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Art of Cambodia
The history of art (Khmer: សិល្បៈខ្មែរ) stretches back centuries to ancient times,  most famous period is undoubtedly the Khmer art of the Khmer Empire (802–1431), especially in the area around Angkor and the 12th-century temple complex of Angkor Wat, initially Hindu and subsequently Buddhist.

After the collapse of the empire, these and other sites were abandoned and overgrown, allowing much of the era’s stone carving and architecture to survive to the present day.

Traditional Cambodian arts and crafts include textiles, non-textile weaving, silversmithing, stone carving, lacquerware, ceramics, wat murals, and kite-making.

Beginning in the mid-20th century, a tradition of modern art began in Cambodia, however in the later 20th century both traditional and modern arts declined for several reasons, including the killing of artists by the Khmer Rouge.
The country has experienced a recent artistic revival due to increased support from governments, NGOs, and foreign tourists.
In pre-colonial Cambodia, art and crafts were generally produced either by rural non-specialists for practical use or by skilled artists producing works for the Royal Palace.

In modern Cambodia, many artistic traditions entered a period of decline or even ceased to be practiced, but the country has experienced a recent artistic revival as the tourist market has increased and governments and NGOs have contributed to the preservation of Cambodian culture.

Stone carving
Cambodia’s best-known stone carving adorns the temples of Angkor, which are “renowned for the scale, richness and detail of their sculpture”. In modern times, however, the art of stone carving became rare, largely because older sculptures survived undamaged for centuries (eliminating the need for replacements) and because of the use of cement molds for modern temple architecture. By the 1970s and 1980s, the craft of stone carving was nearly lost.

During the late 20th century, however, efforts to restore Angkor resulted in a new demand for skilled stone carvers to replace missing or damaged pieces, and a new tradition of stone carving is arising to meet this need.
Most modern carving is traditional-style, but some carvers are experimenting with contemporary designs.
Interest is also renewing for using stone carving in modern wats.
Modern carvings are typically made from Banteay Meanchey sandstone, though stone from Pursat and Kompong Thom is also used.

Murals
Because of destruction during recent war,[2][3] few historic wat murals remain in Cambodia. In the 1960s, art historians Guy and Jacqueline Nafilyan photographed 19th-century murals, providing a record of this lost cultural heritage.
The best known surviving murals are at the Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh, Wat Rajabo in Siem Reap province, and Wat Kompong Tralach Leu in Kompong Chhnang Province.
In the last decade, wat murals have seen a resurgence, but Cambodia’s surviving older murals are generally more refined and detailed.

Textiles
Silk weaving in Cambodia has a long history.
The practice dates to as early as the late 13th century. According to Zhou Daguan’s record, “None of the locals produces silk.
Nor do the women know how to stitch and darn with a needle and thread.
The only thing they can do is weave cotton from Kapok.
Even then they cannot spin the yarn, but just use their hands to gather the cloth into strands.

They do not use a loom for weaving. Instead they just wind one end of the cloth around their waist, hang the other end over a window, and use a bamboo tube as a shuttle”. Interestingly, Zhou mentioned that people from Siam brought silk production into Angkor,
In recent years people from Siam have come to live in Cambodia, and unlike the locals they engage in silk production.
The mulberry trees they grow and the silkworms they raise all came from Siam.
They themselves weave the silk into clothes made of a black patterned satiny silk”.

Cambodian Weaving
There are two main types of Cambodian weaving.
The ikat technique (Khmer: chong kiet), which produces patterned fabric, is quite complex.
To create patterns, weavers tie-dye portions of weft yarn before weaving begins.
Patterns are diverse and vary by region; common motifs include lattice, stars, and spots.

The second weaving technique, unique to Cambodia, is called “uneven twill”.
It yields single or two-color fabrics, which are produced by weaving three threads so that the “color of one thread dominates on one side of the fabric, while the two others determine the colour on the reverse side.
Traditionally, Cambodian textiles have employed natural dyes.
Red dye comes from lac insect nests, blue dye from indigo, yellow and green dye from prohut bark, and black dye from ebony bark.[4]

Cambodia’s modern silk-weaving centers are Takéo, Battambang, Beanteay Meanchey, Siem Reap and Kampot provinces.
Silk-weaving has seen a major revival recently, with production doubling over the past ten years. This has provided employment for many rural women.
Cambodian silk is generally sold domestically, where it is used in sampot (wrap skirts), furnishings, and pidan (pictorial tapestries), but interest in international trade is increasing.

Cotton textiles have also played a significant role in Cambodian culture.
Though today Cambodia imports most of its cotton, traditionally woven cotton remains popular. Rural women often weave homemade cotton fabric, which is used in garments and for household purposes.
Krama, the traditional check scarves worn almost universally by Cambodians, are made of cotton.

Non-textile weaving
Many Cambodian farmers weave baskets (Khmer: tbanh kantrak) for household use or as a supplemental source of income.
Most baskets are made of thinly cut bamboo.
Regions known for basketry include Siem Reap and Kampong Cham.
Mat weaving (tbanh kantuel) is a common seasonal occupation.

They are most commonly made from reeds, either left a natural tan color or dyed in deep jewel tones.
The region of Cambodia best known for mat weaving is the Mekong floodplain, especially around Lvea Em district.
Mats are commonly laid out for guests and are important building materials for homes.
Wicker and rattan crafts (tbanh kanchoeu) made from dryandra trees are also significant. Common wicker and rattan products include walls, mats, furniture, and other household items.

Lacquerware
The height of Cambodian traditional lacquerware was between the 12th and 16th centuries; some examples of work from this era, including gilded Buddha images and betel boxes, have survived to the present day. Lacquerware was traditionally colored black using burnt wood, representing the underworld; red using mercury, representing the earth; and yellow using arsenic, representing the heavens. Lacquer on Angkorian stone dates to the 15th or 16th century.[9]

In modern Cambodia, the art of lacquerwork nearly faded into oblivion: few lacquer trees survived, and lacquer was unavailable in local markets.
Today’s revival is still in its infancy, but 100 lacquer artists have been trained by a French expert under the guidance of Artisans d’Angkor, a company that produces traditional crafts in village workshops.
Some artists are “beginning to experiment with different techniques and styles…to produce modern and striking effects.

Blacksmithing
Archeological finds near Angkorian sites in the former Khmer empire have suggested a wide variety and quality of blacksmithing.
Khmer swords became part of Khmer culture and literature through influences that were not only mythogical, as the Chandrahas sword represented in Angkor
Wat and found in the Reamker or legendary as the sword that Preah Bath Ponhea Yath, who was the last king of the Angkorian Empire, drew out as he led a victorious battle against the Siamese invaders to take back the ancient Khmer capital in the 14th century.

Blacksmithing in Cambodia is essentially linked to the needs of agriculture, and for that reasons, it remains one of the skills which survived best through the tragic years of the Khmer Rouges. In this day, the vast majority of blacksmiths in Cambodia draws from the Cham minority.
Recently, high-end quality blacksmithing has also emerged in Cambodia producing knives and swords in Khmer and Japanese styles.

Silversmithing
Silversmithing in Cambodia dates back centuries.
The Royal Palace traditionally patronized silversmiths’ workshops, and silversmiths remain concentrated at Kompong Luong, near the former royal capital Oudong.
Silver was made into a variety of items, including weaponry, coins, ceremonial objects used in funerary and religious rituals, and betel boxes.

During Cambodia’s colonial period, artisans at the School of Fine Art produced celebrated silverwork, and by the late 1930s there were more than 600 silversmiths.
Today, silverwork is popular for boxes, jewellery, and souvenir items; these are often adorned with fruit, fire, and Angkor-inspired motifs.
Men produce most of the forms for such work, but women often complete the intricate filigree.

Ceramics
Cambodian pottery traditions date to 5000 BCE. Ceramics were mostly used for domestic purposes such as holding food and water.
There is no evidence that Khmer ceramics were ever exported, though ceramics were imported from elsewhere in Asia beginning in the 10th century.
Ceramics in the shape of birds, elephants, rabbits, and other animals were popular between the 11th and 13th centuries.

Potting traditionally was done either on a pottery wheel or using shaping tools such as paddles and anvils.
Firing was done in clay kilns, which could reach temperatures of 1,000–1,200 °C, or in the open air, at temperatures of around 700 °C.
Primarily green and brown glazes were used.
In rural Cambodia, traditional pottery methods remained. Many pieces are hand-turned and fired on an open fire without glaze.
The country’s major center for pottery is Kompong Chhnang Province.

In modern Cambodia, the art of glazed ceramics faded into oblivion: the technique of stoneware stop to be used around 14th century, at the end of Angkor era.
Today this technique begin a slow revival through a Belgian ceramist who founded the Khmer Ceramics & Fine Arts Center, in Siem Reap, the organization lead vocational training and researches about this lost skill.

Kites
Cambodia’s kite-making and kite-flying tradition, which dates back many centuries, was revived in the early 1990s and is now extremely popular throughout the country.
Kites (Khmer: khleng ek) are generally flown at night during the northeast monsoon season.
A bow attached to the kites resonates in the wind, producing a musical sound.

Modern and contemporary visual arts
Cambodia’s tradition of modern (representational) drawing, painting, and sculpture was established in the late 1940s at the School of Cambodian Arts (later called the University of Fine Arts), where it occupied much of the school’s curriculum a decade later.
These developments were supported by the government, which encouraged new areas of specialization (e.g. design and modern painting) at the school and purchased modern art for the Prime Minister’s residences and for government buildings.

Galleries opened in Phnom Penh during the 1960s, and cultural centers hosted exhibitions of modern paintings and provided art libraries.
One important painter of the 1960s was Nhek Dim; he has become the painter of reference for modern painters.
During the subsequent Khmer Rouge era, many artists were killed and art production nearly ceased.

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, artists and professors returned the University of Fine Arts to rebuild arts training.
Socialist Bloc governments sponsored the education of young art students in Poland, Bulgaria, the former Soviet Union, and Hungary during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Other local efforts aimed to re-establish workshops, collect documents, and preserve traditional knowledge.

Though several galleries present changing exhibitions in Phnom Penh, the vast majority of artists cannot support themselves through exhibitions and sales of modern work.
Artists generally earn income from Angkor-inspired art for tourists or from painting commercial signs and large reproductions that in the West would be mechanically produced.

Several broad schools of art exist among modern Cambodian artists.
Some artists, including Som Samai (a silversmith),
An Sok (a mask-maker), and Chet Chan (a painter) follow colonial traditions to produce traditional Khmer art.
Chhim Sothy’s work is also derived from these traditions.

Many young artists who studied abroad in the 1980s, including Phy Chan Than, Soeung Vannara, Long Sophea, and Prom Sam An, have presented a modern Khmer art forms combining subjects from Khmer art with Western modernism.
Other notable Cambodian artists include Leang Seckon, Pich Sopheap, Svay Ken, Asasax, Chhan Dina, Patrick Samnang Mey, Lam Soeung, and Chhorn Bun Son.
During the 1990s, Cambodia saw the return of many members of the Khmer diaspora, including several internationally recognized artists. Among these are Marine Ky and Chath Piersath.
Source: wikipedia

 

 

Metallurgy in China
has a long history, with the earliest metal objects in China dating back to around 3,000 BCE. The majority of early metal items found in China come from the North-Western Region (mainly Gansu and Qinghai, 青海). China was the earliest civilization to use the blast furnace and produce cast iron

Copper
Archaeological evidence indicates that the earliest metal objects in China were made in the late fourth millennium BCE. Copper was generally the earliest metal to be used by humanity, and was used in China since at least 3000 BCE.
Historical influences on Chinese metallurgy. After a small early copper industry in the Neolithic, China was influenced by the metallurgy of the steppes (Andronovo culture), the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, and the Karasuk culture down to the Shang dynasty period.

Early metal-using communities have been found at the Qijia and Siba sites in Gansu.
The metal knives and axes recovered in Qijia apparently point to some interactions with Siberian and Central Asian cultures, in particular with the Seima-Turbino complex,[5] or the Afanasievo culture.

Archeological evidence points to plausible early contact between the Qijia culture and Central Asia.[5] Similar sites have been found in Xinjiang in the west and Shandong, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia in the east and north.
The Central Plain sites associated with the Erlitou culture also contain early metalworks. Copper manufacturing, more complex than jade working, gradually appeared in the Yangshao period (5000–3000 BCE). Jiangzhai is the only place where copper artifacts were found in the Banpo culture.
Archaeologists have found remains of copper metallurgy in various cultures from the late fourth to the early third millennia BCE.
These include the copper-smelting remains and copper artifacts of the Hongshan culture (4700–2900) and copper slag at the Yuanwozhen site. This indicates that inhabitants of the Yellow River valley had already learned how to make copper artifacts by the later Yangshao period.

The Qijia culture (c. 2500–1900) of Qinghai, Gansu, and western Shaanxi produced copper and bronze utilitarian items and gold, copper, and bronze ornaments.
The earliest metalworks in this region are found at a Majiayao site at Linjia, Dongxiang, Gansu.[7] “Their dates range from 2900 to 1600 BCE.
These metal objects represent the Majiayao 馬家窯 type of the Majiayao culture (c. 3100–2700 BCE), Zongri 宗日 Culture (c. 3600–2050 BCE), Machang 馬廠 Type (c. 2300–2000 BCE), Qijia 齊家 Culture (c. 2050–1915 BCE), and Siba 四壩 Culture (c. 2000–1600 BCE).”
At Dengjiawan, in the Shijiahe site complex in Hubei, some pieces of copper were discovered; they are the earliest copper objects discovered in southern China.[10] The Linjia site (林家遺址, Línjiā yízhǐ) has the earliest evidence for bronze in China, dating to c. 3000 BCE.

Bronze
Bronze technology was imported to China from the steppes.
The oldest bronze object found in China was a knife found at a Majiayao culture site in Dongxiang, Gansu, and dated to 2900–2740 BC.
Further copper and bronze objects have been found at Machang-period sites in Gansu. Metallurgy spread to the middle and lower Yellow River region in the late 3rd millennium BC. Contacts between the Afanasievo culture the Majiayao culture and the Qijia culture have been considered for the transmission of bronze technology.

From around 2000 BCE, cast bronze objects such as the socketed spear with single side hooks were imported and adapted from the Seima-Turbino culture.
The Erlitou culture (c. 1900 – 1500 BCE), Shang dynasty (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE), and Sanxingdui culture (c. 1250 – 1046 BCE) of early China used bronze vessels for rituals (see Chinese ritual bronzes) as well as farming implements and weapons.
By 1500 BCE, excellent bronzes were being made in China in large quantities, partly as a display of status, and as many as 200 large pieces were buried with their owner for use in the afterlife, as in the Tomb of Fu Hao, a Shang queen.

In the tomb of the first Qin Emperor and multiple Warring States period tombs, extremely sharp swords and other weapons were found, coated with chromium oxide, which made the weapons rust-resistant.[19][20][21]
The layer of chromium oxide used on these swords was 10 to 15 micrometers and left them in pristine condition to this day.
Chromium was first scientifically attested in the 18th century. The beginning of new breakthroughs in metallurgy occurred towards the Yangzi River’s south in China’s southeastern region in the Warring States period such as gilt-bronze swords.

Section-mold casting
There are two types of bronze smelting techniques in early China, namely the section mold process and the lost wax process.
The earliest bronze ware found in China is the bronze knife (F20: 18) unearthed at the Majiayao in Linjia, Dongxiang, Gansu, and dated to about 3000 BC.
This bronze knife uses the section mold process, which is spliced by two molds.
The section mold process is a commonly used bronze casting method in the Shang dynasty, that is, the mud is selected, and after selecting, filtration, showering, deposition, and other procedures, the mud is cooled to a moderate hardness as a backup, and then the mud is made according to the shape of the vessel to be made.

There are two types of molds, which is inner mold and outer mold.
The inner mold is only the shape of the bronze ware, without decoration; the outer model should consider the division of the bronze ware after casting in the future, that is, the block during the production of the clay model, and also engrave the inscriptions and inscriptions of the bronze ware decoration on the clay model.
After the clay molds are done, put it in a cool place to dry in the shade, and then put it into the furnace for roasting.
After the molds are heated, they become pottery molds unearthed during modern archaeological discoveries.
After the pottery mold is fired, do not rush out of the furnace.

After the copper furnace has liquefied the required copper, the pottery mold that still has residual temperature is taken out and poured.
In this way, the temperature difference between the copper liquid and the pottery mold is not large, and the pottery mold is not easy to burst. The quality of the finished product is relatively high.
After the copper liquid is poured, remove the pottery molds and molds according to the blocks they were made. If they can’t be removed, they can be broken with a hammer. The bronze will come out, and after grinding, it is the finished product.

Lost-wax casting
According to some scholars, lost-wax casting was used in China already during the Spring and Autumn period (770 – 476 BCE), although this is often disputed.
The lost-wax method is used in most parts of the world.
As the name suggests, the lost-wax method is to use wax as a mold, and heat it to melt the wax mold and lose it, thereby casting bronze ware, making the model (the outer layer of the wax model is coated with mud), lost-wax (heating to make the wax flow out), pouring copper liquid to fill the cavity left by the wax model, etc.

The development and spread of the lost-wax method in the West has never stopped, but the main bronze casting method in the Bronze Age in China is the section mold process.
When the lost-wax method was introduced into China is also a topic of academic discussion.
But there is no doubt that the lost-wax method already existed in China during the Spring and Autumn period. In 1978, the Bronze Zun-Pan unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Leigudun, Suixian County, Hubei Province, used a mixed process of section mold method and lost-wax method.

