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Video: Xu Bing in "Beijing" from Art21 (2023)

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Video: Xu Bing in "Beijing" from Art21 (2023)

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Xu Bing in "Beijing" - Season 10 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

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Video: Xu Bing from Brilliant Ideas (2025)

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Video: Xu Bing from Brilliant Ideas (2025)

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Brilliant Ideas | Xu Bing | From Calligraphy to Conceptual Art

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'The search for immortality: The tomb of Lady Dai' from Smarthistory

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'The search for immortality: The tomb of Lady Dai' from Smarthistory

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The discovery of three tombs at Mawangdui in Hunan Province, China in 1972 yielded thousands of artifacts, including some of the world's oldest preserved silk paintings, clothing, and textiles. All three date to the Western Han dynasty in the 2nd century B.C.E. and belonged to a family of Han Chinese aristocrats.

Tomb 1 belonged to a female aristocrat named Xīn Zhuī 辛追, popularly known as "Lady Dai" (who died in 168 B.C.E.)

Tomb 2 belonged to the noble Lì Cāng 利蒼, Marquis of Dai, Lady Dai's husband (who died in 186 B.C.E.)

Tomb 3 belonged to Lady Dai's son (who also died in 168 B.C.E.) [1]

When it was discovered, Lady Dai's tomb was in a remarkable state of preservation with wooden objects and silks in near perfect condition, as though immune to the ravages of time. Although the construction of Lady Dai's tomb, the largest of the three, disrupted the tombs of her husband and son, leaving them in a lesser state of preservation, all three tombs help us reconstruct this ancient family's vision of the afterlife.

Structure of the Mawangdui Tombs

During the Western Han dynasty, elaborate tombs were constructed for the elite across the Han empire in an effort to care and appease the spirits of deceased ancestors. The three tombs at Mawangdui are rectangular vertical shaft tombs dug deep into the earth. At the bottom of each shaft, the tombs were originally equipped with a rectangular wooden burial structure ( 椁) constructed of cypress planks fitted together using mortise and tenon joinery.

This type of tomb construction had an earlier precedent and was common in this region during the earlier Eastern Zhou period (771-221 B.C.E.) when it was occupied by the Chǔ 楚 kingdom. As with earlier Chu tombs, the underground wooden burial structures at Mawangdui were compartmentalized. The Mawangdui tombs contained nesting coffins at the center and extensive inventories of burial items in separate chambers surrounding the main coffin chamber. Layers of charcoal and white kaolin clay around the wooden burial structures and pounded earth in the shafts insulated the structures, and, in the case of Lady Dai's tomb, helped preserve the entire contents, including her body.

Tomb 1

Lady Dai's underground wooden burial structure was divided into five compartments, including a central coffin chamber surrounded by four compartments on each side for burial furnishings. At the center of the tomb, Lady Dai was buried in a series of four nesting coffins.

The outermost coffin was a plain box, while the three nesting coffins inside were painted with lacquer in black, red, and white. The use of lacquer, a substance derived from the lac tree native to China, is a testament to Lady Dai's wealth and status in Han society. Lacquer was more valuable than bronze. The application of lacquer involved a tedious process of applying one layer and letting it dry before adding another, increasing the value of the material.

The decoration on the three painted coffins refer to the journey of Lady Dai's spirit to the afterlife and the world of the immortals. During the Western Han, southerners like Lady Dai believed humans had two souls, a 魂 that makes a dangerous journey to the afterlife, or the world of the immortals, and a 魄soul that remains in the tomb with the body, enjoying the many funerary offerings within.

The largest of the lacquered coffins has a black background decorated with stylized cloud forms and mythological creatures. On each side of the coffin the cloud forms are bordered by a rectangular frame of abstract patterns. At times, the clouds drift over the frame as though the celestial world populated by horned creatures, feathered immortals, and birds cannot be contained.

The second lacquered coffin has a red background and features auspicious animals, such as tigers and dragons, which are among the protective creatures of the cardinal directions.

