First, newly on view in the South Asian galleries is a recently acquired silver bowl featuring scenes of Zoroastrian rulers. Made in a Burmese silver shop for a well-to-do Parsi family, this impressive bowl measures more than a foot in diameter and was meant for use in an annual ceremony honoring deceased relatives.

Ceremonial bowl with Zoroastrian themes, approx. 1875. Burma. Silver. Acquisition made possible by the Zarthosti Anjuman of Northern California, Rati Forbes, Betty N. Alberts, and members of the board of the Society for Asian Art in honor of Past President Nazneen Spliedt, AAM# 2009.25

The events depicted on this bowl are well known in ancient Persian sculptures. Perhaps most notably, compare this bowl against the famous relief and inscription of Darius I located at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bisitun.

Inscription and relief of Darius I at Behistun

Also newly on view in the South Asian galleries is a metal plate displaying an elaborate floral decoration. This is an example of the “bidri ware” produced in south-central India using a complex casting, engraving, inlay, and chemical process.

Plate, approx. 1700. India; perhaps Andhra Pradesh state. Zinc alloy with silver and brass inlay. Gift of Martha Davidson in memory of J. LeRoy Davidson, AAM# B86M12

Finally, In the Chinese galleries we just installed a ritual food vessel (gui) dating to the Western Zhou dynasty (1050-771 BCE). This particular vessel has a curious connection to Shanghai. According to curator Michael Knight:

“The inscription on this vessel tells us it was cast for someone named Zhui. A vessel of similar shape and also cast for Zhui appears in the 1892 hand scroll Illustrations of the Antique Collection of Kezhai, on display in the Shanghai special exhibition galleries on the first floor. There are at least four other vessels of the same shape with the same inscription, making it impossible to determine if the piece illustrated in the scroll and this one are the same.”

Ritual food vessel, approx. 900-850 BCE. China. Bronze. The Avery Brundage Collection, AAM# B60B1056

We’ve got lots more objects lined up! Keep an eye on this blog for news of additional gallery changes over the coming months.

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

In the galleries: a few additions

Japanese baskets, newly on view

Most recently we’ve made changes to our Chinese painting display, Japanese basket area, and the second floor Korean gallery. So what might you see on your next visit?

First, the Chinese painting gallery is featuring a collection of landscape paintings, including several works that have never been on view.

Chinese painting gallery. Visible are Kuncan's "The river bend" (dated 1661), AAM# B65D53 and Gong Xian "View of Qixia" (approx. 1670-1689), AAM# B69D54.

Over in the Japanese basket corner, we’ve installed twenty-three new baskets. One of my favorites is Honma Kazuaki’s Streaming Light (Ryuki) (1974), a flowing sculptural work crafted with bamboo taken from the eaves of an old farmhouse.

Streaming Light (Ryuki), 1974. By Honma Kazuaki (Japanese, born 1930). Bamboo and rattan. AAM #2006.3.844.

In the Korean gallery, bojagis have returned and the current selection features some particularly subtle examples. We’ve also rotated our generous loan of photographs of Korean palaces from the collection of the National Museum of Korea.

Korean gallery with Bridal robe by Han Sang-soo (Korean, born 1930), AAM# 2005.65.A, and photographs from the National Museum of Korea

More changes are lined up for the coming weeks, including a new group of Himalayan thangkas, South Asian paintings, and a very special thematic rotation in our Japanese galleries. With all this freshening up, isn’t it time that  you revisited your favorite gallery?

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Spring rotations

It’s true that the hero of Avatar, like the Hindu deity Vishnu, has blue skin and rides a mighty sun bird, but hey, we’re in the realm of myth, and X doesn’t have to be derived from Y.

Here’s a painting from the museum’s collection showing a very blue Vishnu (and his consort) riding through the sky on the great bird Garuda. It’s from the north Indian state of Rajasthan, and dates from around 1760.

If you see the movie and notice other connections with Hindu lore, write in and tell us, OK?