Iron
The early Iron Age in China began before 1000 BCE, with the introduction of ironware, such as knives, swords, and arrowheads, from the west into Xinjiang, before it further diffused to Qinghai and Gansu.
In 2008, two iron fragments were excavated at the Mogou site, in Gansu.
They have been dated to the 14th century BCE, belonging to the period of Siwa culture.
One of the fragments was made of bloomery iron rather than meteoritic iron.

Cast iron
Cast iron farm tools and weapons were widespread in China by the 5th century BC, employing workforces of over 200 men in iron smelters from the 3rd century onward.
The earliest known blast furnaces are attributed to the Han dynasty in the 1st century AD.
These early furnaces had clay walls and used phosphorus-containing minerals as a flux.
Chinese blast furnaces ranged from around two to ten meters in height, depending on the region. The largest ones were found in modern Sichuan and Guangdong, while the ‘dwarf” blast furnaces were found in Dabieshan.
In construction, they are both around the same level of technological sophistication.

There is no evidence of the bloomery in China after the appearance of the blast furnace and cast iron. In China, blast furnaces produced cast iron, which was then either converted into finished implements in a cupola furnace or turned into wrought iron in a fining hearth.
If iron ores are heated with carbon to 1420–1470 K, a molten liquid is formed, an alloy of about 96.5% iron and 3.5% carbon.
This product is strong, and can be cast into intricate shapes, but is too brittle to be worked unless the product is decarburized to remove most of the carbon.

The vast majority of Chinese iron manufacture, from the late Zhou dynasty onward, was of cast iron.
However forged swords began to be made in the Warring States period: “Earliest iron and steel Jian also appear, made by the earliest and most basic forging and folding techniques.”[36] Iron would become, by around 300 BCE, the preferred metal for tools and weapons in China.
The primary advantage of the early blast furnace was in large-scale production and making iron implements more readily available to peasants.
Cast iron is more brittle than wrought iron or steel, which requires additional fining and then cementation or co-fusion to produce, but for menial activities such as farming it sufficed.

By using the blast furnace, it was possible to produce larger quantities of tools such as plowshares more efficiently than the bloomery. In areas where quality was important, such as warfare, wrought iron and steel were preferred.
Nearly all Han period weapons are made of wrought iron or steel, with the exception of axe heads, of which many are made of cast iron.[39]
The effectiveness of the Chinese human and horse-powered blast furnaces was enhanced during this period by the engineer Du Shi (c. AD 31), who applied the power of waterwheels to piston bellows in forging cast iron.

Early water-driven reciprocators for operating blast furnaces were built according to the structure of horse-powered reciprocators that already existed.
That is, the circular motion of the wheel, be it horse-driven or water-driven, was transferred by the combination of a belt drive, a crank and connecting rod, other connecting rods, and various shafts, into the reciprocal motion necessary to operate a push bellow.
Donald Wagner suggests that early blast furnaces and cast iron production evolved from furnaces used to melt bronze.
Certainly, though, iron was essential to military success by the time the State of Qin had unified China (221 BC).

Usage of the blast and cupola furnace remained widespread during the Song and Tang dynasties.]
By the 11th century, the Song dynasty Chinese iron industry made a switch of resources from charcoal to coke in casting iron and steel, sparing thousands of acres of woodland from felling. This may have happened as early as the 4th century AD.[44][45]
Blast furnaces were also later used to produce gunpowder weapons such as cast iron bombshells and cast iron cannons during the Song dynasty.

Middle Ages
Shen Kuo’s written work of 1088 contains, among other early descriptions of inventions, a method of repeated forging of cast iron under a cold blast similar to the modern Bessemer process.
Chinese metallurgy was widely practiced during the Middle Ages; during the 11th century, the growth of the iron industry caused vast deforestation due to the use of charcoal in the smelting process.
To remedy the problem of deforestation, the Song Chinese discovered how to produce coke from bituminous coal as a substitute for charcoal.
Although hydraulic-powered bellows for heating the blast furnace had been written about since Du Shi’s (d. 38) invention of them in the 1st century CE, the first known illustration of a bellows in operation is found in a book written in 1313 by Wang Zhen (fl. 1290–1333).

Gold and silver
Gold-crafting technology developed in Northwest China during the early Iron Age, following the arrival of new technological skills from the Central Asian steppes, even before the establishment of the Xiongnu (209 BCE-150 CE).
These technological and artistic exchanges attest to the magnitude of communication networks between China and the Mediterranean, even before the establishment of the Silk Road.]
The sites of Dongtalede (Ch: 东塔勒德, 9th–7th century BCE) in Xinjiang, or Xigoupan (Ch:西沟畔, 4th–3rd century BCE) in the Ordos region of Inner Mongolia, are known for numerous artifacts reminiscent of the Scytho-Siberian art of Central Asia.
During the Qing dynasty, the gold and silver smiths of Ningbo were noted for the delicacy and tastefulness of their work.

Cultural significance
Chinese mythology generally reflects a time when metallurgy had long been practiced.
According to the Romanian anthropologist, orientalist, and philosopher Mircea Eliade, the Iron Age produced a large number of rites, myths and symbols; the blacksmith was the main agent of diffusion of mythology, rites and metallurgical mysteries.
The secret knowledge of metallurgists and their powers made them founders of the human world and masters of the spirit world. This metallurgical model was reinterpreted again by Taoist alchemists.

Some metalworkers illustrate the close relationship between Chinese mystical and sovereign power and the mining and metallurgy industries.
Although the name Huangdi is absent from Shang or Zhou inscriptions, it appears in the Spring and Autumn period of Guoyu and Zuo zhuan.
According to Mitarai (1984), Huangdi may have lived in early antiquity and led a regional ethnic group who worshiped him as a deity; “The Yellow Emperor fought Chiyou at Mount Kunwu whose summit was covered with a large quantity of red copper”.
“The seventy-two brothers of Chiyou had copper heads and iron fronts; they ate iron and stones. In the province of Ji where Chiyou is believed to have lived (Chiyou shen), when we dig the earth and we find skulls that seem to be made of copper and iron, they are identified as the bones of Chiyou.” Chiyou was the leader of the indigenous Sanmiao (or Jiuli) tribes who defeated Xuanyuan, the future Yellow Emperor. Chiyou, a rival of the Yellow Emperor, belonged to a clan of blacksmiths.

The advancement of weaponry is sometimes attributed to the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou, and Chiyou reportedly discovered the process of casting. Kunwu is associated with a people, a royal blacksmith, a mountain that produces metals, and a sword.[69] Kui, a master of music and dance cited by Shun, was succeeded by Yu the Great. Yu the Great, reported founder of the Xia dynasty (China’s first), spent many years working on flood control and is credited with casting the Nine Tripod Cauldrons.
Helped by dragons descended from heaven, he died on Mount Xianglu in Zhejiang. In these myths and legends, mines and forges are associated with leadership.
Source: Wikipedia

 

 

Indian painting
Indian painting has a very long tradition and history in Indian art.
The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of prehistoric times, such as the petroglyphs found in places like the Bhimbetka rock shelters.
Some of the Stone Age rock paintings found among the Bhimbetka rock shelters are approximately 10,000 years old.
Because of the climatic conditions in the Indian subcontinent, very few early examples survive today.
India’s ancient Hindu and Buddhist literature has many mentions of palaces and other buildings decorated with paintings (Chitra). but the paintings of the

Ajanta Caves are the most significant of the few ones which survive.
Smaller scale painting in manuscripts was probably also practiced in this period, though the earliest survivors are from the medieval period.
A new style emerged in the Mughal era as a fusion of the Persian miniature with older Indian traditions, and from the 17th century, its style was diffused across Indian princely courts of all religions, each developing a local style.
Company paintings were made for British clients under the British Raj, which from the 19th century also introduced art schools along Western lines.
This led to modern Indian painting, which is increasingly returning to its Indian roots.

Indian paintings can be broadly classified as murals, miniatures, and paintings on cloth.
Murals are large works executed on the walls of solid structures, as in the Ajanta Caves and the Kailashnath temple.
Miniature paintings are executed on a very small scale for books or albums on perishable material such as paper and cloth.
Traces of murals, in fresco-like techniques, survive in several sites with Indian rock-cut architecture, going back at least 2,000 years, but the 1st and 5th-century remains at the Ajanta Caves are much the most significant.

Paintings on the cloth were often produced in a more popular context, often as folk art, used for example by traveling reciters of epic poetry, such as the Bhopas of Rajasthan and Chitrakathi elsewhere, and bought as souvenirs of pilgrimages. Very few survivors are older than about 200 years, but it is clear the traditions are much older. Some regional traditions are still producing works.[4]

Overview of the main genres
It seems clear that miniature painting, often illustrating manuscripts, has a very long history, but Jain miniatures from about the 12th century, mostly from West India, and slightly earlier Buddhist ones from the Pala Empire in the east are the oldest to survive, Similar Hindu illustrations survive from about the 15th century in the west, and 16th century in East India, by which time the Mughal miniature under Akbar was also sometimes illustrating translations into Persian of the Hindu epics and other subjects.
The great period of Mughal court painting begins with the return of Humayun from exile in Persia in 1555 and bringing Persian artists with him.
It ends during the reign of Aurangzeb who rather disapproved of painting for religious reasons, and disbanded the large imperial workshop, by perhaps 1670.

The artists dispersed to smaller princely courts, both Muslim and Hindu, and the “post-Mughal” style developed in many local variants.
These included different Rajasthani schools of painting like the Bundi, Kishangarh, Jaipur, Marwar, and Mewar.
The Ragamala paintings also belong to this school, as does the later Company painting produced for British clients from the mid-18th century.
Modern Indian art has seen the rise of the Bengal School of Art in the 1930s followed by many forms of experimentation in European and Indian styles. In the aftermath of India’s independence, many new genres of art were developed by important artists like Jamini Roy, M. F. Husain, Francis Newton Souza, and Vasudeo S. Gaitonde.

With the progress of the economy the forms and styles of art also underwent many changes.
In the 1990s, the Indian economy was liberalised and integrated to the world economy leading to the free flow of cultural information within and without.
Artists include Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Devajyoti Ray, Bose Krishnamachari, and Jitish Kallat whose works went for auction in international markets.
Bharti Dayal has chosen to handle the traditional Mithila painting in the most contemporary way and created her  style through the exercise of her own imagination, they appear fresh and unusual.

History of Indian painting

Prehistoric rock art
The pre-historic paintings were generally executed on rocks and these rock engravings were called petroglyphs.
These paintings generally depict animals like bison, bears, tigers, etc.
The oldest Indian paintings are rock art in caves which are around 30,000 years old, such as the Bhimbetka cave paintings.

Murals
The history of Indian murals starts in ancient and early medieval times, from the 2nd century BC to the 8th – 10th century AD.
There are more than 20 locations around India containing murals from this period, mainly natural caves and rock-cut chambers.
These include the caves of Ajanta, Bagh, Sittanavasal, Armamalai Cave (Tamil Nadu), Kailasanatha temple in Ellora Caves, Ramgarh and Sitabinji.
Murals from this period depict mainly religious themes of Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu religions. There are though also locations where paintings were secular.
This includes the oldest known painted cave and theatre in Chhattisgarh – the Jogimara and Sitabenga Caves – dated to between the 3rd to 1st century BCE.

Pre-11th-century miniature paintings
Early survivals of portable Indian paintings are all miniatures from texts (the great majority) or painted objects such as boxes.
Despite considerable evidence that larger paintings on cloth (known as pata) existed, and indeed surviving texts discussing how to make them, not a single medieval Indian painting on cloth is known to survive, unless some Buddhist ones have been taken as Tibetan, or from Central Asia. Some of the images recovered there by Sir Aurel Stein are Indian paintings, most being Buddhist and some with Hindu deities such as Ganesha and Shiva,

According to Blurton, such early paintings did not survive largely because of the deleterious climate of India, as well as due to the “added problem of Muslim iconoclasm” in the centuries that followed.
The pattern of large-scale wall painting which had dominated the scene, witnessed the advent of miniature paintings during the 11th and 12th centuries.
This new style figured first in the form of illustrations etched on palm-leaf manuscripts.

Eastern India
In eastern India, the principal centers of artistic and intellectual activities of the Buddhist religion were Nalanda, Odantapuri, Vikramshila and Somarpura situated in the Pala kingdom (Bengal and Bihar).
Miniature painting from this region survives from the 10th century.
These miniatures, depicting Buddhist divinities and scenes from the life of Buddha were painted on the leaves (about 2.25 by 3 inches) of the palm-leaf manuscripts as well as their wooden covers.
Most common Buddhist illustrated manuscripts include the texts Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita, Pancharaksa, Karandavyuha, and Kalachakra Tantra.
The earliest extant miniatures are found in a manuscript of the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita dated in the sixth regnal year of Mahipala (c. 993), presently the possession of The Asiatic Society, Kolkata. This style disappeared from India in the late 12th century.
The influence of eastern Indian paintings can be seen in various Buddhist temples in Bagan, Myanmar particularly the Abeyadana temple which was named after Queen consort of Myanmar, Abeyadana who herself had Indian roots, and Gubyaukgyi Temple.
The influences of eastern Indian paintings can also be clearly observed in Tibetan Thangka paintings.[24]
Western India
Surviving illustrated manuscripts from Western India, mainly Gujarat, begin around the 11th century, but are mostly from the 13th onwards. Initially surviving examples are all Jain.
By the 15th century they were becoming increasingly lavish, with much use of gold.
The manuscript text most frequently illustrated is the Kalpa Sūtra, containing the biographies of the Tirthankaras, notably Parshvanatha and Mahavira.
The illustrations are square-ish panels set in the text, with “wiry drawing” and “brilliant, even jewel-like colour”.
The figures are always seen in three-quarters view, with distinctive “long pointed noses and protruding eyes”.
There is a convention whereby the more distant side of the face protrudes so that both eyes are seen.

Early Modern period (1526―1857 CE)

Mughal painting
Mughal painting is a style of Indian painting, generally confined to illustrations on the book and done in miniatures, and which emerged, developed and took shape during the period of the Mughal Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Mughal style was heavily influenced by Persian miniatures, and in turn influenced several Indian styles, including the Rajput, Pahari and Deccan styles of painting.

Mughal paintings were a unique blend of Indian, Persian, and Islamic styles.
Because the Mughal kings wanted visual records of their deeds as hunters and conquerors, their artists accompanied them on military expeditions or missions of state, or recorded their prowess as animal slayers, or depicted them in the great dynastic ceremonies of marriages.
Akbar’s reign (1556–1605) ushered a new era in Indian miniature painting.
After he had consolidated his political power, he built a new capital at Fatehpur Sikri where he collected artists from India and Persia.

He was the first monarch who established in India an atelier under the supervision of two Persian master artists, Mir Sayyed Ali, and Abdus Samad.
Earlier, both of them had served under the patronage of Humayun in Kabul and accompanied him to India when he regained his throne in 1555.
More than a hundred painters were employed, most of whom were from Gujarat, Gwalior, and Kashmir, who gave birth to a new school of painting, popularly known as the Mughal School of miniature Paintings.
Tuti-Nama was an early Mughal work from the mid 16th Century, and the similarities particularly in the female figures to the indigenous western India school is clearly visible.
While some consider this to be a transition phase where the stylistic features of Indigenous & Persian schools combined, others considered this to be a work of artists who were trained in western Indian schools and who worked in Akbar’s atelier to produce art for the Mughal palette, maybe under supervision of

Persian masters.
Another early production by that school of miniature painting was the Akbar Hamzanama manuscript, which according to the court historian Badayuni was started in 1567 and completed in 1582.
The Hamzanama, an epic Persian account of Amir Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet, was illustrated by Mir Sayyid Ali.
The paintings of the Akbar Hamzanama are of large size, 20 x 27″, and were painted on cloth. They are in the Persian Safavi style. Brilliant red, blue, and green colors predominate; the pink, eroded rocks, and the vegetation, planes and blossoming plum and peach trees are reminiscent of Persia.

The Hamza Nama is very different in style to the Tuti Nama.
This difference was either due to a different set of artists who were trained in the Persian style or due to a conscious change in style through experimentation, either way, Mughal painting quickly evolved into a more fluid and naturalistic style different from the stiffness in figures seen in earlier paintings.
Nevertheless, links to the Western Indian schools were still there on close inspection, particularly in the representation of the female figure.
After him, Jahangir encouraged artists to paint portraits and durbar scenes.[31][30] His most talented portrait painters were Ustad Mansur, Abul Hasan, and Bishandas.

Shah Jahan (1627–1658) continued the patronage of painting.
Some of the famous artists of the period were Mohammad Faqirullah Khan, Mir Hashim, Muhammad Nadir, Bichitr, Chitarman, Anupchhatar, Manohar and Honhar.[32][30]
Aurangzeb had no taste for fine arts, probably due to his Islamic conservatism.
Due to lack of patronage artists migrated to the Deccan and the Hindu courts of Rajputana, greatly influencing the styles in these centres.

Deccan painting
Deccan painting was produced in the Deccan region of Central India, in the various Muslim capitals of the Deccan sultanates that emerged from the break-up of the Bahmani Sultanate by 1520.
These were Bijapur, Golkonda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar, and Berar.
The main period was between the late 16th century and the mid-17th,[34][35] with something of a revival in the mid-18th century, by then centred on Hyderabad.

Compared to the early Mughal painting evolving at the same time to the north.
Deccan painting exceeds in “the brilliance of their color, the sophistication and artistry of their composition, and a general air of decadent luxury”.
Other differences include painting faces, not very expertly modeled, in three-quarter view, rather than mostly in profile in the Mughal style, and “tall women with small heads” wearing saris.
There are many royal portraits, although they lack the precise likenesses of their Mughal equivalents. Buildings are depicted as “totally flat screen-like panels”.