On one long side panel of the coffin, two sinuous dragons confront one another at the center of the rectangular panel. On the left, a deer, contorted in a manner that shows influence from "animal style" art of the steppe, is nestled in the body of the dragon. On the right, a feathered immortal seems to dance beneath the arch of the dragon's body. These auspicious motifs helped to guide and protect Lady Dai's soul on its journey to immortality.

The innermost coffin is painted with black lacquer and covered with embroidered silk and satin appliqued with red and black feathers, symbolic of the immortals. The theme of immortality is consistent across the three lacquered coffins, perhaps to keep Lady Dai's spirit focused on its destination as it makes the dangerous journey to immortality.

Laid face down over the top of the innermost coffin was a T-shaped made of silk and painted in rich mineral pigments. The painting is a narrative organized vertically from bottom to top in four sections showing Lady Dai's journey from the terrestrial world (her funeral) to the celestial world of the immortals above.

One interpretation of the iconography at the top of the banner (where the celestial world of the immortals is depicted) is that it represents the popular tale of Archer Yì 後羿 and his wife Cháng'é 嫦娥. On the right side, nine orange orbs float against the blank silk background, interspersed between a dragon and the arms of a writhing vine. The orbs might represent the nine suns the Archer Yi shot down through the branches of a mulberry tree when, one day, ten suns arose at once. On the left side of the scene, the archer's wife Chang'e flees on the wing of a dragon toward the crescent moon with the archer's reward for his heroic deed, the elixir of immortality.

In one version of the legend, Chang'e was punished for her theft and turned into a toad. Standing on the crescent moon on Lady Dai's banner is a toad, which may represent Chang'e's unfortunate punishment. A rabbit, an animal associated with the legend of Chang'e, leaps over the toad's head. At the top of this scene is a female figure whose lower body terminates in a serpent's tail. This may be a representation of Nǔwā 女媧, the creator goddess in Chinese mythology.

Inside the innermost coffin, Lady Dai's body was carefully wrapped in twenty layers of luxurious embroidered and damask silk shrouds and clothing, tied together with nine silk ribbons.

Her body was perfectly intact and her skin still soft and elastic. An autopsy revealed important details about her health at the time of her death, as well as her last meal, melon. Scientists believe she died of acute gallbladder disease or from a heart attack, but they also discovered she had an unusually high accumulation of mercury and lead in her body, likely from regular ingestion. Mercury was a primary ingredient in the coveted, but ultimately deadly elixir of immortality. The discovery that Lady Dai likely ingested mercury in pursuit of immortality comes as no surprise. From the pictorial program on her lacquered coffins to her funerary banner, immortality was clearly a preoccupation of hers, one she certainly hoped to achieve in life and in death.

Lady Dai's tomb was furnished with three categories of objects:

1. 冥器 , or spirit objects, made specifically for burial (for example, the lacquered wood coffins, crude wooden figurines of servants and musicians dressed in painted or real silks, and clay coins made in imitation of real money)

2. objects the tomb occupant used in her daily life (for example, household furniture, a lacquer toilet box, lacquer kitchenware (including the earliest known pair of chopsticks), musical instruments, and sumptuous silk clothing and accessories fit for the afterlife of an elite Han aristocrat

3. a wide assortment of foodstuffs (meats, vegetables, fruits, cereals, etc.) for cooking and banqueting

A brief note on Tomb 3

Although tombs 2 and 3 belonging to Lady Dai's husband and son were in a lesser state of preservation upon discovery, Tomb 3 still yielded over 1,000 artifacts. Like Lady Dai, her son's tomb was furnished with an assortment of , objects he owned in his lifetime, as well as provisions to keep his spirit appeased in the afterlife. Four silk paintings were preserved from his tomb, including a T-shaped banner similar in iconography to Lady Dai's and found draped over his innermost coffin. These are among the earliest silk paintings in the history of Chinese art. Perhaps the most important discovery in his tomb, however, was an archive of texts written on bamboo, wood, and silk. These included well known works like the 老子, attributed to the 6 th century B.C.E. Daoist philosopher Laozi; the 已經 (Book of Changes), an ancient divination text; as well as important medical, astronomical, and cosmological texts, just to name a few. The manuscripts found in Tomb 3 are still, to this day, the earliest extant copies known.

