This sculpture is more than a lovely artwork; it is a window into history. It was made some time between 1650 and 1700 in Goa. A number of such statuettes were made during the Portuguese colonial period, when many local people converted to Catholicism, no doubt for a variety of reasons. In other parts of southern India Christianity had had a long history–back, it is said, to the time of the apostle Thomas, who traveled to India in the first century.

The statuette was probably carved by an Indian sculptor trained in Portuguese-related artistic traditions. Christ is shown as a boy tending sheep; in a cave below a woman reclines, reading. She is identified by some as Mary Magdalene, but others believe that she is St Catherine of Alexandria. St Catherine is associated with Goa because it was on her feast day in 1510 that the Portuguese took possession of the city.

Like any other work of art, this little statue is inextricably linked to the events that led to its creation. Some would say it is tainted by colonialism; others that it is important precisely because of its links to events that reach well beyond art, informed by a clash of cultures and an imperialist view of the world that has not entirely disappeared. And of course, Christianity in Goa is not a thing of the past – about 20% of Goans will celebrate Christmas this year.

We acquired this piece at the Arts of Pacific Asia show in February this year through the generosity of Paul and Kathy Bissinger. The Asian Art Museum has a tradition at the show – if one of the curators finds something wonderful, they approach supporters on the spot, hoping to generate enthusiasm for the piece. If we’re lucky, as we were this year, we are able to augment the collection with an important find. Mr. and Mrs. Bissinger write:

We were so pleased that we were able to help the Asian Art Museum fill a gap in its South Asia Collection. Dr. Forrest McGill, whose expert eagle eye first spotted the piece at last year’s APA Gala Opening, was enthralled by its beauty, fine execution and perfect condition. We were easily persuaded to acquire it for the Museum.

We plan to put the newly acquired statuette on display in mid 2012, so you can come in to see it for yourself.

Are there pieces of art that make you reflect on their history? We’d love to hear about them in the comments.

In the original set, each of the five, differently-colored Buddhas presides over one of the cardinal directions, with an additional Buddha at their center. I’ve included an image of these Five Buddhas as they would appear in a complete set. As you’ll immediately see, the museum is missing the blue Buddha of the east, and the red Buddha of the west. I’ve been able to trace the blue Buddha (his name is Akshobhya, the “unshakeable one”) to Honolulu, but the red Buddha is still at large, perhaps in the Tibetan monastery where it was originally created – a place called Sakya, one of the most important institutions in the Himalayas.

The field of Buddhas behind each central Buddha might seem haphazardly arranged, but this is not the case. Looking closely, you’ll see that they occur in a regular sequence: red, yellow, white,  blue, and green, repeated ad infinitum. This fivefold pattern recapitulates in microcosmic form the fivefold structure of the original set of thangkas. Distributed regularly on the thangka’s surface, the field of haloed Buddhas reveals a bilateral symmetry in which diagonals consisting of a single Buddha-color flow downwards at 45 degrees.

Inside the central section of each painting appear 16 small figures. These too might seem randomly distributed, but again this is not the case. In fact, these figures, like the central Buddhas they surround, occupy one of the cardinal directions. When mapped out onto a ground-plan, the form hidden just behind the surface of the thangka becomes clear: our three Sakya paintings (and the two missing ones as well) each represent one quarter of the meditation aid called a mandala.

In the next post, I’ll show you the precise mandala from which these Tibetan images derive, and teach you how to read it. Then, we’ll be in a position to explore the imagery on some of the Asian’s more complex thangkas.

Until then, look closely and patiently at the thangkas, and see what kinds of insights emerge. When you start with a mystery, you may be surprised at what you can discover!

One of the netsuke on view in the new installation is a tiny figure shown with a tobacco pouch and pipe case hung from its obi by a dark colored, round netsuke—perhaps one similar to the kagamibuta (“mirror lid”) netsuke also on view . . .

LEFT: Netsuke of Okame lifting her kimono hem, approx. 1800–1900. Signed “Mitsu” (or “Ko”). Wood; inlaid ivory, coral, metal, and horn. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y1233.

RIGHT: Kagamibuta-type netsuke of Hachisuka Koroku and Hiyoshimaru (youthful Toyotomi Hideyoshi) meeting on the Yahagi Bridge, approx. 1800–1900. Signed “Soyo.” Mixed metals; buffalo horn. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y285.

One of the featured “themes” within the display is octopuses—we have some charming examples among the museum’s 1500-some netsuke.