Ragamala painting sets illustrating (by evoking their moods) the various raga musical forms, appear to have been an innovation of the Deccan.
Besides the usual portraits and illustrations of literary works, there are sometimes illustrated chronicles, such as the Tuzuk-i-Asafiya.
A Deccan specialty (also sometimes found in other media, such as ivory) is the “composite animal” a large animal made up of many smaller images of other animals.

Rajput painting
The early Mewar and Malwa schools, sometimes also collectively known as Western India schools, developed around this period, and are stylistically similar and linked to the style of depiction in 14th–15th-century texts from Gujarat.
The similar large eyes, stiff figures, protruding hips, and breasts are a linking feature.
The Kulhadar group of paintings is considered one of the finest works executed belonging to the western India school.
Executed in the early 16th century, this group of paintings was characterized by the men wearing a conical cap (Kulha) on which turbans were worn.
The Kulhadar group of paintings consisted of Chaurapanchasika – “Fifty Verses of the Thief” by Bilhan, the Gita Govinda, the Bhagavata Purana and Ragamala.

Driven by the Islamic conquests, the mid-late 16th Century saw Central Asian influence starting to creep into Indian artistic representation.
The use of gold foil and ultramarine blue derived from imported lapiz lazuli were two such Persian influences that were adopted into Indian painting.
Manuscripts of Laur Chanda at the National Museum are an example of such influence.
Several different styles of Rajput painting developed from the late 16th century onwards in the Hindu royal courts of Rajputana.

Each Rajput kingdom evolved a distinct style, but with certain common features.
Rajput paintings depict a number of themes, and events of epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Krishna’s life, beautiful landscapes, and humans.
Many miniatures were individual album pieces, but there were also illustrated books, and there was at the same time some mural painting on the walls of palaces, forts, and Havelis.
This is especially so in the Shekhawati region, where Marwari businessmen, mainly active in the large cities, competed to have brightly painted exteriors of the houses they maintained in their home region.

The Rajput painting consists of four principal groupings:
The Mewar school contains the Chavand, Nathdwara, Devgarh, Udaipur, and Sawar styles of painting
The Marwar school comprises the Kishangarh, Bikaner style of painting from Bikaner, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Pali and Ghanerao styles
The Hadoti school with the Kota, Bundi, and Jhalawar styles the Dhundar school of Amber, Jaipur, Shekhawati painting and Uniara styles of painting
Pahari painting is the northernmost extension of the Rajput style but is usually treated separately.

Pahari painting
The Pahari style also referred to as the Punjab Hills style developed and flourished during the 17th to 19th centuries stretching from Jammu to Almora and Garhwal, in sub-Himalayan India, through Himachal Pradesh.
The Pahari paintings can be grouped into two groups- Jammu or Dogra school; and Basholi and Kangra school.
Each created stark variations within the genre, ranging from bold intense Basohli paintings, originating from Basohli in Jammu and Kashmir, to the delicate and lyrical Kangra paintings, which became synonymous to the style before other schools of paintings developed.
Malwa and Jaunpur

A new trend in manuscript illustration was set by a manuscript of the Nimatnama painted at Mandu, during the reign of Nasir Shah (1500–1510).
This represents a synthesis of the indigenous and the patronized Persian style, though it was the latter that dominated the Mandu manuscripts.
There was another style of painting known as Lodi Khuladar that flourished in the Sultanate’s dominion of North India extending from Delhi to Jaunpur.

Mysore painting
Mysore painting is an important form of classical South Indian painting that originated in the town of Mysore in Karnataka.
These paintings are known for their elegance, muted colors and attention to detail.
The themes for most of these paintings are Hindu Gods and Goddesses and scenes from Hindu mythology. In modern times, these paintings have become a much sought-after souvenir during festive occasions in South India.

The process of making a Mysore painting involves many stages.
The first stage involves the making of the preliminary sketch of the image on the base.
The base consists of cartridge paper pasted on a wooden base.
A paste made of zinc oxide and Arabic gum is made called “gesso paste”.
With the help of a thin brush, all the jewelry and parts of the throne or the arch which have some relief are painted over to give a slightly raised effect of carving.
This is allowed to dry. On this thin gold foil is pasted. The rest of the drawing is then painted using watercolors. Only muted colors are used.

Tanjore painting
Tanjore painting is an important form of classical South Indian painting native to the town of Tanjore in Tamil Nadu.
The art form dates back to the early 9th century, a period dominated by the Chola rulers, who encouraged art and literature.
These paintings are known for their elegance, rich colors, and attention to detail.
The themes for most of these paintings are Hindu Gods and Goddesses and scenes from Hindu mythology. In modern times, these paintings have become a much sought-after souvenir during festive occasions in South India.

The process of making a Tanjore painting involves many stages.
The first stage involves the making of the preliminary sketch of the image on the base.
The base consists of a cloth pasted over a wooden base.
Then chalk powder or zinc oxide is mixed with water-soluble adhesive and apply it on the base. To make the base smoother, a mild abrasive is sometimes used.

After the drawing is made, the decoration of the jewelry and the apparel in the image is done with semi-precious stones. Laces or threads are also used to decorate the jewelry.
On top of this, the gold foils are pasted. Finally, dyes are used to add colors to the figures in the paintings.

Pattachitra
Pattachitra refers to the Classical painting of Odisha and West Bengal, in the eastern region of India.’Patta’ in Sanskrit means ‘Vastra’ or ‘clothing’ and ‘chitra’ means paintings.
The Bengal Patachitra refers to the painting of West Bengal.
It is a traditional and mythological heritage of West Bengal.
The Bengal Patachitra is divided into some different aspects like Durga Pat, Chalchitra, Tribal Patachitra, Medinipur Patachitra, Kalighat Patachitra etc.[44]

The subject matter of Bengal Patachitra is mostly mythological, religious stories, folklore and social.
The Kalighat Patachitra, the last tradition of Bengal Patachitra is developed by Jamini Roy. The artist of the Bengal Patachitra is called Patua.[45]
The tradition of Orisha Pattachitra is closely linked with the worship of Lord Jagannath.
Apart from the fragmentary evidence of paintings on the caves of Khandagiri and Udayagiri and Sitabhinji murals of the Sixth century A.D., the earliest indigenous paintings from Odisha are the Pattachitra done by the Chitrakars (the painters are called Chitrakars).

The theme of Oriya’s painting centers around the Vaishnava sect.
Since the beginning of Pattachitra culture Lord Jagannath who was an incarnation of Lord Krishna was the major source of inspiration.
The subject matter of Patta Chitra is mostly mythological, religious stories and folklore.
Themes are chiefly on Lord Jagannath and Radha-Krishna, different “Vesas” of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra, temple activities, the ten incarnations of Vishnu based on the ‘Gita Govinda’ of Jayadev, Kama Kujara Naba Gunjara, Ramayana, Mahabharata.

The individual paintings of gods and goddesses are also being painted.
The painters use vegetable and mineral colors without going for factory-made poster colors. They prepare their colors. White color is made from the conch shells by powdering, boiling, and filtering in a very hazardous process.
It requires a lot of patience. But this process gives brilliance and permanence to the hue. ‘Hingula’, a mineral color, is used for red. ‘Haritala’, king of stone ingredients for yellow, and ‘Ramaraja’ a sort of indigo for blue are being used.
Pure lamp-black or black prepared from the burning of cocoanut shells is used.
The brushes that are used by these ‘Chitrakaras’ are also indigenous and are made of the hair of domestic animals. A bunch of hair tied to the end of a bamboo stick makes the brush.

It is a matter of wonder as to how these painters bring out lines of such precision and finish with the help of these crude brushes.
That old tradition of Oriya painting still survives today in the skilled hands of Chitrakaras (traditional painters) in Puri, Raghurajpur, Paralakhemundi, Chikiti, and Sonepur.
Assam Painting
Painting of Assam led to its growth in response to the Neo-Vaisnavism movement starting in the 15th century and even received royal patronage under various erstwhile royal classes.
Manuscript painting of Assam continued to flourish till the decay of the Ahom kingdom.

Other regional styles
Madhubani painting is a style of painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state.
Themes revolve around Hindu Gods and mythology, along with scenes from the royal court and social events like weddings.
Generally, no space is left empty; the gaps are filled by paintings of flowers, animals, birds, and even geometric designs.In this paintings, artists use leaves, herbs, and flowers to make the color which is used to draw the paintings.

British Colonial period

Company style
As Company rule in India began in the 18th century, a great number of Europeans migrated to India.
The Company style is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian and European artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the British East India Company or other foreign Companies in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The style blended traditional elements from Rajput and Mughal painting with a more Western treatment of perspective, volume, and recession.
Early Modern Indian painting

At the start of the 18th century, oil and easel painting began in India, which saw many European artists, such as Zoffany, Kettle, Hodges, Thomas and William Daniell, Joshua Reynolds, Emily Eden, and George Chinnery coming out to India in search of fame and fortune.
The courts of the princely states of India were an important draw for European artists due to their patronage of the visual and performing arts.
For Indian artists, this Western influence, largely a result of colonialism, was viewed as “a means for self-improvement”, and these Western academic artists who visited India provided the model.
They did not, however, provide the training.

According to R. Siva Kumar, “This task, which fell on the various art schools established in the 1850s, gave an institutional framework to the Westernization of Indian art”.[49]
The earliest formal art schools in India, namely the Government College of Fine Arts in Madras (1850), the Government College of Art & Craft in Calcutta (1854), and Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay (1857), were established.[50]

Raja Ravi Varma was a pioneer of modern Indian painting.
He drew on Western traditions and techniques including oil paint and easel painting, with his subjects being purely Indian, such as Hindu deities and episodes from the epics and Puranas. Some other prominent Indian painters born in the 19th century are Mahadev Vishwanath Dhurandhar (1867–1944), A X Trindade (1870–1935),[51] M F Pithawalla (1872–1937),[52] Sawlaram Lakshman Haldankar (1882–1968) and Hemen Majumdar (1894–1948).
In the 19th century, according to R. Siva Kumar, “selective Westernization for self-improvement gave way to a nationalist cultural counter-stance around the turn of the century – universally, the first step toward a political resistance toward colonial rule.
In practice, this materialized as the assimilation of “diverse Asian elements”, expanding tradition more than reviving it.

A leading artist of the time, Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), utilized both Western-influenced realism and Asian elements which brought him “close to early modernism”.
A reaction to the Western influence led to a revival in historic and more nationalistic Indian art, called as the Bengal school of art, which drew from the rich cultural heritage of India.

Bengal school
The Bengal School of Art was an influential style of art that flourished in India during the British Raj in the early 20th century.
It was associated with Indian nationalism but was also promoted and supported by many British arts administrators.
The Bengal school arose as an avant-garde and nationalist movement reacting against the academic art styles previously promoted in India, both by Indian artists such as Ravi Varma and in British art schools.
Following the widespread influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the West, the British art teacher Ernest Binfield Havel attempted to reform the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of Art by encouraging students to imitate Mughal miniatures.

This caused immense controversy, leading to a strike by students and complaints from the local press, including from nationalists who considered it to be a retrogressive move. Havel was supported by the artist Abanindranath Tagore, a nephew of the poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore.
Abanindranath painted several works influenced by Ajanta’s painting style, a style that he and Havel believed to be expressive of India’s distinct spiritual qualities, as opposed to the “materialism” of the West.
His best-known painting, Bharat Mata (Mother India), depicted a young woman, portrayed with four arms in the manner of Hindu deities, holding objects symbolic of India’s national aspirations.

Tagore later attempted to develop links with Far-Eastern artists as part of an aspiration to construct a pan-Asianist model of art.
Those associated with this Indo-Far Eastern model included Nandalal Bose, Mukul Dey, Kalipada Ghoshal, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Vinayak Shivaram Masoji, B.C. Sanyal, Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, and subsequently their students A. Ramachandran, Tan Yuan Chameli, Ramananda Bandopadhyay, and a few others.
The Bengal school’s influence on the Indian art scene gradually started alleviating with the spread of modernist ideas post-independence.K. G. Subramanyan’s role in this movement is significant.

Contextual Modernism
The term Contextual Modernism that Siva Kumar used in the catalog of the exhibition has emerged as a postcolonial critical tool in the understanding of the art the Santiniketan artists had practiced.
Several terms including Paul Gilroy’s counter culture of modernity and Tani Barlow’s Colonial modernity have been used to describe the kind of alternative modernity that emerged in non-European contexts.
Professor Gall argues that ‘Contextual Modernism’ is a more suited term because “the colonial in colonial modernity does not accommodate the refusal of many in colonized situations to internalize inferiority.
Santiniketan’s artist teachers’ refusal of subordination incorporated a counter vision of modernity, which sought to correct the racial and cultural essentialism that drove and characterized imperial Western modernity and modernism.

Those European modernities, projected through a triumphant British colonial power, provoked nationalist responses, equally problematic when they incorporated similar essentialisms”.[55]
According to R. Siva Kumar “The Santiniketan artists were one of the first who consciously challenged this idea of modernism by opting out of both internationalist modernism and historicist indigenousness and tried to create a context-sensitive modernism.”
He had been studying the work of the Santiniketan masters and thinking about their approach to art since the early 80s.
The practice of subsuming Nandalal Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Ram Kinker Baij, and Benode Behari Mukherjee under the Bengal School of Art was, according to Siva Kumar, misleading. This happened because early writers were guided by genealogies of apprenticeship rather than their styles, worldviews, and perspectives on art practice.[56]

The literary critic Ranjit Hoskote while reviewing the works of contemporary artist Atul Dodiya writes, “The exposure to Santinketan, through a literary detour, opened Dodiya’s eyes to the historical circumstances of what the art historian R Siva Kumar has called a “contextual modernism” developed in eastern India in the 1930s and ’40s during the turbulent decades of the global Depression, the Gandhian liberation struggle, the Tagorean cultural renaissance and World War II.”[57]
Contextual Modernism in the recent past has found its usage in other related fields of study, especially in Architecture.[58]

Post-Independence (1947― present)
During the colonial era, Western influences started to make an impact on Indian art.
Some artists developed a style that used Western ideas of composition, perspective, and realism to illustrate Indian themes.
Others, like Jamini Roy, consciously drew inspiration from folk art.
Bharti Dayal has chosen to handle the traditional Mithila Painting in the most contemporary way and uses both realism as well abstractionism in her work with a lot of fantasy mixed into both . Her work has an impeccable sense of balance, harmony, and grace.
By the time of Independence in 1947, several schools of art in India provided access to modern techniques and ideas.

Galleries were established to showcase these artists.
Modern Indian art typically shows the influence of Western styles but is often inspired by Indian themes and images.
Major artists are beginning to gain international recognition, initially among the Indian diaspora, but also among non-Indian audiences.
The Progressive Artists’ Group, established shortly after India became independent in 1947, was intended to establish new ways of expressing India in the post-colonial era.

The founders were six eminent artists – K. H. Ara, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, and F. N. Souza, though the group was dissolved in 1956, it was profoundly influential in changing the idiom of Indian art.
Almost all of India’s major artists in the 1950s were associated with the group.
Some of those who are well-known today are Bal Chabda, Manishi Dey, V. S. Gaitonde, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, and Akbar Padamsee.

Other famous painters like Jahar Dasgupta, Prokash Karmakar, John Wilkins, and Bijon Choudhuri enriched the art culture of India.
They have become the icon of modern Indian art.
Art historians like Prof. Rai Anand Krishna have also referred to those works of modern artists that reflect Indian ethos.
Also, the increase in the discourse about Indian art, in English as well as vernacular Indian languages, appropriated the way art was perceived in the art schools.

Critical approach became rigorous, and critics like Geeta Kapur, R . Siva Kumar, contributed to re-thinking contemporary art practice in India.
Their voices represented Indian art not only in India but across the world.
The critics also had an important role as curators of important exhibitions, redefining modernism and Indian art.
Indian Art got a boost with the economic liberalization of the country since the early 1990s.
Artists from various fields now started bringing in varied styles of work.

Post-liberalization Indian art thus works not only within the confines of academic traditions but also outside it. In this phase, artists have introduced even newer concepts that have hitherto not been seen in Indian art.
Devajyoti Ray has introduced a new genre of art called Pseudorealism.
Pseudorealist Art is an original art style that has been developed entirely on Indian soil. Pseudorealism takes into account the Indian concept of abstraction and uses it to transform regular scenes of Indian life into a fantastic images.
Source: wikipedia

 

 

Art and culture of Indonesia

The culture of Indonesia (Indonesian: Budaya Indonesia) has been shaped by the interplay of indigenous customs and diverse foreign influences.
With over 1,300 distinct ethnic groups, including significant Austronesian and Melanesian cultures, contributing to its rich traditions, languages, and customs, Indonesia is a melting pot of diversity.
Positioned along ancient trade routes between the Far East, South Asia, and the Middle East, the country has absorbed cultural practices influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity.
These influences have created a complex cultural tapestry that often differs from the original indigenous cultures.

Examples of the fusion of Islam with Hinduism include Javanese Abangan belief.
Balinese dances have stories about ancient Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms, while Islamic art forms and architecture are present in Sumatra, especially in the Minangkabau and Aceh regions.
Traditional art, music, and sport are combined in a martial art form called Pencak Silat.
The Western world has influenced Indonesia in science, technology, and modern entertainment such as television shows, film, and music, as well as political systems and issues.