Important insights

Discoveries from Tombs 1 and 3 at Mawangdui give us important insight into the lives and afterlife beliefs of an elite family living in south China during the Western Han dynasty. For the "Dai" family, furnishing the tombs with the comforts of home ensured a peaceful afterlife for the soul, while a consistent visual program focusing on the journey to the celestial world equipped the soul for the search for immortality.
Notes:
[1] The occupants of the tombs and the dates of their deaths were identified by inscriptions on artifacts in the tombs. The tombs were labeled 1, 2, and 3 based on the order in which they were discovered.

Additional resources:

Pirazzoli-tʼSerstevens, Michèle, The Han Dynasty, t ranslated by Janet Seligman (New York: Rizzoli, 1982).

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The search for immortality: The Tomb of Lady Dai

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The discovery of three tombs at Mawangdui in Hunan Province, China in 1972 yielded thousands of artifacts, including some of the world's oldest preserved silk paintings, clothing, and textiles. All three date to the Western Han dynasty in the 2nd century B.C.E. and belonged to a family of Han Chinese aristocrats.

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Book: 'Look! What Do You See? by Xu Bing (2017)

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Book: 'Look! What Do You See? by Xu Bing (2017)

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Look! What Do You See? by Bing Xu: 9780451473776 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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A puzzle, a work of art, and a collection of classic American songs, all in an innovative book by one of the world’s foremost contemporary artists. Every page of this book is filled with secret code.…

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Funeral banner of Lady Dai from Khan Academy

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Funeral banner of Lady Dai from Khan Academy

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"The 'Bunny Girl' on the Moon" from Science Friday (2013)

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"The 'Bunny Girl' on the Moon" from Science Friday (2013)

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In 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts heard about a mythical goddess who lives on the moon with her rabbit companion.

On Monday, China launched a lunar mission-dubbed Chang'e 3, after a mythical Chinese goddess-which will drop off the country's first moon rover, named Yutu, or "Jade Rabbit."

Speaking of goddesses and bunnies . . . during NASA's Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969, the astronauts heard about the legend of Chang'e and her furry companion during a morning news briefing with Houston. Here's a clip, complete with Buzz Aldrin's succinct reaction (the transcription is farther below):

Mission Control: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4,000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.

Buzz Aldrin: Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.

You can listen to more conversations here and read the air-to-ground voice transcription spanning July 16-July 24, 1969, here. There are some priceless moments. ("Bunny girl" appears on page 179.)

For more on the myth of Chang'e, check out the Handbook of Chinese Mythology ( page 86), by Lihui Yang and Deming An.

Meet the Writer

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In 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts heard about a mythical goddess who lives on the moon with her rabbit companion.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Woman, the Rabbit, and the Moon Apollo 11 audio

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The Woman, the Rabbit, and the Moon Apollo 11 audio

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The Woman, the Rabbit, and the Moon by SciFri

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NASA asks the Apollo 11 crew to keep their eyes open for two unlikely companions on their mission to the moon...

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Introduction to Longmen Binyang Central Cave (Cave 3) from University of Chicago

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Introduction to Longmen Binyang Central Cave (Cave 3) from University of Chicago

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Introduction to Longmen Binyang Central Cave | University of Chicago

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Longmen Grottoes are located just south of the city of Luoyang, in Henan Province, China. As an important cradle of Chinese civilization, Luoyang served as the ancient capital for 13 dynasties. It was also the eastern end of the Silk Road.