LEFT: Netsuke installation, almost completed! The white gloves on the ledge are what the installation staff used to handle the tiny sculptures. Our mountmaker, Vincent, spent the day making individual mounts for those that needed to stand upright.

RIGHT: Netsuke of octopus in octopus pot. Signed “Masayuki” (Kato Masayuki, born 1831). Edo (Tokyo). Ivory with light staining. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y841. Photo by Kaz Tsuruta.

By coincidence, in our museum’s Cafe Asia today, I found something that looked, in size and shape, to have escaped from the netsuke rotation.

LEFT: A miniature delicacy from Cafe Asia.

RIGHT: Netsuke of boiled octopus, approx. 1800–1900. Wood. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y1333. Photo by Kaz Tsuruta.

In the refrigerated case, between the usual fruit salads and kelp salads, were containers of miniature marinated octopus salad—not to be passed up! The tiny octopuses tasted as if they had been simmered in soy with mirin (sweet rice wine) or sake and sugar, and they were sprinkled with sesame seeds. A bargain at $4.25, and truly delectable!

LEFT: Marinated Octopus Salad, at Café Asia.

RIGHT: I partake. Yum! Photo by Susie Kantor.

One of my favorite netsuke in the new installation also has an octopus theme. Less than two inches (five centimeters) across, it is formed in the shape of an octopus pot—a clay jar used to trap octopuses that are looking for a hiding place.

Netsuke of octopus in octopus pot inscribed with haiku. Signed “Mitsuhiro” (Ohara Mitsuhiro, 1810–1875). Stained wood with inlaid natural barnacles and glass. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y870. Photo by Kaz Tsuruta.

The netsuke is carved of wood to look exactly like unglazed, sea-worn ceramic, and its walls are encrusted with natural barnacles and sand-like materials. Inside hides an ill-fated octopod, barely visible to the naked eye.

On the outer walls of the jar is inscribed a haiku by Matsuo Basho:

“Oh octopus pot/a fleeting dream/the summer moon”

(Takotsubo ya/ hakanaki yume wo/ natsu no tsuki).

One of our conservators with some ready-made enamel eyes.

This sculpture was originally intended to have eyes like these. There are carved depressions in the stone for them, as you can see from the picture below. We don’t know whether the sculpture never got its eyes, or lost them at some point.  Years ago we made a mold of the eye depressions, and I gave the mold to an artisan in India who makes such eyes. The artisan then created a pair for us from enameled metal, as is traditional.

Vishnu and Lakshmi in their former, eyeless state.

This sculpture (which has not been on view for many years) was borrowed for the recent traveling exhibition Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior. The show’s curator, Joan Cummins of the Brooklyn Museum, learned that we had eyes for the sculpture and asked to show the piece in her exhibition with the eyes in place. We agreed enthusiastically.

Vishnu and Lakshmi with their new enamel eyes.

Lots of Indian sculptures–both Hindu and Jain–have such eyes, and the tradition is an old one. Today you can easily buy ready-made eyes, or have them made to order, as we did.

We wanted to share this clip of Sanjay discussing India and identity with some of our Asian Art Museum Art Speak interns. His appearance in conversation with Maharaja curator Qamar Adamjee on November 12 promises to be an insightful and entertaining discussion.

Our YouTube channel has more of the students’ interview with Sanjay. The talk on Saturday, November 12 is free with museum admission.

detail of back side

Including the two scriptures on the front, the scholar has identified two more scriptures inscribed on the back, making a total of four Buddhist scriptures. However, he was not able to find any names of donors that may have financed the creation of the stele.

detail of back inscription

right side view

This Chinese Buddhist stone stele (see below) is currently in art storage. It probably dates to 550-577 and depicts the Western Paradise of Amitabha. Once disregarded as either a subordinate stele or a much later reproduction, this stele is now gaining renewed scholarly interest.

B63S5+

The particular interest is in the stele’s inscriptions, actually. The most visible inscription is found on the bottom half of the front side. It contains “The Sutra of Buddha Talking about Guan Shi Yin” and “The Buddha Talking about the Heavenly Duke Scripture.” This inscription has been published in a 1974 survey, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection. Interestingly, it was also claimed in this publication that “The back of the stele is plain.”

However, there are inscribed letters on not only the backside of the stele but also on its sides. And speculation among scholars recently has been that the inscription contains an important Buddhist work! A Japanese scholar is coming to examine the stele this Friday. I will be there to learn more and be part of this exciting event.

Do come back to this posting as I will update on any findings!

