The Western Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE) was a foundational period
for the artistic culture of ancient China, a fact particularly
visible in the era's funerary art. Iconic forms of Chinese art such
as ...dazzling suits of jade; cavernous, rock-cut mountain tombs;
fancifully ornate wall paintings; and armies of miniature
terracotta warriors were prepared for the tombs of the elite during
this period. Many of the finest objects of the Western Han have
been excavated from the tombs of kings, who administered local
provinces on behalf of the emperors. Allison R. Miller paints a new
picture of elite art production by revealing the contributions of
the kings to Western Han artistic culture. She demonstrates that
the kings were not mere imitators of the imperial court but rather
innovators, employing local materials and workshops and
experimenting with new techniques to challenge the artistic
hegemony of the imperial house. Tombs and funerary art, Miller
contends, functioned as an important vehicle of political
expression as kings strove to persuade the population and other
elites of their legitimacy. Through case studies of five genres of
royal art, Miller argues that the political structure of the early
Western Han, with the emperor as one ruler among peers, benefited
artistic production and innovation. Kingly Splendor brings
together close readings of funerary art and architecture with
nuanced analyses of political and institutional dynamics to provide
an interdisciplinary revisionist history of the early Western Han.
Since the mid-1980s, whimsical, brightly colored wood carvings from the Mexican state of Oaxaca have found their way into gift shops and private homes across the United States and Europe, as Western ...consumers seek to connect with the authenticity and tradition represented by indigenous folk arts. Ironically, however, the Oaxacan wood carvings are not a traditional folk art. Invented in the mid-twentieth century by non-Indian Mexican artisans for the tourist market, their appeal flows as much from intercultural miscommunication as from their intrinsic artistic merit. In this beautifully illustrated book, Michael Chibnik offers the first in-depth look at the international trade in Oaxacan wood carvings, including their history, production, marketing, and cultural representations. Drawing on interviews he conducted in the carving communities and among wholesalers, retailers, and consumers, he follows the entire production and consumption cycle, from the harvesting of copal wood to the final purchase of the finished piece. Along the way, he describes how and why this invented tradition has been promoted as a Zapotec Indian craft and explores its similarities with other local crafts with longer histories. He also fully discusses the effects on local communities of participating in the global market, concluding that the trade in Oaxacan wood carvings is an almost paradigmatic case study of globalization.
This first of two special issues of Art in Translation: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea aims to initiate the discussion of visual art in both the historical and contemporary contexts of the changing ...geopolitical and cultural identities in Asian locales—Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea in particular. The five articles in this first issue focus on the visual production emerging from a reflection upon martial law in Taiwan and South Korea during the Cold War, and how traditional art forms, such as ink painting, evolved in the context of postwar Hong Kong, which was a major contact zone for Chinese and Western cultures. In doing so we are engaging in accounts that connect with the hybridity of artistic creation, critical conversations across borders, and postcolonial theory to critique—to go beyond—the visuality and cultural translations developed in the regions under Chinese influence and reposition ourselves in a global context that includes its autonomous regions and Asian counterparts. We strive to understand how East Asian art history, aesthetics, and practices exemplify, translate, challenge, and synthesize, as they demarcate what it means to be modern and contemporary in specific milieus.
Nubian folk art is considered in all its forms an artistic production characterized by originality and innovation, full of symbols and linked to history and legend. Furniture design in general and ...metal furniture design in particular as the subject of research from The design fields that draw their design inspiration from multiple sources, and the Nubian folklore is one of the most important of those sources, which is characterized by being in the first place with its own character, which was influenced by the ancient Egyptian and Islamic architecture, which created a unique blend of design vocabulary bearing the fragrance of the past and the authenticity and identity of the present. The research came to the conclusion of a design strategy for metal furniture by employing the vocabulary of the Nubian folklore and achieving its formal values and symbolic connotations. Third: The strategy of employing the Nubian folklore in the design of metal furniture (an applied study). The research reached a design methodology that relies on the vocabulary of the Nubian folklore as an entrance to the design process by interacting with the symbolic connotations to achieve the design thought in terms of formality and functionality, where the resulting design alternatives developed by the designer can show multiple predictive solutions, and design forms that show themselves through Its own form and expressive of the Nubian folklore.
Folk art and applied folk art have been constantly shaped by cultural and political actors, as well as social and economic processes and the local society affected by them. In the context of these ...changes, the definitions of authentic, original, and genuine were given a new interpretation, which can be examined in different contexts. The question of authenticity in material folk art arose shortly after the birth of the concept of folk art and the “discovery” of folk art, and has accompanied the history of the revival of material folk art. Nevertheless, although discourses on the subject have been ongoing for a long time in the fields of folklore, theoretical works dealing with material folk art have not paid much attention to the issue of authenticity. The study first describes the contexts through which the issue of authenticity was articulated in artifact production inspired by folk art. The changed social conditions during the 20th century have also generated, and are still generating, new legal dilemmas in the field of artifact production at both community and individual levels, such as the extent to which folk art is individual or community-owned (taking into account the narrower and wider community), and the copyright of an authentic folk artist or craftsman or a creator recognized as a folk artisan. The questions lead to the evolution of the definition of authenticity and point out, among other things, the role that the issue of authenticity plays in the process of the heritagization of folk art.
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