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Longmen Caves, Luoyang from Khan Academy

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Longmen Caves, Luoyang from Khan Academy

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Longmen caves, Luoyang (article) | China | Khan Academy

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'Death and Material Culture in Early China' from Smarthistory

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'Death and Material Culture in Early China' from Smarthistory

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The Moon of Reunion: The timeless legend of Chang'e

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'The Legend of Chang'e' as told by Phillipa Soo

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'The Legend of Chang'e' as told by Phillipa Soo

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The Legend of Chang'e with Over the Moon's Phillipa Soo | Netflix After School

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Book: Ch 7 "The (Un)Dead and the Role of Ritual in the Crafting of Sociopolitical Networks" by Alice Yao and Wengcheong Lam (2024)

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Book: Ch 7 "The (Un)Dead and the Role of Ritual in the Crafting of Sociopolitical Networks" by Alice Yao and Wengcheong Lam (2024)

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The (Un)Dead and the Role of Ritual in the Crafting of Sociopolitical Networks (Chapter 7) - The Archaeology of Han China

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The Archaeology of Han China - December 2024

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Tale of the Heiji Rebellion (intro and scroll) from Princeton

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Tale of the Heiji Rebellion (intro and scroll) from Princeton

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Book: "Ming's Adventure in the Mogao Caves" by Li Jian (bilingual)

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Book: "Ming's Adventure in the Mogao Caves" by Li Jian (bilingual)

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Ming’s Adventure in the Mogao Caves | Chinese Books | Storybooks | Bilingual Storybooks | ISBN 9781602209978

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The sandstorm was blowing hard over the Gobi Desert. Xiao Ming got separated from his parents on their way to the Mogao Caves. As it was getting dark. Xiao Ming along with the other travelers who were separated from the group were huddling in the sand helplessly. In the darkness of the Gobi Desert, Xiao Ming vaguely saw a little light flashing in the dust. The light got closer and closer and finally he saw a deer with nine shades of color in his fur. His antlers were as white as snow and his body was wrapped with a touch of bright light. The nine-colored deer told Xiao Ming to follow him. The story unfolds with Ming being guided to the caves where ancient paintings and come to life!

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Night Attack on the Sanjō Palace from SmartHistory

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Night Attack on the Sanjō Palace from SmartHistory

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It is hard to imagine an image of war that matches the visceral and psychological power of the Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace. This thirteenth-century portrayal of a notorious incident from a century earlier appears on a hand scroll, a common East Asian painting format in Japan called an emaki. It also is a prime example of the action‐packed otoko‐e, "men's paintings," created in the Kamakura period .

Designed to be unrolled in sections for close‐up viewing, it shows the basic features of this pictorial form: a bird's eye view of action moves right‐to‐left (between a written introduction and conclusion). In vibrant outline and washes of color, the story (one event in an insurrection-more on this below) unfolds sequentially, so the main characters appear multiple times. The attention to detail is so exact that historians consider it a uniquely valuable reference for this period: from the royal mansion's walled gateways, unpainted wooden buildings linked by corridors, bark roofs, large shutters and bamboo blinds that open to verandas, to the scores of foot soldiers, cavalry, courtiers, priests, imperial police, and even the occasional lady-each individualized by gesture and facial expression from horror to morbid humor, robes, armor, and weaponry easily identifiable according to rank, design, and type.

Unfurled this work stands apart. Its now‐forgotten artist used the expressive potential of the long, narrow emaki format with such interpretive brilliance that he perhaps considered that on occasion it might be fully open. He organized a jumble of minutiae into a cohesive narrative arc.

Beginning from a point of ominous calm, a single ox carriage transports the eye to a tangle of shoving and colliding carts and warriors. With escalating violence, the energy pulses, swells, and then rushes to a crescendo of graphic hand‐to‐hand mayhem-decapitations, stabbings and hacking, the battle's apex marked at the center by the palace rooflines slashing through the havoc like a bolt of lightening followed by an explosion of billowing flame and women fleeing for their lives amid the din.

The chaos ebbs as victors and dazed survivors stream through the rear gate, and ends in grisly, surreal calm with the dressed and tagged heads of vanquished nobles on pikes, a disorderly cluster of foot soldiers and cavalry surrounding the ox carriage, their general trotting before them in victorious satisfaction over the smoking wreckage and bloody atrocity left behind.