It made me think anew about the rapid changes China has undergone over the past 40 years. When asked for his predictions for the future of China, Jeffrey said he expects China to keep surprising us since all predictions have been off base for a long time. Jeffrey, who is professor of History at UC Irvine, will be at the Asian introducing some films about contemporary China on September 5 at 11am and 2pm, and at 12pm will be signing copies of his books, including his latest Global Shanghai, 1850–2010.

1. The images were for commercial use, and
2. The majority of them date to the 1920s and 1930s.

I am curious to understand why that is. So in this multipart series (I don’t even know how many blog postings I will need!), I will attempt to make connections that may have been missed or misread, using the artworks and the available texts in the exhibition, such as object labels, wall panels, and exhibition catalogue. But right off the bat, I must say, I am having fun with this topic and it is an incredible challenge!

Here is a sample spread of this controversial group of images:

Distinguishing Local Flavor, 1890s

Gliding Like Celestial Beings, 1930s

The Young Companion, 1935

Moonlight over Huangpu River, 1930s

What should we be seeing in all of these images? I’m guessing that what should be seen in these depictions of women is different from what some people are actually seeing. A wall panel in the exhibition offers this suggestion: “Chinese women appeared in Shanghai’s popular media in several guises…. Seen in the posters, magazines, and film clips presented in this gallery are various idealizations of the Chinese modern woman, such as homemaker, celebrity, and sex object.”

The key concept here is modernity. Beginning in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, there existed a craze to modernize all aspects of Shanghai society. For example, in technology, as illustrated by the painting below, “Shanghai was the first Chinese city [in 1882] to have electric lighting installed on its streets.”

Wandering Eyes Giving Way to Wandering Thoughts, 1890s

In commerce, as described in the exhibition catalogue, the Big Four department stores (pictured below) introduced new trends to the Chinese retail experience, such as “set[ting] fixed prices to prevent haggling, and … emphasiz[ing] individual and friendly customer service.”

Nanjing Road-From Series of Views of Shanghai, after 1937

Womanhood was no exception; it too felt the effects of the drive to modernize. This should not be surprising, since women’s rights were being advanced internationally at this time, such as suffrage for the American woman. In China, the first such attempt at reform came in 1898 with institutional support from the emperor and realized to an extent by men and women reformers in Shanghai. The results are impressive:  the first Chinese girls’ school, the first women’s association in China, and the first Chinese women’s journal (for more see Qian Nanxiu’s article in Modern China 29, no.4 (October 2003): 399-454).

Do the visual materials of the time reflect these notions of women’s rights? In some ways, yes; in other ways, no. In the 1880s and 1890s, we begin to see the first publicized depictions of Chinese women in the form of photo-lithographed prints. What is meant by “publicized?” Well, the tradition of painting Chinese beauties is a long one in China, as exemplified by a group of album leaf paintings in the exhibition (below right).

Ladies, 1890

Such paintings were traditionally viewed in a private setting, in someone’s studio or home garden. However, as discussed in the exhibition catalogue, a new option became available in Shanghai with the introduction of new printing technologies such as lithography. The same artist who created the private painting (above right), at the same time, painted the following public image of women:

Shining Eyes and White Wrists, 1887-1893

This painting served as the original manuscript from which photo-lithographed prints were made, then bound together into periodical form and sold in local shops for readers to peruse at home or in a park, for example. In these ways, images of Chinese women became public material.

Several aspects of this image satisfied people’s cravings for the “modern.”

1. The latest technology was employed to make its prints.
2. The formerly exclusive tradition of painting Chinese beauties became more accessible to the larger public.
3. Illustrated here is a local hotspot called the Zhang Garden, which the object label identifies as “the most famous of the new public gardens in Shanghai and was considered by contemporaries to be the city’s first modern amusement park [...].”
4. The popular European game of billiards was offered in Shanghai.
5. Chinese women are presented as having access to this new form of entertainment.
6. Chinese women are presented out-and-about in a public space.

The last two aspects concern us here. In the 1880s and 1890s, while the social reformers had their visions of modern Chinese womanhood, entrepreneurs and publishers in Shanghai advertised their own visions: modernity for women meant having greater access to the public domain and being associated with the cult of the new. And what better place to find a modern woman and all things new than in the city of Shanghai! This is how I regard this group of illustrations, as the beginning of a marketing strategy linking the Chinese woman, to Shanghai, to modernity.