India has notably influenced Indonesian songs and movies.
A popular type of song is the Indian-rhythmical dangdut, which is often mixed with Arabic, Javanese, and Malay folk music.
Despite the influences of foreign culture, some remote Indonesian regions still preserve uniquely indigenous culture.
Indigenous ethnic groups Batak, Nias, Mentawai, Asmat, Dani, Sumba, Dayak, Toraja, and many others are still practicing their ethnic rituals, and customs and wearing traditional clothes.

Traditional performing arts

Music
Indonesia treasures a diverse range of traditional music, notably from Java and Bali, where gamelan holds a central place.
Originating in Java, gamelan is renowned for its intricate compositions and unique ensemble of instruments, including metallophones like gambang and bonang, as well as resonant gongs such as kenong and gong ageng.
Beyond its musical complexities, gamelan embodies profound cultural narratives and communal identities, playing a pivotal role in rituals, ceremonies, and local storytelling traditions.
The rhythmic patterns and melodic interplays reflect a deep connection to spiritual and social contexts, offering insight into the historical and philosophical underpinnings of Indonesian society.

UNESCO’s designation of gamelan as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity underscores its cultural importance in Indonesia.
In West Sumatra, traditional music includes the talempong and saluang of the Minangkabau people, used in ceremonies.
The Batak people in North Sumatra play instruments like the gondang (tuned drums), gordang sambilan and the hasapi (traditional lute).
In Sulawesi, the Toraja people use bamboo instruments, such as the pa’pompang flute. The Bugis and Makassar people of South Sulawesi play the Kacaping, a plucked string instrument.

In Kalimantan, the Dayak people have a rich musical heritage with instruments like the sape (traditional lute) and various gongs.
In Papua, traditional music often involves drums and bamboo flutes, reflecting their cultural and spiritual practices.
The angklung, a traditional musical instrument from West Java made from bamboo, has also received international recognition from UNESCO as part of the intangible cultural heritage.
In contrast, the Sasando from East Nusa Tenggara features an instrument made from a split leaf of the Lontar palm, resembling a harp and producing a soothing sound.

Kroncong is a traditional music genre in Indonesia, featuring guitars and ukuleles.
It was introduced by Portuguese traders in the 15th century.
Traditional “Keroncong Tugu” groups can be found in North Jakarta and Maluku, showcasing strong Portuguese influences. A modern variation of kroncong is known as Pop Kroncong.

Other notable traditional music genres in Indonesia include Tanjidor from Betawi culture in Jakarta, involving a brass and woodwind ensemble, and Jaipongan from West Java, combining Sundanese music with dance.
In the Maluku Islands, Sawat Lenso dance music blends Portuguese and local influences, featuring instruments like the rebana (tambourine) and the ukulele.

The music of Nias includes unique instruments such as the aramba (a type of gong) and the doli-doli (a type of slit drum).
On June 29, 1965, Koes Plus, a leading Indonesian pop group of the 1960s to 1980s, was imprisoned in Glodok, West Jakarta, for playing Western-style music.
After the resignation of President Sukarno, the law was rescinded, and in the 1970s, the Glodok prison was dismantled and replaced with a large shopping mall.

The story of Koes Plus highlights Indonesia’s evolving musical landscape and cultural exchanges.[15]
Dangdut, a genre that emerged in the 1970s, is a blend of local Indonesian music with Indian, Arabic, and Javanese, Malay influences. It is characterized by its distinct drum beat and flute melodies.
Dangdut has become one of the most popular music genres in Indonesia, known for its lively rhythms and often performed at various social gatherings and events.

Dance
Indonesian dance reflects the rich diversity of culture from the many ethnic groups that compose the nation of Indonesia.
The dances showcase Austronesian roots, Melanesian tribal dance forms, and influences from foreign countries such as the Indian subcontinent, Mainland China, and the Middle East, as well as European styles introduced during colonization.
With over 3,000 distinct dances, each ethnic group contributes its own unique styles and traditions. Indonesian dances can be categorized into three historical eras: the Prehistoric Era, the Hindu-Buddhist Era, and the Islamic Era, and they fall into two main genres: court dance and folk dance.[18]
Sumatra showcases a rich tapestry of traditional dances that highlight its cultural diversity. In West Sumatra, the Tari Piring (Plate Dance) demonstrates skill in balancing plates with graceful movements, symbolizing harmony and elegance.
Aceh’s Saman dance captivates with its fast-paced rhythm and synchronized movements performed by groups, embodying communal and spiritual values.

In 2011, UNESCO officially recognized Aceh’s traditional Saman dance as an Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
In North Sumatra, the lively Tor-tor dance, performed by the Batak people, is known for its energetic movements and significant ritualistic role.
Riau stands out with the elegant Melayu dance, characterized by graceful gestures often seen at ceremonial occasions. Meanwhile, Jambi and Bangka Belitung celebrate the Zapin dance, seamlessly blending Arabic influences with local traditions.
Gending Sriwijaya in South Sumatra preserves the cultural legacy of the ancient Srivijaya Empire through its rhythmic music and intricate choreography.[23]
In Java, court dances like Bedhaya and Serimpi are performed in the royal courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta.
Bedhaya, considered sacred, features slow, deliberate movements symbolizing harmony between earthly and divine realms.
Serimpi emphasizes grace and refinement, often depicting stories from Javanese mythology and royal traditions with elegant movements and intricate patterns.

The topeng dance (Mask Dance) is another prominent Javanese tradition where dancers wear masks portraying characters from Javanese folklore, history, and mythology.
Accompanied by traditional gamelan music, the dance combines dramatic and theatrical elements.
Gambyong dance, known for its graceful movements, is performed during ceremonies and celebrations in Central Java.
This dance conveys messages of joy and cultural pride, showcasing Javanese aesthetics and values influenced by Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic traditions that have shaped Java’s artistic landscape over the centuries.

Folk dances like Kuda Lumping feature performers mimicking riding horses made of woven bamboo.
This energetic dance, accompanied by lively gamelan music, highlights rhythmic movements that captivate audiences.
Reog, originating from Ponorogo, East Java, combines dance, drama, and elaborate costumes to depict mythical stories and mystical creatures with powerful movements and mesmerizing displays.[30][31]
In Bali, dance forms a fundamental aspect of the culture, encompassing various genres such as Wali (sacred dances), Bebali (semi-sacred dances), and Balih-balihan (entertainment dances). in 2015 UNESCO recognized three genres of traditional dance in Bali, as -Intangible cultural heritage.
The island’s dances are characterized by their profound spiritual significance and vibrant artistic expressions.
One of the most celebrated dances is the Legong, known for its delicate finger movements, intricate footwork, and expressive gestures that narrate mythical stories and cultural themes.

Another iconic Balinese dance is the Barong dance, a dramatic performance portraying the eternal battle between good (Barong) and evil (Rangda).
This dance is not only a cultural ritual but also a captivating theatrical spectacle that mesmerizes audiences with its elaborate costumes, dynamic choreography, and symbolic narrative.
The Kecak dance, also known as the “Ramayana Monkey Chant”, is another notable example of Bali’s rich dance heritage.
This unique dance-drama combines rhythmic chanting and synchronized movements of a large group of male performers, retelling episodes from the Hindu epic Ramayana.
The rhythmic chanting of “cak” creates a hypnotic atmosphere, making Kecak a distinctive and memorable cultural experience in Bali.

In Kalimantan, the Dayak people uphold rich cultural traditions through their captivating performances, one of which is the Hudoq dance.
This vibrant and intricate dance involves wearing elaborate masks and costumes designed to represent various spirits.
The Hudoq is not merely a performance but a profound spiritual ritual aimed at seeking blessings for a bountiful harvest.
The Kancet Papatai, which depicts scenes of bravery and heroism, is a significant part of Dayak culture.
This dance tells stories of ancient warriors and their battles, using energetic movements and traditional weaponry to convey a sense of valor and strength.
Kalimantan is also home to the Banjarese.

The Banjar people perform the Baksa kembang dance, a graceful and elegant performance that involves intricate hand movements and beautiful floral arrangements.
This dance is often performed at weddings, celebratory events, and to welcome guests, symbolizing beauty and prosperity.[38][39]
In Sulawesi, traditional dances serve as vibrant expressions of cultural heritage, offering unique insights into local traditions and values.
One such example is the Poco-Poco, originating from North Sulawesi, which has transcended borders to become popular, notably in Malaysia.
However, controversy erupted in early April 2011 when Malaysian Islamic clerics banned the Poco-Poco dance for Muslims, citing perceived Christian origins and concerns that its steps resembled the sign of the cross, despite Poco-Poco remaining a cherished part of social gatherings and community events in various regions..

In Central Sulawesi, the Dero dance promotes community unity through its circular formations and synchronized steps, often accompanied by lively music and chants at local festivals. Meanwhile, in South Sulawesi, the graceful Pakarena dance captivates audiences with its intricate storytelling conveyed through elegant movements and traditional costumes, preserving Bugis cultural narratives.
Additionally, the Paraga dance demonstrates impressive athleticism by blending acrobatic and martial arts-inspired movements, symbolizing cultural pride during festive occasions.

In the Maluku Islands, the cakalele dance, a warrior dance, is performed with shields and swords, reflecting the region’s martial traditions.[41]
In Papua, the Sajojo dance is widely recognized for its energetic and rhythmic foot movements, prominently featured at cultural events, festivals, and traditional celebrations across the region. Serving as both entertainment and a profound expression of Papuan cultural identity.
Another notable dance is the War Dance (Tarian Perang), performed by tribes such as the Dani and Yali.
This dance symbolizes bravery and valor, accompanied by rhythmic drumming and chanting, with dancers adorned in traditional attire embellished with feathers and shells, enhancing the visual and cultural impact of the performance.
Drama and theatre

The Wayang show, the traditional shadow puppet theatre of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese cultures, is a rich and ancient art form that showcases several mythological legends such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and many more.
These performances are deeply rooted in the cultural heritage of Indonesia and serve not only as entertainment but also as a means of conveying moral and philosophical lessons.
The shadow puppets, known as “wayang kulit,” are typically crafted from sheets of leather, which are meticulously carved and painted to create intricate designs.
These puppets are then mounted on bamboo sticks and manipulated behind a white screen with a light source behind it to cast shadows, creating the illusion of moving figures.

Traditional puppet makers, known as “dalang,” possess exceptional skills to craft these unique and intricate shadow puppets.
Another significant form of wayang theatre is Wayang wong, which translates to “human wayang.”
This form of Javanese theatre transforms the wayang stories into live dance drama performances featuring human actors.
Wayang wong combines elaborate costumes, expressive gestures, and traditional music to bring to life the mythical tales and moral teachings inherent in the wayang tradition.
The performers undergo rigorous training to master the precise movements and expressions required to convey the characters’ emotions and the story’s nuances.

Wayang performances are accompanied by a gamelan orchestra, which provides a rich and dynamic musical backdrop.
The music, along with the rhythmic narration by the dalang, enhances the overall atmosphere and emotional impact of the story.
The dalang, who is both a puppeteer and a storyteller, plays a crucial role in the performance. They not only manipulate the puppets but also provide voices for all the characters, deliver dialogue, and add sound effects, demonstrating remarkable dexterity and vocal versatility.
UNESCO designated Wayang the flat leather shadow puppet (wayang kulit) and the three-dimensional wooden puppet (wayang golek or wayang klitik) theatre, as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 7 November 2003.
In return for the acknowledgment, UNESCO required Indonesians to preserve the tradition.
Another form of local drama is Javanese Ludruk, originating in East Java, which blends comedy, drama, and audience interaction with improvised dialogue and local humor, making it a favorite among locals for its lively performances.

Ketoprak, another traditional Javanese theater form, integrates drama, music, dance, and comedy, often weaving Javanese folklore and moral teachings into its narratives, commonly staged in village squares or traditional markets. Sundanese Sandiwara, from West Java portrays historical or mythological tales through music, dance, and drama, offering insights into Sundanese culture. Betawi Lenong, from Jakarta, features humorous storytelling in the local dialect, often with satire and social commentary reflecting Betawi cultural values.
Ondel-ondel, a Betawi folk performance, showcases large puppet figures paraded during festivals, symbolizing Jakarta’s Betawi community spirit and cultural heritage.

These dramas are known for their humor and audience engagement, bringing communities together in celebration.
Randai is a folk theatre tradition of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, usually performed for traditional ceremonies and festivals.
It incorporates music, singing, dance, drama, and the “silek” or pencak silat martial art, with performances often based on semi-historical Minangkabau legends and love stories.

Bangsawan, found in Riau and other Malay-speaking regions, combines elements of drama, music, and dance.
It often features romantic or historical narratives, showcasing the region’s cultural heritage and its connections to wider Malay cultural traditions.
Various Balinese dance drama also can be included within the traditional form of Indonesian drama.
Modern performing art also developed in Indonesia with its distinct style of drama. Notable theatre, dance, and drama troupes such as Teater Koma are gaining popularity in Indonesia as their drama often portrays social and political satires of Indonesian society.[45]

Traditional visual arts

Painting
One of the oldest cave paintings in the world dating back more than 44,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic), was found in caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia).
The oldest types of cave paintings are hand stencils and simple geometric shapes.
In 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the then-oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.
In December 2019, however, figurative cave paintings depicting pig hunting in the Maros-Pangkep karst in Sulawesi were estimated to be even older, at at least 43,900 years old.
The finding was noted to be “the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world” Palindon Painting detail, an example of Kamasan-

Indonesian painting before the 19th century is mostly restricted to the decorative arts, considered to be a religious and spiritual activity, comparable to the pre-1400 European art.
Artists’ names are anonymous since the individual human creator was seen as far less important than their creation to honour the deities or spirits.
Some examples are the Kenyah decorative art, based on endemic natural motifs such as ferns and hornbills, found decorating the walls of Kenyah longhouses.
Another notable traditional art is the geometric Toraja wood carvings.

Balinese paintings are initially narrative images to depict scenes of Balinese legends and religious scripts.
Classical Balinese paintings are often decorating the lontar manuscripts and also the ceilings of temple pavilions.
Under the influence of the Dutch colonial power, a trend toward Western-style painting emerged in the 19th century.
In the Netherlands, the term “Indonesian Painting” is applied to the paintings produced by Dutch or other foreign artists who lived and worked in the former Netherlands-Indies.

The most famous indigenous 19th-century Indonesian painter is Raden Saleh (1807–1877), the first indigenous artist to study in Europe.
His art is heavily influenced by Romanticism, In the 1920s Walter Spies settled in Bali, he is often credited with attracting the attention of Western cultural figures to Balinese culture and art.
His works have somehow influenced Balinese artists and painters.
Today Bali has one of the most vivid and richest painting traditions in Indonesia.
The 1920s to 1940s were a time of growing nationalism in Indonesia.

The previous period of the Romanticism movement was not seen as a purely Indonesian movement and did not develop.
Painters began to see the natural world for inspiration.
Some examples of Indonesian painters during this period are the Balinese Ida Bagus Made and the realist Basuki Abdullah.
The Indonesian Painters Association (Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia or PERSAGI, 1938–1942) was formed during this period. PERSAGI established a contemporary art philosophy that saw artworks as reflections of the artist’s individual or personal view as well as an expression of national cultural thoughts.[53][54]

Woodcarving
The art of wood carving is quite well-developed in Indonesia.
Other than tribal art woodcarvings of Asmat, Batak, Dayak, Nias, and Toraja are well known for their refined wood carving culture; they are Jepara in Central Java and Bali.
Mas village near Ubud in Bali is renowned for its wood carving art.
Balinese woodcarving today has a sustained tourist market in Bali.

In South Papua, Asmat art consists of elaborate stylized wood carvings such as the bisj pole and is designed to honor ancestors.
Many Asmat artifacts have been collected by the world’s museums, among the most notable of which are those found in the Michael C. Rockefeller Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam.
Bisj poles are carved by Asmat religious carvers (wow-pits) after a member of their tribe or community has been killed and headhunted by an enemy tribe.
Carved out of a single piece of a wild mangrove tree, Bisj poles can reach heights of up to 25 feet (7.62 m). Their carvings depict human figures standing on top of each other, as well as animal figures, phallic symbols, and carvings in the shape of a canoe prow.
The Asmat participated in headhunting raids and cannibalism as rituals, many rituals involved the Bisj poles, including dancing, masquerading, singing and headhunting—all performed by men.

In North Sumatra, the people of Nias placed great value on wooden figures or adu.
The sole purpose of the Nias figures was to fulfill ritual needs, whether it is to ensure wealth or to perform specific beneficial rite. Niassan figures vary in size, from as small as 20 centimeters (7.9 in) in height to more than 2 meters (6.6 ft) tall.
When an elderly person died, the family would make a wooden statue known as adu zatua.
The statue was unveiled on the fourth day after the death of the person.

The shape of the wooden statue reflects the status of the person who used it: the more powerful the owner, the more impressive the statue will be.
Nias people believed that the deceased person’s spirits resided in the statue, so all events that occurred in the family were shared with the ancestor statues through prayers.
Ancestor statues were placed in the main room of the house, sometimes more than a hundred.
Missionary work in 1930 had recorded the removal of ‘over 2000 “idols” from the house of a new northern convert.’
Some missionaries even recorded houses collapsing under the weight of these ancestor figures. Small adu zatua were bound together horizontally using rattan and pegs.