The Night Attack at Sanjô Palace arrests even the casual viewer with its sheer comprehensibility. Although the artist would likely not have imagined an audience beyond the world he knew, his vision has enthralled viewers across centuries and cultures, making this painting not only among the very finest picture scrolls ever conceived, but also among the most gripping depictions of warfare-creating an irresistible urge to examine the work closely. But in depicting an event that really happened, it comes fully to life only when we know something of what it so vividly portrays.

This begins in a brief introduction to a complicated yet fascinating chapter in Japanese history. Incredibly, the appalling incident at Sanjô Palace depicted on the scroll was but one chapter in the vicious Heiji Insurrection of 1159‐60. This short war, with two other famous conflicts before and after, punctuated a brutal epoch that came to a close in 1192 with the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate. The stories of these flashpoints of blood thirst, collectively called gunki monogatari, or "war tales," have inspired a huge body of art over the centuries. The Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace, once part of a larger set that pictorialized the entire Heiji incident, survives with two other scrolls, one of them only in remnants.

Stories of romanticized martial derring‐do, gunki monogatari are history recounted by the victors. They celebrate Japan's change from a realm controlled by a royal court to one ruled by samurai. But the events originated in the unusual, even unique, nature of Japan's imperial world. Centered in the city of Kyôto, in some ways it resembled many ancient kingdoms. It was prey to shifting loyalties, betrayals, and factional divisions among ambitious families who would stop at nothing in the quest for power. As elsewhere, emperors had several consorts, and noble daughters served as tools in political marriages to elevate the power of their families, and above all their clan head.

Unusually, a few patriarchs managed over time to displace imperial authority, relegating emperors to stultifying ceremonial functions. And possibly uniquely, Japanese emperors found a way to reclaim some of that lost power: by abdicating in favor of a successor. Freed from onerous rituals, a "retired" emperor could assert himself. Which prince from which wife of which current or previous emperor would succeed to the throne stood highest among the disputes. By the twelfth century, nobles as well as current and retired emperors had all turned to samurai clans to resolve their bitter rivalries.

The cast of characters in the Night Attack at the Sanjô Palace came from this treacherous world. Sanjô Palace was the home of former Emperor Go‐Shirakawa, known for a career as the wiliest and longest‐lived of retired royals. He had recently abdicated in favor of his son Emperor Nijô. The two emperors backed vying sides of the Fujiwara clan, a conspiratorial family unsurpassed in subjugating and sometimes choosing a succession of emperors. One member of this clan, Fujiwara no Nobuyori,[1] plotted against everyone. The Taira and the Minamoto clans served powerful interests in all of these disputes, while also pursuing their own ambitions as bitter rivals of the other.

Who were the Minamoto and the Taira samurai clans?.

Simply put the Night Attack was part of Fujiwara no Nobuyori's bid to seize power by abducting both the emperor and the retired emperor. Backed by Minamoto no Yoshitomo, head of that clan, Nobuyori saw an opportunity when the head of the Taira clan, who supported Emperor Nijō, left Kyōto on a pilgrimage. The emaki depicts the seizing of the retired emperor Go‐Shirakawa. Three key elements appear multiple times, orienting the eye and organizing the sweep of events: guided by a groom inside, the elegant ox carriage that will carry off Go‐Shirakawa opens the action.

We see it knocked about with others in the crush of fighting at the palace wall, on the veranda where Nobuyori in colorful armor orders Go‐Shirakawa into it, and finally in the surge of departing victors where two soldiers lolling on top lending an air of indignity and insult to the monarch. Nobuyori, now in court robes and on horseback, appears in front, glancing back at the carriage. A mounted Minamoto Yoshitomo, distinguished by red armor and a distinctive horned helmet, appears twice-behind the carriage as it crashes onto the veranda, and brandishing a bow and arrow, cantering behind it in the departing crowd.