That strategy was seen everywhere by the time we encounter Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, not only within the city limits but in Europe and the States. Hence, a good number of people all over the world are most familiar with commercial images such as this one:

A Prosperous City That Never Sleeps, 1930s

What are we being sold here by presenting a fashionable woman lounging before a skyline of Nanjing Road at night? The object label offers that “it directly links the Chinese … woman with the city and the ideals of modernity.” In other words: Come to Shanghai to find a modern woman!  So, what characterizes a “modern” woman?

Southern Beauty, 1930s

Finishing an Orchid-Water Bath, 1930s

It Often Begins with a Smile, 1930s

Facing One's Reflection with Vanity, 1930s

Viewed as a group, the commercial posters in the exhibition indeed are selling an ideal of the modern woman in Shanghai: she was fashionable in appearance, she was a adept in the home and in social occasions, she projected confidence and composure. None of this should be new to us, however, for these ideals were also advertised in America. As is identified in the gallery’s wall panel, in the 1920s and 1930s, there appeared worldwide a controversial but popular icon known as the “modern girl” icon. The icon appeared in advertising in major metropolises such as Paris, Bombay, and New York. So of course such an icon would also have appeared in Shanghai, because everything that we’ve seen so far has beaten us over the head with this one message: during this time period, the residents of Shanghai saw themselves as no less than active participants in the global phenomenon of modernization.

At this point, the issue of sex is often raised. What about the semi-naked woman in the poster? And what about the courtesans and their bound feet seen earlier? Wasn’t Shanghai called the “Whore of the Orient?” How “modern” could any of this be? These issues will be explored in my next posting.  So please come back!

Hot Topic #1:  why was the exhibition presented in this way that you see here at the Asian Art Museum?

The answer has several layers:

1. As an art museum, we aim to tell a story (you may call it a history) of Shanghai through the visual materials made by and for its residents.
2. The visual materials available to us, on the whole, present an image of the city as eclectic and dynamic.
3. So we made the decision to analyze how and why such a public image was created for Shanghai over the past 160 years.

Of course, there are a number of other stories (or histories) that can be told about this city!  What the Shanghai exhibition does is give audiences one perspective–as unbiased as humanly possible–on how and why these visual materials look the way they do, whether the images depict historical reality or wishful fantasy.

Do you think neutrality is a fault in this case?

Come back for my next post, where I will try to tackle the challenge of how to regard visual representations of women in the Shanghai exhibition!

Covered jar with fish in lotus pond, 1368-1644. China; Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt decoration and overglaze multicolor decoration. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P78+

Recently our curators of Chinese art were discussing the vexing problem of the term porcelain, which is understood differently in China and in the West. What follows summarizes some of their discussion.

Porcelain, according to one dictionary definition, is “a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200°C (2,192°F) and 1,400°C (2,552°F).” The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain arise mainly from the formation of glass and the mineral mullite within the fired body at these high temperatures.

That seems clear enough, but the term has historically been applied in an unsystematic fashion to include substances of various types that share only surface qualities. In Chinese texts (and Western texts that follow Chinese terminology) all high-fired wares are known as ciqi (in contrast to taoqi or low-fired wares).

Western scholarship has added to the confusion by introducing terms such as “proto-porcelain,” and “porcelanous wares” in discussions of Chinese ceramics. Western texts also employ terms like “soft-paste porcelain,” “bone-china,” and so on for materials that look like porcelain but are not high fired or lack other characteristics of the more narrowly defined term. Such terms imply a linear history of ceramics development, with porcelain as the ultimate goal.

In its broad definition, porcelain was developed in China during the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE),  or even earlier – sometime in the late Shang or early Zhou dynasty (roughly 1050 BCE) – according to the broadest Chinese definition of ciqi. Unfortunately, that definition is so broad that it serves no real purpose in tracing post-Han developments in ceramic technologies or the discoveries of new types of raw materials.

Narrower definitions, however, have their own limitations since the development of porcelain in China was based on a combination of technological advancements (the ability to create and maintain very high kiln temperatures, the control of kiln atmosphere, new glaze chemistry, and so on) along with discoveries (such as sources of the raw materials necessary for a true porcelain body). Under this narrower definition, if a kiln site did not have access to the proper raw materials, it could not produce porcelain, no matter how technically developed the kiln was.

One way out of the conundrum of how best to apply the term porcelain is to divide ceramics into the categories of low fired, high fired and porcelain, and then to further divide these broader categories into more precise definitions based on chronology, region, and primary use. Following such a typology, “porcelain” would be limited to those wares developed at kilns in or around Jingdezhen, along with their later competitors. Using this definition, porcelain was developed in China around 900 CE.

What do you think of this way of looking at the term? We’d love to hear your thoughts.