Education About Asia: Online Archives

Web Gleanings: Asian Art

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ASIA

illustration of a man in robes
From the series “The fifty-three stations of the T¯okaid¯o” (with portraits of actors). By Toyokuni, 1852.
http://www.secutor.se/ukiyo-e/umaxi009.jpg.

Title: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
URL: http://www.asianart.org/
This museum with one of the largest collections of Asian art (over 12,000 objects) presents highlights of its collection on-line. There are bronzes, ceramics and jade objects from China, manuscripts and sculpture from Southeast Asia, and works from India, Iran and Korea, as well. Click on the graphic image and there will be a descriptive article for each item.

Title: Pacific-Asia Museum
URL: http://www.pacasiamuseum.org/
On this site one can explore some of the collections of this museum. In addition to the permanent collection and the current exhibitions, there is a virtual tour of China and pages created by elementary school students.

Title: the Freer Gallery and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
URL: http://www.asia.si.edu/
These two branches of the Smithsonian Institution dedicated to Asian art have examples on-line from each of their current exhibitions and from their permanent collections. There are also special, more detailed, on-line exhibition materials such as one entitled Devi: The Great Goddess.

Title: Asianart.com
URL: http://www.asianart.com/
An on-line journal covering the arts of Asia. This site includes articles about Asian art and several exhibitions of great variety. Current exhibits include: Paintings of Ladakh, The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet, and Chang Dai-chien in California.

Title: South Asia
URL: http://www.library.upenn.edu/etext/collections/sasia/index.html
An extensive collection of images are presented here. There are three online collections: 1) a huge collection of Sanskrit Manuscripts; 2) American Institute of Indian Studies’ South Asia Art Archive; and 3) Persian Manuscripts. The second collection is comprised of Miniature Paintings, Rock Shelter Paintings, and Architecture and Sculpture. Lots to look at on this site.

CHINA

Title: traditional Chinese art in taiwan
URL: http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/culture/culture.html
More than 25 separate articles on the arts of China, ranging from Calligraphy to Lacquer to Embroidery to Painting. While the articles discuss Chinese arts, there is also mention of how these arts are practiced in Taiwan.

Title: Croydon museum’s riesco Collection
URL: http://www.croydon.gov.uk/riesco/
This collection of Chinese pottery is organized by category and allows you to view the history of China through its ceramic production. Death, Food and Drink, People and Animals are the categories; clicking on the category and then on an object will take you to a short note on the piece and its relevance to Chinese life. This site has great use for teachers of precollege and elementary students.

Title: Chinese Jade in Context
URL: http://128.146.41.30/exhib/jade/idxpgs/exhindx.html
Much more than jade, this on-line exhibition includes a scholarly and lengthy text on the place of jade in Chinese culture. The text is accompanied by a large collection of jade, ceramic, bronze and other metal pieces. The chemical makeup of jade is explored, and the use of jade and bronze and ceramics in the First Empires and in the Third through the Tenth centuries is described.

INDIA

Title: indian art
URL: http://www.meadev.gov.in/culture/art/overview.htm
Paintings, sculpture and miniatures of India are shown on this site. There is also a section on the crafts of India, ranging from papier mâché, to work in ivory, to textiles.

JAPAN

Title: Viewing Japanese Prints
URL: http://spectacle.berkeley.edu/~fiorillo/
An exhaustive number of Japanese print artists are accessible from this site. There are four “Introductions”: Ukiyo-e, twentieth century Shin hanga (“New Prints”), S¬saku hanga’ (“Creative Prints”), and Modern/ Contemporary prints. Under each category are links to prints of specific artists, with the greatest number in Ukiyo-e. Also included are valuable articles about prints, ranging from the creation of a print to Reading Scripts and Seals.

photo of an elaborate bowl
Enameled wares were produced in vast quantities during the Qing
dynasty. This particular bowl is well decorated with over-glazed iron-red enamel. On its base, you will find the Qianlong reign mark (1736-95) and the bowl is probably of the period. http://www.museum.org.sg/acm/ceramics.html.

Title: Jim Breen’s ukiyo-e gallery
URL: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ukiyoe/ukiyoe.html
Title: uKiyo-e: the Pictures of the floating World
URL: http://www.bahnhof.se/~secutor/ukiyo-e/
These two sites have many examples of ukiyo-e along with many links to other galleries and museums on-line that have collections of these prints.

KOREA

Title: Collections of the ho-am art museum
URL: http://www.hoammuseum.org/english/exbi/frame.html
A small portion of the 15,000 artifacts from this museum are presented here, including images of Korean traditional arts such as metalwork, ceramics, and calligraphy. In addition, post-1920s paintings and sculpture are shown on this site.

Title: the arts of Korea
URL: http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/korea/koreaon-line/index.htm
An in-depth exploration of the recently opened Korean Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum. Works are grouped in four categories: Ceramics, Metalwork and Decorative Art, Buddhist Sculpture, and Painting. Within each of these groups are many works, each of which can be enlarged on the screen, accompanied by a detailed description of the work.

SINGAPORE

Title: The Asian Civilization Museum
URL: http://www.museum.org.sg/acm/acm.html
This museum, whose mission is to present the ancestral cultures of the people of Singapore, has four collections: the Southeast Asia collection, the South Asia collection, the East Asian collection, and the West Asian/Islamic collection.