The remainder of the Heiji Rebellion story appeared on other emaki in the set, now mostly lost: the kidnapping of Emperor Nijô, the slaughter of another noble household, Nobuyori forcing Nijô to appoint him chancellor, Taira Kiyomori's return to decimate the schemers, and finally Kiyomori's mistake-banishing rather than executing several of Minamoto sons. Minamoto no Yoritomo and his brother Yoshitsune would return years later to destroy the Taira clan in the Gempei War and found the first of four military governments of the Shōgunate that ruled Japan from 1192 until 1867. Emperors and nobles remained in Kyoto, but were politically powerless. Feudal culture came to a violent end in 1868 at the hands of other samurai clans. They brought the young emperor Meiji into a new role as the monarch (really a figurehead) of a modern nation. Over the Meiji era's early tumultuous decades many spectacular works of art left Japan to join important collections in the West. The Night Attack at Sanjô Palace, once owned by a powerful samurai family, came into the possession of an influential American who brought it home to Boston. It has been a highlight of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since 1889.

[1] Japanese surnames come first and given names come second. Fujiwara and Taira are surnames. The Chinese characters used have different pronunciations that can appear at different times. "Minamoto" can be "Genji;" "Taira" can be "Heike."
Additional resources:
At about the hour of the ox (2 am) on the ninth day, Lord Nobuyori proceeded with several hundred mounted soldiers to the Sanjō Palace, the residence of the Retired Emperor, and said, "Since I have heard that I am to be struck down, I intend to go to the east. I have served you close at hand for years and have been favored more than others by Your Majesty, and so it is indeed sad for me to part from my lord and abruptly leave the capital."

Then the Retired Emperor said, "What sort of an affair is this? Who would strike you?" But without hearing him out, soldiers hastily brought up the Imperial carriage. "You must hasten into the Imperial carriage. Now, set fire to the Palace," ordered Nobuyori, and His Majesty unwillingly got into the Imperial carriage. Jōsaimon'in had already gotten in. It was Lord Moronaka who had brought up the Imperial carriage. Nobuyori, Yoshitomo, Shigenari, the Sado Vice-Minister of Ceremonial, Minamoto Mitsumoto, the Commisioner of the Police, Suezane, the former Commisioner of Police, and the others surrounded the Imperial carriage and took it to the Imperial Palace. They shoved him into the Palace Single-Copy Library, where Shigenari and Mitsumoto guarded him.

Soldiers blockaded the Palace on all four sides and set fire to it. Those who fled out they shot or hacked to death. Many jumped into the wells, hoping that they might save themselves. The ladies-in-waiting of high and low rank and the girls of the women's quarters, running out screaming and shouting, fell and lay prostrate, stepped on by the horses and trampled by the men. It was more than terrible. No one knows the number of persons who lost their lives.

Some said that Yoshitomo had raised a rebellion and had broken into the Sanjō Palace in a night attack and set it on fire and that even the Retired Emperor had not escaped the flames. Some also shouted that His Imperial Highness had gone to the Imperial Palace. Consequently, the "Great Lord" the Lord Chancellor, and all the other nobles and courtiers came in a crowd. the noise of their horses and carriages rushing back and forth was like thunder, and greatly did it resound both in heaven and on earth.

At the hour of the tiger (4 am) the same night, they seized the dwelling of the Shinzei at Anegakoji Nishinotoin and set fire to it. For the past three or four years arms had been banned, and the Empire had been at peace, but now suddenly this disturbance had broken out, and both the Imperial Palace and the capital were filled with soldiers. The noble and lowly lamented together, wondering what had happened.

Translation from Reischauer & Yamagiwa, Early Japanese Literature, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1951, p. 451-453

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It is hard to imagine an image of war that matches the visceral and psychological power of the Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace. This thirteenth-century portrayal of a notorious incident from a century earlier appears on a hand scroll, a common East Asian painting format in Japan called an emaki.