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Avatar at the Asian, part II

The word “avatar” comes from Sanskrit avatara, literally meaning “descent.” It referred, originally, to the incarnations of the great deity Vishnu. When humankind was threatened with disorder and violence Vishnu would take on an appropriate form and descend to earth to set things right.

There are usually thought to be ten incarnations, and they include animal or part-animal forms such as The Tortoise and The Man-Lion, and human forms such as The Dwarf, Rama, and Krishna.

You can see the avatars of Vishnu in sculptures in the Asian Art Museum. Along the upper border of a slab bearing an elaborately carved image of Vishnu are tiny representations of all ten standard avatars. (This sculpture is displayed in Gallery 2.)

The left upper slab:

Even closer — can you spot the Fish and Tortoise?

There are other sculptures showing individual avatars, such as The Boar (Gallery 3):

The Man-Lion (Gallery 2):

Rama (Gallery 4):

and Krishna (Gallery 4):

Also, some of the avatars of Vishnu have a female equivalent. Examples of these, too, can be seen in the museum, such as two female equivalents of The Boar (the first is in Gallery 2, the second in Gallery 4):

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Avatar at the Asian

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Orchids: A Tribute to Doris Duke

As mentioned in a previous post, we routinely remove light-sensitive works from our galleries and replace them with new works from storage. In this case, the contemporary fiber arts that have livened up our Korean gallery for the past year have been replaced by a selection of photographs from the vast archives of the National Museum of Korea.

The Hall of Diligent Rule at the Palace of Great Felicity, approx. 1909-1945; printed 2009, National Museum of Korea

These photographs document five palace complexes in the Joseon capital city of Hanyang (modern Seoul) and were taken between 1909 and 1949 as part of a survey of the customs, architecture, and landscape of Korea. During the early twentieth century many of these palaces were destroyed or dismantled, leaving us only with these evocative images.

The anonymous photographers who composed these images were using the technology of the time, dry plate photography. Developed at the end of the 19th century, the dry plate process relies on a glass plate coated with a photosensitive gelatin layer. Unlike the earlier wet plate process—in which dripping plates had to be rapidly transported between preparation, camera, and an on-site developing lab—dry plates could be prepared in advance and developed at another location. Because of their large size, these plates could also record incredible amounts of detail.

Animal guardian of the Bridge of Enduring Passage at the Palace of Great Felicity, approx. 1909-1945; printed 2009, National Museum of Korea

The National Museum of Korea houses some 38,000 of these glass plate negatives. Although the plates show signs of use, no known vintage photographic prints from them existed. As a gift to the Asian Art Museum, the National Museum prepared thirty new contact prints (prints made by laying the glass plate directly against the photographic paper) using these 70 – 100 year old glass plate negatives. Ten of the prints will be displayed in the current gallery rotation, with another group of ten scheduled to go on view in March 2010.

The Heavenly Turtle Gate at the Palace of Great Felicity, 1929; printed 2009, National Museum of Korea

If this display intrigues you, be sure to continue into the Tateuchi gallery (directly adjacent to the Korean galleries) to view the ongoing exhibition Photographic Memories, featuring vintage photographs from South Asia, China, and Japan. We will be rotating this exhibition as well at the end of the Summer, introducing fresh images and themes for our visitors. If that’s not enough, enjoy browsing through our on-line collection of photographs from colonial India, available through our collections browser.

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Korean Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty

I’ve got a lot of favorite places in San Francisco and the Bay Area and I’m sure you do, too.  Long before I worked here, the Asian Art Museum was at the top of my list.  Turns out we’re at the top of Stanlee Gatti’s list, too.  If you’re not familiar with him, according to Google, Stanlee Gatti is “San Francisco’s ‘resident creative genius;’ known for making event design a visual art.”

I know we’re one of Stanlee Gatti’s favorite places because he told us.  Well, actually he told Google and then they told us.  Google asked a number of well-known locals (apparently those with excellent taste) to make a list of their favorite places.  So the next time you’re wondering what to do with yourself you can say “What would Alice Waters do today?” or “What would Nate Query do tonight?” and check out their lists for ideas.