Many ancestor figures were destroyed in 1916 by Christian missionary movements which saw them as an old blasphemous religious symbol.
Some were sold to collectors and can be found in museums or private collections around the world.
In Sulawesi, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa’ssura (or “the writing”).
One of the Toraja wood carvings is Tau tau, Tau tau is a kind of human statue made of wood or bamboo.
Torajans believe that the dead can take their possessions with them to the afterlife, the effigies are usually equipped with small possessions.
Traditionally, the effigies were simply carved, only to show the gender of the deceased.
However, they have become more and more elaborate, actually attempting to imitate the likeness of the deceased. Nowadays, Tau tau has a photographic likeness to the people they represent.

Sculpture
Indonesia has a long history of stone, bronze, and Iron Ages arts.
Indonesia has a rich history of Hindu–Buddhist sculpture and architecture that has been shaped by a complex fusion of local, indigenous culture combined with foreign customs.
Some Indonesian artifacts made from gold and bronze dating back to the 10th century are exhibited in the US.
The megalithic sculptures can be found in numerous archaeological sites in Sumatra, Java to Sulawesi.
The native Indonesian tribes have their own distinct tribal sculpture styles, usually created to depict ancestors, deities, and animals.
The stone sculpture art form particularly flourished in 8th-to-10th-century Java and Bali, which demonstrate the influences of Hindu-Buddhist culture, both as stand-alone works of art and also incorporated into temples.

The most notable sculptures of the classical Hindu-Buddhist era of Indonesia are the hundreds of meters of relief and hundreds of stone buddhas at the temple of Borobudur in central Java. Approximately two miles of exquisite relief sculpture tell the story of the life of Buddha and illustrate his teachings.
The temple was originally home to 504 statues of the seated Buddha.
Examples of notable Indonesian Hindu-Buddhist sculptures are; the statues of Hindu deities; Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Durga, Ganesha and Agastya enthroned in rooms of Prambanan temples, the Vishnu mounting Garuda statue of king Airlangga, the exquisite statue of Eastern Javanese Prajnaparamita and 3.7 meters tall Dvarapala dated from Singhasari period, and also the grand statue of Bhairava Adityawarman discovered in Sumatra.
Today, the Hindu-Buddhist style stone sculptures are reproduced in villages in Muntilan near Borobudur also in Trowulan the former capital site of Majapahit in East Java, and Bali, and sold as garden or pool ornament statues for homes, offices, and hotels.
The walls of candi also often displayed bas-reliefs, either serving as decorative elements as well as to conveying religious symbolic meanings; through describing narrative bas-reliefs.

The most exquisite of the temple bas-reliefs can be found in Hindu and Buddhist temples.
The first four terraces of Borobudur walls are showcases for bas-relief sculptures.
These are exquisite and considered to be the most elegant and graceful in the ancient Buddhist world.
The Buddhist scriptures are described as bas-reliefs in Borobudur such as Karmavibhangga (the law of karma), Lalitavistara (the birth of Buddha), Jataka, Avadana, and Gandavyuha.
In Prambanan the Hindu scriptures are described in their bas-relief panels; the Ramayana and Bhagavata Purana (popularly known as Krishnayana).
The bas-reliefs in Borobudur depicted many scenes of daily life in 8th-century ancient Java, from the courtly palace life, and hermit in the forest, to those of commoners in the village.

It also depicted a temple, marketplace, various flora and fauna, and also native vernacular architecture.
People depicted here are the images of kings, queens, princes, noblemen, courtiers, soldiers, servants, commoners, priests, and hermits.
The reliefs also depicted mythical spiritual beings in Buddhist beliefs such as asuras, gods, boddhisattvas, kinnaras, Gandharvas, and apsaras.
The images depicted on bas-relief often served as a reference for historians to research certain subjects, such as the study of architecture, weaponry, economy, fashion, and also the mode of transportation of 8th-century Maritime Southeast Asia.
One of the famous renderings of an 8th-century Southeast Asian double outrigger ship is the Borobudur Ship.

Architecture
For centuries, Indonesian vernacular architecture has shaped settlements in Indonesia which commonly took the form of timber structures built on stilts dominated by a large roof.
The most dominant foreign influences on Indonesian architecture were Indian, although European influences have been particularly strong since the 19th century and modern architecture in Indonesia is international in scope.
As in much of Southeast Asia, traditional vernacular architecture in Indonesia is built on stilts, with the significant exceptions of Java and Bali.

Notable stilt houses are those of the Dayak people in Borneo, the Rumah Gadang of the Minangkabau people in western Sumatra, the Rumah Bolon of the Batak people in northern Sumatra, and the Tongkonan of the Toraja people in Sulawesi.
Oversized saddle roofs with large eaves, such as the homes of the Batak and the tongkonan of Toraja, are often bigger than the houses they shelter.
The fronts of Torajan houses are frequently decorated with buffalo horns, stacked one above another, as an indication of status.
The outside walls also frequently feature decorative reliefs.
Candi is an Indonesian term to refer to ancient temples.

Before the rise of Islam, between the 5th to 15th centuries Dharmic faiths (Hinduism and Buddhism) were the majority in the Indonesian archipelago, especially in Java and Sumatra.
As a result of numerous Hindu temples, locally known as candi, were constructed and dominated the landscape of Java.
According to local beliefs, Java Valley had thousands of Hindu temples that co-existed with Buddhist temples, most of which were buried in the massive eruption of Mount Merapi in 1006 AD.
Between 1100 and 1500 additional Hindu temples were built but abandoned by Hindus and Buddhists as Islam spread in Java circa the 15th to 16th century.
The 8th-century Borobudur temple near Yogyakarta is the largest Buddhist temple in the world and is notable for incorporating about 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues into its structure, telling the story of the life of the Buddha.

As the visitor ascends through the eight levels of the temple, the story unfolds, the final three levels simply containing stupas and statues of the Buddha.
The building is said to incorporate a map of the Buddhist cosmos and is a masterful fusion of didactic narrative relief, spiritual symbolism, monumental design, and serene meditative environs.
The whole monument itself resembles a giant stupa, but seen from above it forms a mandala.
The nearby 9th-century temple complex at Prambanan contains some of the best-preserved examples of Hindu temple architecture in Java.
The temple complex comprises eight main shrines, surrounded by 224 smaller shrines.
The majority of Hindu temples in Java were dedicated to Shiva, who Javanese Hindus considered as the God who commands the energy to destroy, recombine, and recreate the cycle of life.
Small temples were often dedicated to Shiva and his family (wife Durga, son Ganesha).
Larger temple complexes include temples for Vishnu and Brahma, but the most majestic, sophisticated and central temple was dedicated to Shiva.

Crafts
Indonesia is considered as the home of world handicrafts.
Every ethnic group has its uniqueness, style, and philosophy of crafting.
Most of them are made from wood, bone, fabric, stone, and paper.
These natural materials were crafted using hands into profitable and aesthetic items.
Handicraft manufacturing serves not only as an important economic sector but also a tradition and has a social function as well.

The handicraft industry employs thousands of people in towns and villages across the country. About half a billion dollars worth of handicraft is exported every year, and many more is consumed domestically.
There are many varieties of handicrafts from other regions.
West Sumatra and South Sumatra are particularly noted for their songket cloths.
Villages in the Lesser Sunda Islands produce ikat while provinces in Kalimantan are long known for their basketry and weaving using rattan and other natural fabrics.
Wood art produced by the Asmat people of Papua is highly valued.

Cities along Java’s northern coast, Cirebon, Pekalongan, and Rembang are known as centers of batik.[63] Cirebon and Jepara are important cities in furniture, producing rattan and carved wood respectively, while Tasikmalaya is known for embroidery,
Pasuruan also produces furniture and other products and supports stores and galleries in Bali. Bandung and Surabaya, both modern, cosmopolitan, and industrialized cities—much like Jakarta but on a lesser scale—are creative cities with a variety of innovative startups.
Several Indonesian islands are famous for their batik, ikat, and songket cloth.
Once on the brink of disappearing, batik and later ikat, found a new lease on life when former President Suharto promoted wearing batik shirts on official occasions.

In addition to the traditional patterns with their special meanings, used for particular occasions, batik designs have become creative and diverse over the last few years.
Other noted Indonesian crafts are Jepara wood carving and Kris. In 2005, UNESCO recognized Kris as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity from Indonesia.
In 2012, Noken was listed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists as a cultural heritage of Indonesia.
Women carrying token are still a common sight in Wamena.
Being the best-known Indonesian sailing vessel, Phinisi became the tagline for the 2017 inscription of ”The Art of Boatbuilding in South Sulawesi” in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Clothing
Indonesia’s best-known national costumes are Batik and kebaya, although initially these costumes originated mainly from Javanese and Balinese culture, which are most prominent in Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese cultures.
Because Java has become the political center and population of Indonesia, the island’s folk costume has been raised to national status.
As a plural country, Indonesia has 38 provinces, each of which has representatives of traditional clothing from each province with unique and different designs.
National costumes are worn at official occasions and traditional ceremonies. each province in Indonesia – more completely each group in Indonesia, has its own traditional costumes.
The costumes of this area are in Indonesian called Pakaian traditional or Pakaian adat and are taken from traditional Indonesian textile traditions and crafts.

Batik
Batik is a cloth that is traditionally made using a manual wax-resist dyeing technique to form intricate patterns.
Traditionally batik cloth is a large piece of intricately decorated cloth used by Javanese women as kemben or torso wrap.
Batik cloth was wrapped around the hips with multiple folds in front called wiron, while the upper torso wore kebaya fitted dress.

Traditionally for men, the edge of batik cloth also can be sewn together to make a tubular cloth as sarong, or wrapped around hips as kain in a fashion similar to women’s.
Later for men, the batik cloth also is sewn and made into a contemporary batik man’s shirt. Today, Batik shirts, which are commonly worn by men in Indonesia (especially in Java), are usually worn during formal occasions; such as attending weddings, traditional ceremonies, formal meetings, communal gatherings, etc.
Batik is recognized as one of the important identities of Indonesian culture. UNESCO designated Indonesian batik as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 2 October 2009.[70]

Kebaya
The kebaya is the national costume of women from Indonesia, although it is more accurately endemic to the Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese peoples.
It is sometimes made from sheer material such as silk, thin cotton or semi-transparent nylon or polyester, adorned with brocade or floral pattern embroidery.
Kebaya is usually worn with a sarong or batik kain panjang, or other traditional woven garment such as ikat, songket with a colorful motif.
Kebaya is usually worn during official national events by Indonesian first ladies, wives of Indonesian diplomats, and Indonesian ladies. It also worn by Indonesian ladies attending traditional ceremonies and weddings.
During Balinese traditional ceremonies, Balinese women wore colorful Balinese-style kebaya with songket Bali.

Peci
The Peci, also known as songkok or kopiah, is a cap traditionally worn by male Muslims in the Indonesian archipelago.
It is quite similar to the Turkish-Egyptian fez.
In Indonesia, the black velvet peci has become the national headdress with nationalist connotations made popular by Sukarno.
Several Indonesian nationalist movement activists in the early 20th century, wore a peci to convey their nationalistic sentiments and to demonstrate their Indonesian identity.
Indonesian male presidents always wear a peci as part of their official presidential attire.
Since then, the black velvet peci is approved to be the national head-dress for Indonesian men.
It is worn all over Indonesia, especially by government officials and men (usually Muslim men) throughout the country.
The peci is usually worn with a batik shirt or Western-style suits by men in Indonesia for those attending formal occasions.

Foods
The cuisine of Indonesia has been influenced by Chinese culture and Indian culture, as well as by Western culture.
However, in return, Indonesian cuisine has also contributed to the cuisines of neighboring countries, notably Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, where Padang or Minangkabau cuisine from West Sumatra is very popular.
Also, Satay (Sate in Indonesian), which originated from Java, Madura, and Sumatra, has gained popularity as a street vendor food from Singapore to Thailand. In the 15th century, both the Portuguese and Arab traders arrived in Indonesia with the intention of trading for pepper and other spices.
During the colonial era, immigrants from many countries arrived in Indonesia and brought different cultures as well as cuisines.
Most native Indonesians eat rice as the main dish, with a wide range of vegetables and meat as side dishes.
However, in some parts of the country, such as Papua and Ambon, the majority of the people eat sago (a type of tapioca) and sweet potato.
Indonesian dishes are usually spicy, using a wide range of chilli peppers and spices.

The most popular dishes include nasi goreng (fried rice), Satay, Nasi Padang (a dish of Minangkabau) and soy-based dishes, such as tahu and tempe.
A unique characteristic of some Indonesian food is the application of spicy peanut sauce in their dishes, as a dressing for Gado-gado or Karedok (Indonesian style salad), or for seasoning grilled chicken satay.
Another unique aspect of Indonesian cuisine is using terasi or belacan, a pungent shrimp paste in dishes of sambal oelek (hot pungent chilli sauce).

The sprinkling of fried shallots also gives a uniquely crisp texture to some Indonesian dishes.
Chinese and Indian cultures have influenced the serving of food and the types of spices used.
It is very common to find Chinese food in Indonesia such as dimsum and noodles, and Indian cuisine such as Tandoori chicken.
In addition, Western culture has significantly contributed to the extensive range of dishes. However, the dishes have been transformed to suit Indonesian tastes.

For example, steaks are usually served with rice.
Popular fast foods such as Kentucky Fried Chicken are served with rice instead of bread and sambal (spicy sauce) instead of ketchup.
Some Indonesian foods have been adopted by the Dutch, like Indonesian rice table or ‘rijsttafel’.
In 2023/2024, TasteAtlas rated Indonesian cuisine as the sixth-best cuisine in the world. Indonesian cuisine is placed behind Italian, Japanese, Greek, Portuguese, and Chinese cuisines, making Indonesian the best-rated cuisine in Southeast Asia.

Mythology and folklores
The mythology of Indonesia is very diverse, the Indonesian people consist of hundreds of ethnic groups, each with their own myths and legends.
The stories within this system of lore often incorporate supernatural entities and magical creatures which form parts of Indonesian mythology.
Others relate to creation myths and place-naming legends that are often intertwined with historical figures and events.
Ancient rituals for healing and traditional medicine as well as complex philosophies regarding health and disease can also be found.
These native mythologies are relatively free from foreign influences, such as Torajans, Nias, Bataks, Dayaks and Papuans.

By contrast, Javanese, Balinese, and to some degree Sundanese were influenced by Hindu-Buddhist Indian mythology as early as the 1st century CE. Hindu gods, legends and epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata were adopted and adapted into a uniquely local form.
Hindu-Buddhist mythical beings have a role in Javanese and Balinese mythology, including Hindu gods and heroes, devatas, asuras, apsaras (known as hapsari or bidadari), kinnaras, etc., while native gods of nature such as Semar, Dewi Sri, and Nyai Loro Kidul are either given identified as their Hindu counterpart or incorporated into a Java-Bali Hindu pantheon unknown in India.

For example, native rice goddess Dewi Sri is identified with Lakshmi the shakti of Vishnu, and Semar and his sons the Punakawans are incorporated into the epic of Mahabharata in Javanese wayang kulit, as the clown servants of the Pandavas.
Several names refer to gods, such as Dewa (devas), Dewi (devi), dewata (devatas), and in native traditions usually referred to as Batara (male god) and Batari (female goddess).

After the coming of Islam to the Indonesian archipelago, Islamic mythology especially those dealing with spiritual beings, such as devils, demons, jinns, and angels entered Indonesian mythology.
In Sumatra, Malay, Aceh and Minangkabau mythology was almost entirely supplanted by Islamic mythology.
However, belief in local spirits such as the forest guardian, the ghost of water or haunted places still exists, often associated with a jinn or the tormented soul of a deceased human.
Source: wikipedia

 

Japanese Ceramics – Pottery ,Porcelain & Earthenware

Pottery and porcelain (陶磁器, tōjiki, also yakimono (焼きもの), or tōgei (陶芸)) is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period.
Types have included earthenware, pottery, stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware.

Japan has an exceptionally long and successful history of ceramic production. Earthenwares were made as early as the Jōmon period (10,500–300 BC), giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world.

Japan is further distinguished by the unusual esteem that ceramics hold within its artistic tradition, owing to the enduring popularity of the tea ceremony.
During the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1603), kilns throughout Japan produced ceramics with unconventional designs.

In the early Edo period, the production of porcelain commenced in the Hizen-Arita region of Kyushu, employing techniques imported from Korea.
These porcelain works became known as Imari wares, named after the port of Imari from which they were exported to various markets, including Europe.

Japanese ceramic history records the names of numerous distinguished ceramists, and some were artist-potters, e.g. Hon’ami Kōetsu, Ninsei, Ogata Kenzan, and Aoki Mokubei.[2] Japanese anagama kilns also have flourished through the ages, and their influence weighs with that of the potters.
Another important Japanese constituent of the art is the continuing popularity of unglazed high-fired stoneware even after porcelain became popular.

Since the 4th century AD, Japanese ceramics have often been influenced by the artistic sensibilities of neighboring East Asian civilizations such as Chinese and Korean-style pottery. Japanese ceramists and potters took inspiration from their East Asian artistic counterparts by transforming and translating the Chinese and Korean prototypes into a uniquely Japanese creation, with the resultant form being distinctly Japanese.

Since the mid-17th century when Japan started to industrialize,[3] high-quality standard wares produced in factories became popular exports to Europe.
In the 20th century, a homegrown cottage ceramics industry began to take root and emerge. Major Japanese ceramic companies include Noritake and Toto Ltd..

Japanese pottery is distinguished by two polarized aesthetic traditions.
On the one hand, there is a tradition of very simple and roughly finished pottery, mostly in earthenware and using a muted palette of earth colours.
This relates to Zen Buddhism and many of the greatest masters were priests, especially in the early periods.
Many pieces are also related to the Japanese tea ceremony and embody the aesthetic principles of wabi-sabi.