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The Han Dynasty lady who defied time (from China Global TV Network)

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The Han Dynasty lady who defied time (from China Global TV Network)

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China Crafted | The Han Dynasty lady who defied time

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Article: The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing by Tansen Sen (from Education about Asia, 2006)

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Article: The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing by Tansen Sen (from Education about Asia, 2006)

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The travel records of Chinese pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing_EAA_2006

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'Investigating an ancient Buddhist sculpture' (2022) in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum

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'Investigating an ancient Buddhist sculpture' (2022) in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum

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Investigating an ancient Buddhist sculpture – the Longmen Grottoes • V&A Blog

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Conservator Amanda Imai recently underwent a placement with the V&A’s Conservation team, as part of her Master’s of Science degree in Conservation. The project saw her investigate a mysterious stone sculpture from the Longmen Grottoes…

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A Stunning sculpture of the Bamiyan Buddha coming to NYC's High Line (2026)

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A Stunning sculpture of the Bamiyan Buddha coming to NYC's High Line (2026)

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A Stunning Sculpture of the Buddha Modeled After a Destroyed Sixth-Century Statue Is Coming to New York City’s High Line

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Known as “The Light That Shines Through the Universe,” the 27-foot-tall artwork created by Tuan Andrew Nguyen will be installed on the Plinth this spring

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View Scroll | East Asian Scroll Paintings

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Heiji Monogatari (Shinzei Scroll) 平治物語絵詞 (信西巻)

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Heiji monogatari, 'The Emperor Escapes to Rokuhara'

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Heiji monogatari, 'The Emperor Escapes to Rokuhara'

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This scroll depicts the events of the Heiji Civil War, which began during the late Heian period in 1159, the first year of the Heiji era. The conflict was fought between the warriors Taira no Kiyomori and Minamoto no Yoshitomo. It developed from a power struggle between two court nobles, Fujiwara no Nobuyori and Fujiwara no Michinori. Of the original ‘Narrative Picture Scrolls of the Chronicle of the Heiji Civil War,’ only three scrolls and around a dozen or so fragments still remain, with one scroll stored at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, one at the Seikado Bunko Art Museum in Tokyo, and one here at the Tokyo National Museum. This museum’s scroll is titled ‘The Removal of the Imperial Family to Rokuhara.’ It features Emperor Nijo, who has been placed under house arrest by the Minamoto clan. It shows him sneaking away from the Imperial Palace disguised as a lady and being taken to Taira no Kiyomori’s residence in Rokuhara. Let’s take in the whole scroll first. The group scenes have been depicted skillfully by varying the size of the groupings and arranging them in a certain way to create a sense of dynamism. Let’s take a closer look now. With their toned, muscular legs, the warriors exude a vigorous physicality. The characters are each imbued with rich expressions, with some shouting, some laughing and others appearing full of vexation. The nimble brush lines and beautiful colors masterfully depict the tense atmosphere of upheaval. This scroll must have been painted by the finest artists of the time. What kind of people do you think commissioned this superlative work? There are some clues in the picture itself. Though the nobles are depicted with handsome, white faces, for example, the warriors look more vulgar, with bulging eyes and hooked noses. The humble, cowed appearance of the strictly-disciplined warriors also speaks volumes. This all suggests that those who ordered this work were connected with the nobility. This scroll depicts a major turning point in history, when political power was shifting from the nobility to the warrior class. It was the nobility who ordered their departure from the political stage to be recorded. Perhaps this work reflects their desire to hold sway over the warrior class, even if only within the confines of an illustrated scroll.

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長崎市の出島(国指定史跡 出島和蘭商館跡)の公式ホームページです.

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Arrival of the Europeans | Japan | Edo period (1615–1868) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Dragonfly Eyes  蜻蜓之眼  Official Trailer (English and Chinese subtitles)

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Excerpt from 'The Character of Characters' (2012) at Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

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Excerpt from 'The Character of Characters' (2012) at Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

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Excerpt from The Character of Characters, 2012, by Xu Bing

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Animated Sekigahara Landscape by Samurai x Shigeta Yusuke (2020)

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Animated Sekigahara Landscape by Samurai x Shigeta Yusuke (2020)

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Sekigahara-Sansui-zu-Byobu (Folding Screen of Painted Sekigahara Landscapes) | CULTURE GATE to JAPAN

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400 Years of Gold Mastery: Kanazawa’s Gold Leaf Artisans | SLICE