Google sees this as a way to promote local businesses and improve their maps function (you can create your own list of favorite places and publish it if you want).  And Google sure knows how to put on a media event to get the word out.  In addition to the usual presentation, there was a little main street set up in the back of the North Light Court at City Hall.  My colleagues and I were surprised to find a fully-functioning candy store, a flower cart, a deli and a hardware store.

Let’s assume that Asian is one of your favorite places in San Francisco.  Where is your favorite place in the museum?  For me it’s a tough choice between walking down the hallway in the 3rd floor Chinese galleries towards the Guanyin and the Peterson Room Garden where I’m fortunate to spend time with Jade Circle members and special guests.

The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Chinese: Guanyin), approx. 1100-1200; Wood; China; The Avery Brundage Collection B60S24+

The Richard H. and Marianne Peterson Garden

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Favorite Places

Nine deities (detail), 1000–1100. Cambodia, former kingdom of Angkor. Stone. Gift of Edward Nagel, B71S9

We discussed the nine-planet crest of the Hosokawa family in the context of the exhibition Lords of the Samurai. The Hosokawa daimyo family adopted a crest that consisted of eight circles appearing to orbit a larger ninth circle. The term nine planets might suggest the nine planets of our solar system (if we allow Pluto), but of course there is no direct correspondence between the nine-planet motifs of Asian tradition and the nine planets of modern astronomy.

The English word planet comes from a Greek word meaning “wanderer.” In the ancient world, and largely until Copernicus, such a term was used to describe any celestial object that appeared to move through the sky, as opposed to stars, which appeared more fixed. So Venus was a “planet,” but so was the moon, or a comet. When Thomas Nashe wrote in 1600 of “resplendent Sol, chiefe planet of the heavens” he was using the word in this sense to refer to the sun.

In the ancient world, celestial deities were often associated with heavenly bodies. In India a set of of nine such deities is often referred to as the “nine planetary deities,” and this motif seems to have spread through many parts of Asia. But the set is not necessarily quite so “planetary” as the name suggests — in some formulations the nine deities are thought to have been associated with the true planets Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn as well as with the sun and moon, but also with the directions north and south.

The image above is a detail from an eleventh-century Cambodia stone sculpture (it is on view in gallery 9 on our third floor). Many similar stone representations of this set of nine deities are known from ancient Angkor. Scholars are not entirely sure, however, exactly whom they depict. It is possible that the sets of nine deities from Cambodia represent the same nine “planetary deities” seen in ancient Indian contexts, but this is not certain, since some of them do not seem to have the expected characteristics. The exact meaning of these objects remains a mystery.

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

The “nine planetary deities” and the Hosokawa family crest

Reduction, or “waste” woodblock printing is a process of printing multiple colors using a single block. The artist must determine the number of prints desired at the outset, because the process renders the block unusable for future prints.

As in other forms of woodblock printing, areas that will not hold ink are cut away. In reduction printing the artist first cuts away any areas that will be the color of the paper and makes prints from the block, using the first color over all of the printing areas. Then the same block is further cut away and a second color applied to all the areas except those that will remain the first color, and so on through the end of the process. Of course exact registration is critical with each successive application of color.

Reduction woodblock prints are among several types of prints that will be shown in the Chinese painting gallery in the northwest corner of the second floor, beginning June 30. The technique is especially popular in the southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou.

Shown at top is Mother and Daughter-in-Law, 2007, by Zhao Jianghua (Chinese, b. 1982), acquisition made possible by David Lei, 2008.56. Below are two more examples, giving a sense of the range of effects possible from the reduction technique.

Miao Women in Bright Moon II, 2006 by Wang Jianshan (Chinese, b. 1956), acquisition made possible by David Lei, 2009.60.

Scorching Sun, 1994, by Zhang Xiaochun (Chiense, b. 1959), acquisition made possible by David Lei, 2008.61.

This is a post from: the blog of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Visit us at www.asianart.org.

Reduction woodblock prints