Most raku ware, where the final decoration is partly random, is in this tradition.
The other tradition is of highly finished and brightly colored factory wares, mostly in porcelain, with complex and balanced decoration, which distinctly develops Chinese porcelain styles.
A third tradition, of simple but perfectly formed and glazed stonewares, also relates more closely to both Chinese and Korean traditions.

In the 16th century, several styles of traditional utilitarian rustic wares then in production became admired for their simplicity, and their forms have often been kept in production to the present day for a collectors market.

Ceramic types
The types of ceramics can be divided into five groups:
unglazed earthenware
glazed earthenware (施和的器 seyūtōki or 低火度前 teikadoyū): fired at relatively low temperatures of 800-900°C using lead as the medium, the technique was introduced from the Korean peninsula in the 7th century. Sansai (三彩) is another type of technique using lead glaze.

unglazed stoneware (焼き締め陶窓 yakishime tōki): fired at high temperatures without applying a coat of glaze. In the Middle Ages, it was used for living utensils such as vases, pots and other everyday items, and in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, it was modified for use in tea rooms due to its simple taste.

glazed stoneware (施和陶器 seyūtōki or 高火度和 kōkadoyū): fired at temperatures of 1250°C or higher. In many cases, the base is not pure white, but grey or brown in color. It has a softer texture than porcelain and absorbs some water.

porcelain (磁器 jiki): a white color with a high silica content and few impurities. Hardware made by firing clay at high temperatures. The technique was introduced from the Korean peninsula at the beginning of the Edo period and production began in Arita, Hizen Province, Kyushu.[7]

Vessel types
Some of the typical vessel (器 utsuwa) types are: teabowl, jar, bowl, teacaddy.
The various features of a vessel such as the opening, rim, neck, wall, inside, foot, surface markings, etc. all have standardised names in Japanese.

History

Jōmon period
In the Neolithic period (c. 11th millennium BC), the earliest soft earthenware was made.
During the early Jōmon period in the 6th millennium BC typical coil-made ware appeared, decorated with hand-impressed rope patterns.
Jōmon pottery developed a flamboyant style at its height and was simplified in the later Jōmon period.
The pottery was formed by coiling clay ropes and fired in an open fire.

Yayoi period
In about the 4th–3rd centuries BC Yayoi period, Yayoi pottery appeared which was another style of earthenware characterized by a simple pattern or no pattern. Jōmon, Yayoi, and later Haji ware shared the firing process but had different styles of design.

Kofun period
In the 3rd to 4th centuries AD, the anagama kiln, a roofed-tunnel kiln on a hillside, and the potter’s wheel appeared, brought to Kyushu island from the Korean peninsula.
The anagama kiln could produce stoneware, Sue pottery, fired at high temperatures of over 1,200–1,300 °C (2,190–2,370 °F), sometimes embellished with accidents produced when introducing plant material to the kiln during the reduced-oxygen phase of firing.
Its manufacture began in the 5th century and continued in outlying areas until the 14th century. Although several regional variations have been identified, Sue was remarkably homogeneous throughout Japan.

The function of Sue pottery, however, changed over time: during the Kofun period (AD 300–710) it was primarily funerary ware; during the Nara period (710–94) and the Heian period (794–1185), it became an elite tableware; and finally it was used as a utilitarian ware and for the ritual vessels for Buddhist altars.
Contemporary Haji ware and haniwa funerary objects were earthenware like Yayoi.

Heian period
Although a three-color lead glaze technique was introduced to Japan from the Tang dynasty of China in the 8th century, official kilns produced only simple green lead glaze for temples in the Heian period, around 800–1200.
Kamui ware appeared in this time, as well as Atsumi ware and Tokoname ware.

Kamakura period
Until the 17th century, unglazed stoneware was popular for the heavy-duty daily requirements of a largely agrarian society; funerary jars, storage jars, and a variety of kitchen pots typify the bulk of the production.

Some of the kilns improved their technology and are called the “Six Old Kilns”: Shigaraki (Shigaraki ware), Tamba, Bizen, Tokoname, Echizen, and Seto.
Among these, the Seto kiln in Owari Province (present-day Aichi Prefecture) had a glaze technique.

According to legend, Katō Shirozaemon Kagemasa (also known as Tōshirō) studied ceramic techniques in China and brought high-fired glazed ceramic to Seto in 1223.
The Seto kiln primarily imitated Chinese ceramics as a substitute for the Chinese product. It developed various glazes: ash brown, iron black, feldspar white, and copper green.
The wares were so widely used that Seto-mono (“product of Seto”) became the generic term for ceramics in Japan.

Seto kiln also produced unglazed stoneware. In the late 16th century, many Seto potters fleeing the civil wars moved to Mino Province in the Gifu Prefecture, where they produced glazed pottery: Yellow Seto (Ki-Seto), Shino, Black Seto (Seto-Guro), and Oribe ware.

Muromachi period
According to chronicles in 1406, the Yongle Emperor (1360–1424) of the Ming dynasty bestowed ten Jian ware bowls from the Song dynasty to the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), who ruled during the Muromachi period.

A number of Japanese monks who traveled to monasteries in China also brought pieces back home. As they became valued for tea ceremonies, more pieces were imported from China where they became highly prized goods.
Five of these vessels from the Southern Song dynasty are so highly valued that they were included by the government in the list of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: others).
Jian ware was later produced and further developed as tenmoku and was highly-priced during tea ceremonies of this time.

Azuchi-Momoyama period
From the middle of the 11th century to the 16th century, Japan imported much Chinese celadon greenware, white porcelain, and blue-and-white ware.
Japan also imported Chinese pottery as well as Korean and Vietnamese ceramics.
Such Chinese ceramics (tenmoku) were regarded as sophisticated items, which the upper classes used in the tea ceremony.

The Japanese also ordered custom-designed ceramics from Chinese kilns.
Highly-priced imports also came from Luzon and were called Rusun-yaki or “Luzon ware”, as well as Annan from Annam, northern Vietnam.[12]

Sengoku period
With the rise of Buddhism in the late 16th century, leading tea masters introduced a change of style and favored humble Korean tea bowls and domestic ware over sophisticated Chinese porcelain.
The influential tea master Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591) turned to native Japanese styles of simple rustic pottery, often imperfect, which he admired for their “rugged spontaneity”, a “decisive shift” of enormous importance for the development of Japanese pottery.

The Raku family (named after the pottery rather than the other way around) supplied brown-glazed earthenware tea bowls. Mino, Bizen, Shigaraki (Shigaraki ware), Iga (similar to Shigaraki), and other domestic kilns also supplied tea utensils. The artist-potter Hon’ami Kōetsu made several tea bowls now considered masterpieces.

During Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s 1592 invasion of Korea, Japanese forces brought Korean potters as slaves to Japan.
According to tradition, one of the kidnapped, Yi Sam-pyeong, discovered a source of porcelain clay near Arita and was able to produce the first Japanese porcelain.
These potters also brought improved kiln technology in the noborigama or rising kiln, running up a hillside and enabling temperatures of 1,400 °C (2,550 °F) to be reached.[14]
Soon the Satsuma, Hagi, Karatsu, Takatori, Agano, and Arita kilns were begun.

Edo period
In the 1640s, rebellions in China and wars between the Ming dynasty and the Manchus damaged many kilns, and in 1656–1684 the new Qing dynasty government stopped trade by closing its ports.
Chinese potter refugees were able to introduce refined porcelain techniques and enamel glazes to the Arita kilns.

From 1658, the Dutch East India Company looked to Japan for blue-and-white porcelain to sell in Europe (see Imari porcelain).
At that time, the Arita kilns like the Kakiemon kiln could not yet supply enough quality porcelain to the
Dutch East India Company, but they quickly expanded their capacity.
From 1659 to 1740, the Arita kilns were able to export enormous quantities of porcelain to Europe and Asia.

Gradually the Chinese kilns recovered and developed their own styles of the highly coloured enamelled wares that Europeans found so attractive, including famille rose, famille verte, and the rest of that group.
From about 1720 Chinese and European kilns also began to imitate the Imari enamelled style at the lower end of the market, and by about 1740 the first period of Japanese export porcelain had all but ceased.

The Arita kilns also supplied domestic utensils such as the so-called Ko-Kutani enamelware.
Porcelain was also exported to China, much of which was resold by Chinese merchants to the other European “East Indies Companies” which were not allowed to trade in Japan itself.

It has been suggested that the choice of such items was mainly dictated by Chinese taste, which preferred Kakiemon to “Imari” wares, accounting for a conspicuous disparity in early European collections that can be reconstructed between Dutch ones and those of other countries, such as England, France and Germany.

Imari
Because Imari was the shipping port, some porcelain, for both export and domestic use, was called Ko-Imari (old Imari).
The European custom has generally been to call blue and white wares “Arita” and blue, red, and gold ones “Imari”, though both were often made in the same kilns arong Arita.

In 1759 the dark red enamel pigment known as bengara became industrially available, leading to a
In 1675, the local Nabeshima family who ruled Arita established a personal kiln to make top-quality enamelware porcelain for the upper classes in Japan, which is called Nabeshima ware. This uses mainly decoration in traditional Japanese styles, often drawing from textiles, rather than the Chinese-derived styles of most Arita ware.

Hirado
Hirado ware was another kind of porcelain initially reserved for presentation as political gifts among the elite, concentrating on very fine painting in blue on an unusually fine white body, for which scroll painters were hired.
These two types represented the finest porcelain produced after the export trade stalled by the 1740s. Unlike Nabeshima ware, Hirado went on to be a significant exporter in the 19th century.

During the 17th century, in Kyoto, then Japan’s imperial capital, kilns produced only clear lead-glazed pottery that resembled the pottery of southern China.
Among them, potter Nonomura Ninsei invented an opaque overglaze enamel and with temple patronage was able to refine many Japanese-style designs.

His disciple Ogata Kenzan invented an idiosyncratic arts-and-crafts style and took Kyōyaki (Kyoto ceramics) to new heights.
Their works were the models for later Kyōyaki.

Although porcelain bodies were introduced to Kyōyaki by Okuda Eisen, overglazed pottery still flourished. Aoki Mokubei, Ninami Dōhachi (both disciples of Okuda Eisen) and Eiraku Hozen expanded the repertory of Kyōyaki.
In the late 18th to early 19th century, white porcelain clay was discovered in other areas of Japan and was traded domestically, and potters were allowed to move more freely.

Local lords and merchants established many new kilns (e.g., Kameyama kiln and Tobe kiln) for economic profit, and old kilns such as Seto restarted as porcelain kilns.
These many kilns are called “New Kilns” and they popularized porcelain in the style of the Arita kilns among the common folk.

Meiji period
During the international openness of the Meiji period, Japanese arts and crafts had a new audience and set of influences.
Traditional patrons such as the daimyō class broke away and many of the artisans lost their source of income.
The government took an active interest in the art export market, promoting Japanese arts at a succession of world fairs, beginning with the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair.

The Imperial Household also took an active interest in arts and crafts, appointing Imperial Household Artists and commissioning works (“presentation wares”) as gifts for foreign dignitaries.
Most of the works promoted internationally were in the decorative arts, including pottery.

Satsuma ware was a name originally given to pottery from Satsuma province, elaborately decorated with overglaze enamels and gilding.
These wares were highly praised in the West. Seen in the West as distinctively Japanese, this style actually owed a lot to imported pigments and Western influences and had been created with export in mind.

Workshops in many cities raced to produce this style to satisfy demand from Europe and America, often producing quickly and cheaply.
So the term “Satsuma ware” came to be associated not with a place of origin but with lower-quality ware created purely for export.

Despite this, there were artists such as Yabu Meizan and Makuzu Kōzan who maintained the highest artistic standards while also successfully exporting.
These artists won multiple awards at international exhibitions.]
Meizan used copper plates to create detailed designs and repeatedly transferred them to the pottery, sometimes decorating a single object with a thousand motifs.

Japan’s porcelain industry was well-established at the start of the Meiji period, but the mass-produced wares were not known for their elegance.
During this era, technical and artistic innovations turned porcelain into one of the most internationally successful Japanese decorative art forms.
A lot of this is due to Makuzu Kōzan, known for Satsuma ware, who from the 1880s onwards introduced new technical sophistication to the decoration of porcelain, while committed to preserving traditional artistic values.

During the 1890s he developed a style of decoration that combined multiple underglaze colours on each item.
The technical sophistication of his underglazes increased during this decade as he continued to experiment.[29] In the decade from 1900 to 1910 there was a substantial change in the shape and decoration of his works, reflecting Western influences..
His work strongly influenced Western perceptions of Japanese design.

Taishō period
Japanese pottery strongly influenced British studio potter Bernard Leach (1887–1979), who is regarded as the “Father of British studio pottery”:.
He lived in Japan from 1909 to 1920 during the Taishō period and became the leading Western interpreter of Japanese pottery and in turn influenced a number of artists abroad.

Shōwa period
During the early Shōwa period, the folk art movement mingei (民芸) developed, starting in the late 1920s and 1930s. Its founding father was Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961).

He rescued lowly pots used by commoners in the Edo and Meiji periods that were disappearing in rapidly urbanizing Japan. Shōji Hamada (1894–1978) was a potter who was a major figure of the mingei movement, establishing the town of Mashiko as a renowned center for Mashiko ware. Other influential potter in this movement were Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966) and Tatsuzō Shimaoka (1919–2007).

These artists studied traditional glazing techniques to preserve native wares in danger of disappearing.
One of the most critical moments was during the Pacific War when all resources went towards the war efforts, production and development became severely hampered and the markets suffered.

Heisei period to present
A number of institutions came under the aegis of the Cultural Properties Protection Division.
The kilns at Tamba, overlooking Kobe, continued to produce the daily wares used in the Tokugawa period, while adding modern shapes.
Most of the village wares were made anonymously by local potters for utilitarian purposes.
Local styles, whether native or imported, tended to be continued without alteration into the present.

In Kyūshū, kilns set up by Korean potters in the 16th century, such as at Koishiwara, Fukuoka and its offshoot at Onta ware, perpetuated 16th-century Korean peasant wares. In Okinawa, the production of village ware continued under several leading masters, with Kinjo Jiro honored as a ningen kokuho (人間国宝, lit. ’living cultural treasures’, officially a Preserver of Important Intangible Cultural Properties).

The modern potters operate in Shiga, Iga, Karatsu, Hagi, and Bizen.
Yamamoto Masao (Toushuu) of Bizen and Miwa Kyusetsu of Hagi were designated ningen kokuho. Only a half-dozen potters had been so honored by 1989, either as representatives of famous kiln wares or as creators of superlative techniques in glazing or decoration; two groups were designated for preserving the wares of distinguished ancient kilns.

In the old capital of Kyoto, the Raku family continued to produce the rough tea bowls that had so delighted Hideyoshi.
At Mino, potters continued to reconstruct the classic formulas of Momoyama period Seto-type tea wares of Mino, such as the Oribe ware copper-green glaze and Shino ware’s prized milky glaze. Artist potters experimented at the Kyoto and Tokyo arts universities to recreate traditional porcelain and its decorations under such ceramic teachers as Fujimoto Yoshimichi, a ningen kokuho.

Ancient porcelain kilns around Arita in Kyūshū were still maintained by the lineage of Sakaida Kakiemon XIV and Imaizumi Imaemon XIII, hereditary porcelain makers to the Nabeshima clan; both were heads of groups designated mukei bunkazai (無形文化財, see Kakiemon and Imari porcelain).

British artist Lucie Rie (1902–1995) was influenced by Japanese pottery and Bernard Leach and was also appreciated in Japan with a number of exhibitions.
British artist Edmund de Waal (b. 1964) studied Leach and spent several years in Japan studying the mingei style. Thomas Bezanson from Canada was influenced by it.

In contrast, by the end of the 1980s, many studio potters no longer worked at major or ancient kilns but were making classic wares in various parts of Japan. In Tokyo, a notable example is Tsuji Seimei, who brought his clay from Shiga but potted in the Tokyo area.

Many artists were engaged in reconstructing Chinese styles of decoration or glazes, especially the blue-green celadon and the watery-green qingbai.
One of the most beloved Chinese glazes in Japan is the chocolate-brown tenmoku glaze that covered the peasant tea bowls brought back from southern Song China (in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) by Zen monks.

For their Japanese users, these chocolate-brown wares embodied the Zen aesthetic of wabi (rustic simplicity). In the United States, an example of the use of tenmoku glazes are pots thrown by Japanese-born artist Hideaki Miyamura.

Raw materials
Raw materials are chosen largely based on local availability.
There is an abundance of many basics in Japan.
Due to naturally occurring kaolin deposits, many clays are found in Kyushu.

Kilns were traditionally built at the sites of clay deposits, and most studio potters still use local clays, having developed a range of glazes and decoration techniques specially suited to that clay.
Raw materials found in the Japanese archipelago range from those suitable for earthenwares to more refractory kaolins.

From the Jōmon period to the Yayoi period, Japanese potters relied on high plastic iron-bearing shale and alluvial clays.
Organic materials appear in much of the early Jōmon period work, but sand or crushed stone predominates thereafter.

Further refinements came about under the Chinese influence in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, when creators of Nara three-color wares and Heian ash glazed wares sought out white, refractory clays and enhanced their fineness through levigation.

Traditional shaping methods
The earliest pieces were made by pressing the clay into shape.
This method continued to be employed after the invention of the wheel, such as when producing Rengetsu ware.
Coiled methods developed in the Jōmon period.
Production by kneading and cutting slabs developed later, for example, for haniwa clay figures.

Coil and throw
At Koishibara, Onda, and Tamba, large bowls and jars are first roughly coil-built on the wheel, then shaped by throwing, in what is known as the “coil and throw technique”.
The preliminary steps are the same as for coil building, after which the rough form is lubricated with slip and shaped between the potter’s hands as the wheel revolves.

The process dates back 360 years to a Korean technique brought to Japan following Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea.

Tools
Generally fashioned out of fast-growing bamboo or wood, these tools for shaping pottery have a natural feel that is highly appealing.
While most are Japanese versions of familiar tools in the West, some are unique Japanese inventions.

• Gyūbera or “cows’ tongues” are long sled-shaped bamboo ribs used to compress the bottoms and shape the sides of straight-sided bowls. They are a traditional tool from Arita, Kyushu.
• Marugotes are round, shallow clam shell-shaped bamboo ribs used to shape the sides of curved bowls. They can also be used to compress the bottoms of thrown forms.
• Dango, similar to wooden ribs, are leaf-shaped bamboo ribs used to shape and smooth the surfaces of a pot.
• Takebera are bamboo trimming and modeling “knives” available in several different shapes for carving, cleaning up wet pots, cutting, and for producing sgraffito effects.
• Tonbo, “dragonflies”, are the functional equivalent of Western calipers with an added feature. Suspended from a takebera or balanced on the rim of a pot, these delicate bamboo tools are used for measuring both the diameter and the depth of thrown forms.
• Yumi are wire and bamboo trimming harps that double as a fluting tool. They are used to cut off uneven or torn rims as well as to facet leather-hard forms.
• Tsurunokubi, “cranes’ necks”, are s-curved Japanese wooden throwing sticks used to shape the interiors of narrow-necked pieces such as bottles and certain vases.
• Kanna are cutting, carving, and incising tools made of iron and used to trim pieces, for carving, sgraffito and for scraping off excess glaze.
• A tsuchikaki is a large looped ribbon tool made of iron that can be used for trimming as well as carving.
• An umakaki is a trimming harp used to level flat, wide surfaces, such as the bottom of a shallow dish or plate.
• Kushi are not strictly throwing tools; these combs are used to score a minimum of two decorative parallel lines on pot surfaces. The largest combs have about 20 teeth.
• A take bon bon is also not a throwing tool, but a Japanese slip-trailer. A take bon bon is a high-capacity bamboo bottle with a spout from which slip and glaze can be poured out in a steady, controlled stream so the potter can “draw” with it.
  Source: Wikipedia

 

Korean arts include traditions in calligraphy, music, painting and pottery, often marked by the use of natural forms, surface decoration and bold colors or sounds.
The earliest examples of Korean art consist of Stone Age works dating from 3000 BC.

These mainly consist of votive sculptures and more recently, petroglyphs, which were rediscovered.
This early period was followed by the art styles of various Korean kingdoms and dynasties. Korean artists sometimes modified Chinese traditions with a native preference for simple elegance, spontaneity, and an appreciation for purity of nature.

Goryeo
The Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) was one of the most prolific periods for a wide range of disciplines, especially pottery.
The Korean art market is concentrated in the Insadong district of Seoul where over 50 small galleries exhibit and occasional fine arts auctions.
Galleries are cooperatively run, small and often with curated and finely designed exhibits.
In every town there are smaller regional galleries, with local artists showing in traditional and contemporary media.
Art galleries usually have a mix of media.
Attempts at bringing Western conceptual art into the foreground have usually had their best success outside of Korea in New York, San Francisco, London and Paris.

History
Professionals have begun to acknowledge and sort through Korea’s own unique art culture and important role in not only transmitting Chinese culture, but also assimilating and creating a unique culture of its own. “An art given birth to and developed by a nation is its own art”.

Neolithic era
Humans have occupied the Korean Peninsula from at least c. 50,000 BC.
Pottery dated to approximately 7,000 BC has been found.
This pottery was made from clay and fired over open or semi-open pits at temperatures around 700 degrees Celsius.
The earliest pottery style, dated to circa 7,000 BC, were flat-bottomed wares (yunggi-mun) were decorated with relief designs, raised horizontal lines and other impressions.[6]
Jeulmun-type pottery, is typically cone-bottomed and incised with a comb-pattern appearing circa 6,000 BC in the archaeological record.
This type of pottery is similar to Siberian styles. Mumun-type pottery emerged approximately 2000 BC and is characterized as large, undecorated pottery, mostly used for cooking and storage.

Bronze Age
Between 2000 BC and 300 BC bronze items began to be imported and made in Korea.
By the seventh century BC, an indigenous bronze culture was established in Korea as evidenced by Korean bronze having a unique percentage of zinc.
Items manufactured during this time were weapons such as swords, daggers, and spearheads. Also, ritual items such as mirrors, bells, and rattles were made.
These items were buried in dolmens with the cultural elite.
Additionally, iron-rich red pots began to be created around circa 6th century. Comma-shaped beads, usually made from nephrite, known as kokkok have also been found in dolmen burials. Kokkok may be carved to imitate bear claws.
Another Siberian influence can be seen in rock drawings of animals that display a “life line” in the X-ray style of Siberian art.[6]

Iron Age
The Korean Iron Age began around the 5th to 4th century BC with the arrival of the Chinese iron culture; it most likely began through the contacts with the North-East Chinese state of Yan and was later developed through the Chinese Lelang Commandery.
Koreans have always tried to import Chinese technology and reshape it in their own in order to make it uniquely Korean and develop new technology.

The introduction of Chinese iron culture contributed to the rapid development of ancient Korea.
The Koreans then localized the Chinese iron culture into a new form of Korean iron casting technology.
By 300 BC, iron was widely used in Korea; however, the Iron culture of Korea continued to be deeply influenced by China which is attested by numerous archeological artifacts.
Korean pottery advanced with the introduction of the potter’s wheel and climbing kiln firing.
This period began circa 57 BC to 668 AD. Three Korean kingdoms, Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla vied for control over the peninsula.

Goguryeo
Buddhist missionaries introduced Buddhism to Goguryeo in 372 CE, which then covered the central and southern parts of Manchuria and the northern half of modern-day Korea.
As Buddhism infiltrated the culture, Goguryeo kings began commissioning art and architecture dedicated to Buddha.
A notable aspect of Goguryeo art are tomb murals that vividly depict everyday aspects of life in the Korean ancient kingdom as well as its culture. UNESCO designated the Complex of Koguryo Tombs as a World Heritage Site.

Goguryeo painting also inspired the creation of similar works in other parts of East Asia, like Japan.
This can be seen in the wall murals of Horyu-ji which show its Goguryeo influence.
Mural painting also spread to the other two kingdoms.
These murals reveal valuable clues about the Goguryeo kingdom including the importance of Buddhism, its architecture, and the clothing commonly worn at the time. These murals were also the very beginnings of Korean landscape paintings and portraiture.
However, because the tombs were easily accessed, its treasures were looted leaving very few physical artifacts.

Baekje
Baekje (or Paekche) is considered the kingdom with the greatest art among the three states. Baekje was a kingdom in southwestern Korea and was influenced by southern Chinese dynasties, such as the Liang dynasty.
Baekje was also one of the kingdoms to introduce a significant Korean influence into the art of Japan during this period.
Baekje Buddhist sculpture is characterized by its naturalness, warmness, and harmonious proportions and exhibits a unique Korean style..
Another example of Korean influence is the use of the distinctive “Baekje smile”, a mysterious and unique smile that is characteristic of many Baekje statutes.

While there are no surviving examples of wooden architecture, the Mireuksa site holds the foundation stones of a destroyed temple and two surviving granite pagodas that show what Baekje architecture may have look.
An example of Baekje architecture may be gleaned from the Horyu-ji temple because Baekje architects and craftsmen helped design and construct the original temple.
The tomb of King Muryeong held a treasure trove of artifacts not looted by grave robbers.
Among the items were flame-like gold pins, gilt-bronze shoes, gold girdles (a symbol of royalty), and swords with gold hilts with dragons and phoenixes.

Silla
The Silla Kingdom was the most isolated kingdom from the Korean peninsula because it was situated in the southeastern part of the peninsula.
Because of Silla’s geographic location on the peninsula, the kingdom was the last to adopt Buddhism and foreign cultural influences into their society.
The Silla Kingdom tombs were mostly inaccessible and so many examples of Korean art came from this kingdom.
The Silla craftsman were famed for their gold-crafting ability which have similarities to Etruscan and Greek techniques, as exemplified by gold earrings and crowns.

Because of Silla gold artifacts bearing similarities to European techniques along with glass and beads depicting blue-eyed people found in royal tombs, many believe that the Silk Road went all the way to Korea.
Most notable objects of Silla art are its gold crowns that are made from pure gold and have tree and antler-like adornments that suggest a Scythe-Siberian and Korean shamanistic tradition.

Gaya
The Gaya confederacy was a group of city-states that did not consolidate into a centralized kingdom.
It shared many similarities in its art, such as crowns with tree-like protrusions which are seen in Baekje and Silla.
Many of the artifacts unearthed in Gaya tumuli are artifacts related to horses, such as stirrups, saddles, and horse armor. Ironware was best plentiful in this period than any other age.
North-South States
North South States Period (698–926 CE) refers to the period in Korean history when Silla and Balhae coexisted in the southern and northern part of Korea, respectively.

Unified Silla
Unified Silla (668–935) was a time of great artistic output in Korea, especially in Buddhist art. Examples include the Seokguram grotto and the Bulguksa temple.
Two pagodas on the ground, the Seokgatap and Dabotap are also unique examples of Silla masonry and artistry.
Craftsmen also created massive temple bells, reliquaries, and statutes.
The capital city of Unified Silla was nicknamed the “city of gold” because of the use of gold in many objects of art.
Balhae

The composite nature of the northern Korean Kingdom of Balhae (698–926) art can be found in the two tombs of Balhae Princesses.
Shown are some aristocrats, warriors, musicians and maids of the Balhae people, who are depicted in the mural painting in the Tomb of Princess Jeonghyo, a daughter of King Mun (737-793), the third monarch of the kingdom.
The murals displayed the image of the Balhae people in its completeness.

The remains of ten Buddhist temples have been found in the remains of the capital of Balhae, Sanggyeong, together with such Buddhist artifacts as Buddha statuettes and stone lanterns, which suggests that Buddhism played a predominant role in the life of the Balhae people.
The Balhae tomb Majeokdal in Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, are associated with pagodas and temples:
This also indicates that Buddhism had a strong influence over the funerary rituals in Balhae.

Goryeo dynasty
The Goryeo dynasty lasted from 918 CE to 1392. The most famous art produced by Goryeo artisans was Korean celadon pottery which was produced from circa 1050 CE to 1250 CE. While celadon originated in China, Korean potters created their own unique style of pottery. Jinsa “underglaze red”, a technique using copper oxide pigment to create copper-red designs, was developed in Korea during the 12th century and later inspired the “underglaze red” ceramics of the Yuan dynasty.

The Korean celadon had a unique glaze known as the “king-fisher” color, an iron-based blue-green glaze created by reducing oxygen in the kiln.
Korean celadon displayed organic shapes and free-flowing style, such as pieces that were made to look like fish, melons, and other animals.
Koreans invented an inlaid technique known as sanggam, where potters would engrave semi-dried pottery with designs and place materials within the decorations with black or white clay.

During this period, the Korean craft of inlaid lacquerware, najeonchilgi, is said to have peaked.
Lacquerware was densely adorned with tiny, floral shapes made of sea turtle shells and mother-of-pearl.
To produce the designs on a single lacquered box, currently held at the National Palace Museum of Korea in Seoul, artisans utilized about 45,000 fragments of mother of pearl.

Joseon dynasty
The influence of Confucianism superseded that of Buddhism in this period.
However, Buddhist elements remained. Buddhist art did not decline, but continued and was encouraged, but not by the imperial centers of art, or the accepted taste of the Joseon dynasty publicly.
However, in private homes and in the summer palaces of the Joseon dynasty kings, the simplicity of Buddhist art was given great appreciation – but it was not seen as citified art.
While the Joseon dynasty began under military auspices, Goreyo styles were let to evolve, and Buddhist iconography (bamboo, orchid, plum and chrysanthemum; and the familiar knotted good luck symbols) were still a part of genre paintings.
Neither colors nor forms had any real change, and rulers stood aside from edicts on art.
Ming ideals and imported techniques continued in early dynasty idealized works.
Mid-dynasty painting styles moved towards increased realism.
A national painting style of landscapes called “true view” began – moving from the traditional Chinese style of idealized general landscapes to particular locations exactly rendered.
While not photographic, the style was academic enough to become established and supported as a standardized style in Korean painting.
The mid-to late-Joseon dynasty is considered the golden age of Korean painting.
It coincides with the shock of the collapse of the Ming dynasty linked with the Manchu emperor’s accession in China, and the forcing of Korean artists to build new artistic models based on nationalism and an inner search for particular Korean subjects.
At this time China ceased to have pre-eminent influence, Korean art took its own course, and became increasingly distinctive.
New genres of Korean painting flourished, such as chaekgeori (paintings of books) and munjado (paintings of letters), revealing the infatuation with books and learning in Korean culture. Korean folk art, called manhwa, also emerged during this time.

Other visual arts
Korean art is characterized by transitions in the main religions at the time: early Korean shamanist art, then Korean Buddhist art and Korean Confucian art, through the various forms of Western art in the 20th century.
Artworks in metal, jade, bamboo, and textiles have had a limited resurgence.
The South Korean government has tried to encourage the maintenance of cultural continuity by awards and by scholarships for younger students in rarer Korean art forms.

Calligraphy and printing
Korean calligraphy is seen as an art where brushstrokes reveal the artist’s personality enhancing the subject matter that is painted.
This art form represents the apogee of Korean Confucian art.
Korean fabric arts have a long history and include Korean embroidery used in costumes and screenwork; Korean knots as best represented in the work of Choe Eun-sun, used in costumes and as wall decorations; and lesser-known weaving skills as indicated below in rarer arts.
Korean paper art includes all manner of handmade paper (hanji), used for architectural purposes (window screens, floor covering), for printing, artwork, and Korean folded art (paper fans, paper figures), and as well Korean paper clothing which has an annual fashion show in Jeonju city attracting world attention.

In the 1960s, Korean paper made from mulberry roots was discovered when the Pulguksa (temple) complex in Gyeongju was remodeled.
The date on the Buddhist documents converts to a Western calendar date of 751 and indicates that indeed the oft-quoted claim that Korean paper can last a thousand years was proved irrevocably.
However, after repeated invasions, very little early Korean paper art exists.
Contemporary paper artists are very active.

Painting
For much of the 20th century, painting commanded precedence above other artistic media in Korea.
Beginning in the 1930s, abstraction was of particular interest.
From the mid-1960s, artists like Kwon Young-woo began to push paint, soak canvas, drag pencils, rip paper, and otherwise manipulate the materials of painting in ways that challenged preconceived notions of what it meant to be an ink painter (Asian painter) or oil painter (soyanghwaga), the two categories within which most artists were categorized. In the 1970s and ’80s, these challenges eventually became the foundation of Dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome painting, one of the most successful and controversial artistic movements in twentieth-century Korea.

Meaning “monochrome painting,” the works of artists like Ha Chonghyun, Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan, Yun Hyong Keun, Choi Myoung-young, Kim Guiline, and Lee Dong-you were promoted in Seoul, Tokyo, and Paris.
Tansaekhwa grew to be the international face of contemporary Korean art and a cornerstone of contemporary Asian art.
Abstract painting techniques around this time were influenced by Japanese and European developments in painting.
Academic painting inspired by Japanese modernism was favored by the Park Chung-hee dictatorship and shown in state-run shows called Gukjeon (National Art Exhibition).

The government’s favoritism towards apolitical painting and censorship of political art sparked backlash from younger artists at the time who then created experimental art collectives in direct resistance to these developments in painting.[26]
Some contemporary Korean painting demands an understanding of Korean ceramics and Korean pottery as the glazes used in these works and the textures of the glazes make Korean art more in the tradition of ceramic art, than of Western painterly traditions, even if the subjects appear to be of western origin.
Brush-strokes as well are far more important than they are to the Western artist; paintings are judged on brush-strokes more often than pure technique.

The contemporary artist Suh Yongsun, who is highly appreciated and was elected “Korea’s Artist of the Year 2009”,] makes paintings with heavy brushstrokes and shows topics like both Korean history and urban scenes, especially of Western cities like New York and Berlin.
His artwork is a good example for the combination of Korean and Western subjects and painting styles.
Other Korean artists combining modern Western and Korean painting traditions are i.e. Junggeun Oh and Tschoon Su Kim.
While there have been only rare studies on Korean aesthetics, a useful place to begin for understanding how Korean art developed an aesthetic is in Korean philosophy, and related articles on Korean Buddhism, and Korean Confucianism.

North Korea
During Kim Il-sung’s rule, painting was allowed only in the socialist realist genre and propaganda posters were the stock of North Korean visual arts.
After Kim Il-sung died in 1994, directives on painting were relaxed and sometimes completely abolished under Kim Jong-il.
New art forms, including impressionism peculiar to North Korea, rose to complement posters.
Art forms other than socialist realism are particularly seen in the patriotic films that dominated that culture from 1949 to 1994, and the reawakened architecture, calligraphy, fabric work, and neo-traditional painting, that has occurred from 1994 to date.

The impact was greatest on revolutionary posters, lithography and multiples, dramatic and documentary films, realistic painting, and grand architecture, and least in areas of domestic pottery, ceramics, exportable needlework, and visual crafts.
Sports art and politically charged revolutionary posters have been the most sophisticated and internationally collectible by auction houses and specialty collectors.
North Korean painters who escaped to the United States in the late 1950s include the Fwhang sisters. Duk Soon Fwhang and Chung Soon Fwhang O’Dwyer avoid overtly political statements in favor of tempestuous landscapes, bridging Western and Far Eastern painting techniques.
North Korean painters are renowned for their skill, and those who manage to defect to South Korea are regularly employed as artists there.

Ceramics and sculpture
The remains of early Korean pottery can be found predominantly in Gangjin.
Gangjin was one of the main producers of ancient Korean pottery.

Ancient Sculpture
Korean sculpture was exported, primarily during the Baekje period, to Japan, where Korean Buddhist sculptures from the seventh century still exist.
Main Korean sculptures were generally made of wood, then later stone, and then ceramic, with votive sculptures being the greatest in number.
Smaller sculptures were also made using jade, gold, and other metals.
The greatest Korean sculptures were produced in the time of Korean Buddhist art.

Korean ceramic artists and sculptors
Yu Geun-Hyeong
Kim Yik Yung
Um Tai-Jung
Cho Ki-Jung
Yoon Kwang cho[31]
Kim Se-Yong
Shin Sang Ho

Cheongja (청자)
Céladon is a type of pottery is characterized by its jade blue surface and its inlay technique.

Baekja (백자)
100–600 years ago, white porcelain ware was the main representation of Korean ceramic.
Baekja is a type of pottery characterized in various ways; the main feature was its milky white surface.
Many were decorated with painted designs using oxidized iron, copper, or cobalt blue pigments imported from Persia via China.
Architecture and interior design

Patterns often have their origins in early ideographs.
Geometric patterns and patterns of plant, animal, and nature motifs are the four most basic patterns.
Geometric patterns include triangles, squares, diamonds, zigzags, latticework, frets, spirals sawteeth, circles, ovals, and concentric circles.
Stone Age rock carvings feature animal designs and food-gathering activities. These patterns are found indoors of temples and shrines, clothes, furniture and daily objects such as fans and spoons.

Performing arts
In the performing arts, Korean storytelling is done in ritualistic shamanistic ways, in the songs of yangban scholars, and the crossovers between the visual arts and the performing arts, which are more intense and fluid than in the West.
Depicted on petroglyphs and in pottery shards, as well as wall paintings in tombs, the various performing arts nearly always incorporated Korean masks, costumes with Korean knots, Korean embroidery, and a dense overlay of art in combination with other arts.
Some specific dances are considered important cultural heritage pieces of art.

The performing arts have always been linked to the fabric arts: not just in costumery but in woven screens behind the plays, ornaments woven or embroidered or knotted to indicate rank, position, or as shamanistic charms; and in other forms to be indicated.
Historically, the division of the performing arts is between arts done almost exclusively by women in costume, dance works, and those done exclusively by men in costume, and storytelling. Those were done as a group by both sexes with women’s numbers in performances reduced as time goes on as it became reputable for men to function as public entertainers.

Tea ceremony
The Korean tea ceremony is held in a Korean tea house with characteristic architecture, often within Korean gardens and served in a way with ritualized conversation, formal poetry on wall scrolls, and  Korean pottery and traditional Korean costumes, the environment itself is a series of naturally flowing events that provide a cultural and artistic experience.

Musical arts and theatre
The skill of contemporary Korean performing artists, who have had great recognition abroad, particularly in stringed instruments and as symphony directors, or operatic sopranos and mezzos, takes part in a long musical history.
Korean music in contemporary times is generally divided into the same audiences as the West: with the same kind of audiences for music based on age, and city (classical, pop, techno, house, hip-hop, jazz; traditional), and provincial divisions (folk, country, traditional, classical, rock).
World music influences are very strong provincially, with traditional musical instruments once more gaining ground.

Competition with China for tourists has forced a much larger attention to traditional Korean musical forms  differentiate itself from the west, and east.
The new Seoul Opera house, which will be the anchor for Korean opera has just been given the go-ahead, is set for a $300 million home on an island on the Han river.
Korean opera and an entirely redeveloped western opera season, and opera school, to compete with the Beijing Opera House, and Japan’s historical Centre for western operas in the Far East is the present focus.

Korean court music has a history going back to the Silla where Tang court music was played; later Song dynasty inspired “A-ak” a Korean version played on Chinese instruments within the Joseon era.
Recreations of this music are done in Seoul primarily under the auspices of the Korea Foundation and The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts (NCKTPA).

Court musicians appear in traditional costumes, maintain a rigid proper formal posture, and play stringed five-stringed instruments.
Teaching by this the “yeak sasang” principles of Confucianism, the perfection of tone and acoustic space is put ahead of coarse emotionality.
Famous works of court music include: jongmyo jeryeak, designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage, Cheoyongmu, Taepyeongmu, and Sujecheon.

Pansori
Korean folk music or pansori is the base from which most new music originates being strongly simple and rhythmic.
Korean musicals are a recent innovation, encouraged by the success of Broadway revivals, like Showboat, recent productions such as the musical based on Queen Min have toured globally. There are precedents for popular musical dance-dramas in gamuguk popular in Goryeo times, with some 21st-century concert revivals.
Korean stage set design again has a long history and has always drawn inspiration from landscapes, beginning with outdoor theatre, and replicating this by the use of screens within court and temple stagings of rituals and plays.

There are few if any books on this potentially interesting area.
A rule of thumb has been that the designs have much open space, more two-dimensional space, and subdued tone and color, and have been done by artists to evoke traditional brush painting subjects.

Modern plays have tended towards western scenic flats, or minimalist atonality to force a greater attention on the actors.
Stage lighting still has to catch up to Western standards, and does not reflect a photographer’s approach to painting in color and light, quite surprisingly.
Korean masks are generally used in shamanistic performances that have increasingly been secularized as folk art dramas.
At the same time, the masks themselves have become tourist artifacts post-1945, and reproduced in large numbers as souvenirs.

Storytelling and comedy
Narrative storytelling, either in poetic dramatic songs by yangban scholars or in rough-housing by physical comedians, is generally a male performance.
There is as yet virtually no stand-up comedy in Korea because of cultural restrictions on insult-humor, personal comments, and respect for seniors, despite globally successful Korean comic films that depend on the comedy of error, and situations with no apparent easy resolution under tight social restraints.

Korean oral history includes narrative myths, legends, folk tales; songs, folksongs, shaman songs, and pansori (traditional Korean narrative song initially created to entertain commoners); proverbs that expand into short historical tales, riddles, and suspicious words that have their own stories.
These stories have a heavy base in Confucian, Buddhist, and Shamanistic idealism that helps shape the cultural values in society that they want to pass down to future generations.
They have been studied by Cho Dong-Il; Choi In-hak, and Zong In-sop, and many others who also helped contribute publications (often in English editions) for foreigners or for the teaching adolescent children.

Dance
Dance is a significant element of traditional Korean culture.
Special traditional dances are performed as part of many annual festivals and celebrations (harvest, etc.), involving traditional costumes, specific colors, music, songs, and special instruments.
Some dances are performed by either men only or women only, while others are performed by both.

The women usually have their hair pulled back away from the face in a bun or maybe wearing colorful hats.
Some variation of the traditional hanbok is typically worn, or a special costume specific to that dance.
In some dances, the women’s costumes will have very long sleeves, or trail a long length of fabric, to accentuate graceful arm movements. Outdoor festivals are loud and joyous, and cymbals and drums can prominently be heard. Masks may be worn.
Literature

Notable examples of historical records are very well documented from early times, and as well Korean books with moveable type, often imperial encyclopedias or historical records, were circulated as early as the 7th century during the Three Kingdoms era from printing wood-blocks; and in the Goryeo era the world’s first metal type, and books printed by metal type were produced.
Genres include epics, poetry, religious texts, and exegetical commentaries on Buddhist and Confucianist learning; translations of foreign works; plays and court rituals; comedies, tragedies, mixed genres; and various kinds of novels.

Poetry
Korean poetry began to flourish in the Three Kingdoms period.
Collections were repeatedly printed.
With the rise of Joseon nationalism, poetry developed increasingly and reached its apex in the late 18th century.
There were attempts at introducing imagist and modern poetry methods in the early 20th century, and in the early republic period, patriotic works were very successful. Lyrical poetry dominated from the 1970s onwards.
Source: Wikipedia

 

Art of Myanmar refers to visual art created in Myanmar (Burma).
Ancient Burmese art was influenced by India and China, and was often religious , ranging from Hindu sculptures in the Thaton Kingdom to Theravada Buddhist images in the Sri Ksetra Kingdom.
The Bagan period saw significant developments in many art forms from wall paintings and sculptures to stucco and wood carving..
After a dearth of surviving art between the 14th and 16th centuries, artists created paintings and sculptures that reflect the Burmese culture.
Burmese artists have been subjected to government interference and censorship, hindering the development of art in Myanmar.
Burmese art reflects the central Buddhist elements including the mudra, Jataka tales, the pagoda, and Bodhisattva.
Pyu and Mon period

Trade with India during the Pyu period brought deep cultural contacts heavily influencing many aspects of visual culture in Myanmar.
However, scholarship and archaeology on Pyu, Mon and Dvaravati art in neighboring Thailand were biased by colonial attitudes in the 20th century, placing a greater emphasis on comparisons to well-documented Gupta art.
The three cultures, traditionally divided by differences in artistic styles, actually share many similarities and evidence of cross-cultural influences within their art.

Nonetheless, contact with India brought Theravada Buddhism to the Pyu city-states in the 6th century, most notably in Sri Ksetra.
Early Sri Ksetra religious art was influenced by Southeast India and later Southwest India. By the 9th century, there were notable influences from the Nanzhao Kingdom.
Other Pyu city-states remained a mix of Ari Buddhists and Mahayana Buddhists with greater influences from Nanzhao through the migration of Myanmar people.
In Hanlin Buddha statues were crowned Buddhas differing from Sri Ksetra by lacking an urna on the forehead, indicating less Indian influence.

The Thaton Kingdom and the Mon to the south of the Pyu also exhibited Indian influences in their art. The Mon from this time mainly used alabaster, stone or bronze depicted with the Bhūmisparśa mudra.
Mon Buddha images are distinguished from Burmese or Pyu images by the length of the fingers in the mudra.[9] Some of the few pieces of Thaton art dating before the Bagan Kingdom are Hindu showing Vishnu with a tripartite lotus showing the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) a configuration unique to Pyu art.

Bagan Period
There is significantly more extant art from the Bagan Kingdom onwards.
Most notable are the wall paintings and statues decorating the interior of temples in Bagan.
The murals of the Bagan period were painted on a dry surface, as opposed to frescos utilizing wet cement.
The wall paintings were often captioned in Pali, Old Mon, or Old Burmese and typically depicted the Jataka Tales.
Many temples also featured ceiling paintings, which were usually patterns.
The lotus was a common motif in ceiling art for its symbolic connection with purity in Buddhist art.

Sculpture was also very prominent in the period.
Buddha images for worship within temples.
Buddha images of the period are distinct for their round face, short urnas and strict expressions. Many surviving statues are made of bronze, iron, or sandstone.
Other scenes from Buddhist folklore like the birth of the Buddha were common subjects for statues and reliefs.
Furthermore, many bronze sculptures depicted Parvati, the consort of the Hindu god Shiva, as she was regarded as an important deva in Bagan.
Exteriors of Bagan temples also featured intricate stucco work and reliefs depicting various Buddhist scenes.
The art of wooden sculpture also developed in this period with a few surviving pieces being incorporated into the doors of Bagan temples.

During this period, ten traditional arts, called pan sè myo (ပန်းဆယ်မျိုး, lit. ’Ten Flowers’), were established within the culture.

The ten arts are as follows: 
Woodcarving (ပန်းပု ba-bu)
Goldsmith (ပန်းထိမ် ba-dein)
Stucco relief (ပန်းတော့ pandaw)
Masonry (ပန်းရန် pa-yan)
Stone carving (ပန်းတမော့ pantamaw)
Turnery (ပန်းပွတ် panbut)
Painting (ပန်းချီ bagyi)
Lacquerware (ပန်းယွန်း panyun)
Bronze casting (ပန်းတဉ်း badin)

Taungoo and Ava periods
The Mongol invasions of Burma and the subsequent decline of Bagan as a cultural center led to three centuries of warfare and internal division.
Art produced in the rise of Burmese kingdoms was often plundered, destroyed, or burnt especially when rival kingdoms came to surpass them in power.
There is, therefore, significantly less art from the 14th to 16th centuries.
Bayinnaung’s conquest and subjugation in 1555–1562 of Manipur, Bhamo, Zinme (Chiang Mai), Linzin (Lan Xang), and up the Taping and Shweli rivers in the direction of Yunnan brought back large numbers of skilled craftsmen into Burma.

It is thought that the finer sort of Burmese lacquerware, called Yun, was introduced during this period by imported artisans belonging to the Yun or Laos Shan tribes of the Chiang Mai region. Having reunited the various Burmese polities, Bayinnaung built the Kanbawzathadi Palace incorporating gold plates into traditional Burmese architecture.
Visitors recorded the palace as being magnificent and splendorous.
Art from this period began to see more Shan and Mon influences.

Buddha statues from the Kingdom of Ava and the Taungoo period have larger heads and lotus-petal-shaped halos.
After the collapse of the empire and the restoration of the Taungoo Kingdom, the capital was moved back to Ava with many referring to this period as the Ava period.
This period is not to be confused with the Kingdom of Ava two centuries prior.

Buddha images from this period are distinct for their large forehead and oval-shaped faces.
Sculptors also began to work with marble and developed a style where the eyes looked down instead of outward.
Paintings in this period, like those found in the Oke Kyaung Monastery in Bagan, continued the religious theme and subject matter of the Bagan period. However, Ava period paintings gave the settings local contexts like contemporary hairstyles and depicted more ordinary activities like fishing.
Paintings from this era also saw the use of blues and turquoise pigments creating more vivid images.

Arakan art
The Kingdom of Arakan established in the 15th century brought artisans from the Bengal Sultanate and had deep trade and cultural connections to South Asia.
The cities of Mrauk U, Dhanyawadi, and Waithali had stone sculptures and inscriptions dating between the 6th and 16th centuries.
Visitors to the Arakanese court noted the textile splendors and the highly respected positions of Weavers within Arakan.
Buddha images from Arakan are more square and angled.
When the images are crowned, they have a shorter crown wing.
One famous piece of Arakan art is the Mahamuni Image.

According to legend, it was carved in Dhanyawadi during a visit from Gautama Buddha.
Historically, the image has existed at least since the 11th century when King Anawrahta unsuccessfully attempted to move the image to Bagan.
The image was later captured by the Konbaung dynasty and moved to the Mahamuni Buddha Temple in Amarapura in 1784.
Shan art
Art historians do not have an agreed-upon definition of Shan art.
It is believed to have originated between 1550 and 1772 CE, which was around the time that the two kingdoms of Lan Na and Lan Xang were both under the support of the Burmese.

Many pieces of Shan artwork depict a Buddha in a seated position, with his right hand pointed towards the Earth; this position is commonly known as the Maravijaya Posture.
In Buddhism, the Maravijaya pose represents Buddha calling the Earth Goddess to witness Gautama Shakyamuni’s victory over Mara.
Sculptures made in this art style were usually made of bronze and later would be sculpted with wood or in lacquer.

Traditional Shan art typically had a Buddha with the characteristic monk’s robes, or adorned with a crown and decorated with various other mediums like putty and glass.
Shan sculptures are distinctive and easily recognizable when looking through the history of Burmese Buddhist art.
Shan sculptures are often identified with oval-shaped faces, soft smiles, and closed relaxed eyes.

Konbaung period
In 1752, Alaungpaya founded the Konbaung dynasty in response to the collapse of the Taungoo dynasty and the rise of the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom.
After uniting most of modern-day Myanmar, the Konbaung kings focused on reforms and modernization with limited success.
During the Konbaung period, the techniques of European painting became more established in the court and the techniques of linear perspective, chiaroscuro, and sfumato entered Burmese painting.
Wall painting within temples and monasteries developed these Western techniques on traditional Burmese styles, particularly utilizing cast shadows and distant haziness.

This period also saw a proliferation of stupas and temples with developments in stucco techniques. In particular the wooden monasteries of this period remain one of the most uniquely Burmese styles that have survived.
The monasteries were decorated with intricate wood carvings of the Jataka Tales.
The Konbaung period also developed parabaik -folding-book manuscripts that had long been the traditional method of record keeping in Myanmar.
White parabaik (Burmese: ပုရပိုက်ဖြူ) was used for painting and drawings, often depicting royal or court activities
Statues from this period, particularly Buddha images, are typically divided into the Amarapura period (1789–1853) and the Mandalay period (1853–1948).

King Bagyidaw moved the capital of the Konbaung to Amarapura in 1783 and artisans developed a unique style using wood gild with gold leaf and red lacquer.
Images from this period may have been influenced by the capture of the Mahamuni Image with Burmese images featuring rounder faces.
In 1853, after the loss of the First Anglo-Burmese War, Mindon Min moved the capital to nearby Mandalay with a planned city following the Buddhist Mandala.
Buddha images from the last days of the Burmese monarchy followed a style with a broad band across the forehead and tight curly hair with a prominent ushnisha.
Images also returned to various materials including alabaster and bronze. This style was retained through the period of British colonialism.

British Burma
The early 19th century also saw many prints made by British officers in the country, making sketches of the countryside during their time in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826).
Burmese European-style painting reached its heights in the early twentieth century from the opening of many art schools and increased travel by Burmese artists to Europe.
20th century painters like Saya Chone, