The philosophical ties between Northeastern Asia and the Northern Rockies as represented in a selection of fine art — including Daoist nature deities and immortals, Confucian scholar brushes and ...inkstones, and Buddhist guardian kings and compassionate bodhisattvas — have never been explicated. This catalog lays the groundwork for a serious discussion of trans-Pacific acculturation: first by explaining the fundamentals of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism in reference to rare works of art produced in China, Korea, and Japan between the Tang Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, and second, by assessing the prevalence of these philosophies as indicated by photographs of temples, shrines, deities, and rituals recreated in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado between the Civil War and World War I. Drawing from the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Daryl S. Paulson Collection in Bozeman, Montana, Asian art curator Stephen Little offers three brief essays that distinguish the philosophies of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism according to their founding values, each followed by several object case studies that illustrate, elaborate, and develop those ideals. Mining the photographs of the state historical societies of Boise, Helena, Cheyenne, and Denver, Euro-American art professor T. Lawrence Larkin offers a long essay that compares religious values and artistic forms on both sides of the Pacific illustrated by objects that highlight migrant and settler culture in the Inner West. Profusely illustrated with new color and rarely seen black-and-white images, and containing useful maps, chronologies, and an index, Northeastern Asia and the Northern Rockies is an invaluable reference for the general reader and an important resource for the regional scholar.
In cultivating a Western inclination toward Eastern wisdom, it is important to seek the foundations that sustain traditional practices toward such end. In a secularised and modern world view, the ...tendency has been to extract and abstract foundational practices such as mindfulness meditation and contemplation within an objectivist or scientistic prejudice. While leading to interesting results, it cannot ascertain a wisdom that is quantified and decontextualised. In response, contextual effort in postmodern pedagogical literature-while well placed-is often marred with confusions concerning Eastern and metaphysical foundations. As a result, one is led away from the very wisdom being qualified; furthermore, conceptual and theoretical paradoxes arise and consequently elude those that formulate them. Thus, in feeling secure in response to a particular 'yáng' world view of modernity, many postmodern criticisms suffer an exclusively 'yīn' character. For us, imbalance in any direction forfeits the path Eastern education approaches wisdom. In our conceptual analysis, we contextualise that modernity was never too yáng, but too yáng-in-yīn. Therefore, what is missing in pedagogical theory is not the yīn element, as presumed by postmodern critique, but the yáng element, in continual balance with the yīn, and vice versa.
Chinese Religious Art is a broad survey of the origins and development of the various forms of artistic expression of Chinese religions. The study begins with an overview of ancient archaeology in ...order to identify nascent religious ideologies in various Neolithic Cultures and early Chinese historical eras including the Shang dynasty (1300-1050 BCE) and Zhou Dynasty(1000-221 BCE) up until the era of the First Emperor (221-210 BCE) Part Two treats Confucianism as a religious tradition examining its scriptures, images, temples and rituals. Adopted as the state ideology in the Han dynasty, Confucian ideas permeated society for over two thousand years. Filial piety, ethical behavior and other principles shaped the pictorial arts. Part Three considers the various schools of Daoist belief and their expression in art. The ideas of a utopian society and the pursuit of immortality characterize this religion from its earliest phase. Daoism has an elaborate pantheon and ritualistic art, as well as a secular tradition best expressed in monochrome ink painting. Part Four covers the development of Buddhist art beginning with its entry into China in the second century. Its monuments—comprised largely of cave temples carved high in the mountains along the frontiers of China and large metropolitan temples —provide evidence of its evolution including the adoption of savior cults of the Buddha of the Western Paradise, the Buddha of the Future, the rise of Ch’an (Zen) and esoteric Buddhism. In their development, these various religious traditions interacted, sharing art, architecture, iconography and rituals. By the twelfth century a stage of syncretism merged all three traditions into a popular religion. All the religions are reviving after their extirpation during the Cultural Revolution. Using historical records and artistic evidence, much of which has not been published, this study examines their individual and shared manner of worshipping the divine forces.
Over twentyseven meters long, the Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang (1493) is an important Ming Dynasty Daoist artifact from the San Diego Museum of Art’s collection that records the imperial ...ordination of Empress Zhang (1470–1541), consort of the Ming Dynasty Hongzhi emperor (r. 1488–1505), by Zhang Xuanqing (d. 1509), the fortyseventh Heavenly Master of the Zhengyi institution. This book uncovers the history of imperial ordinations through a detailed examination of the scroll’s transcriptions and the meticulouslypainted images of celestial beings, as well as the influences of the Daoist leaders known as the Zhengyi Heavenly Masters.
Accessible and scholarly, this classic book considers the underlying philosophy and the aesthetics of Chinese art and poetry, the expression of the Taoist approach to existence. Chung-yuan Chang's ...always lucid narrative explores the relationship between the Tao and the creative arts, introducing classic paintings and poems to bring Taoism to life.
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