi lebih senang dan dapat menjual karya-karyanya agar mereka dapat terus bertahan hidup. Adapun bidang pendukungnya, antara lain; balai lelang, manajemen seni, hubungan masyarakat dan publikasi, penerbitan katalog, dan lain-lain.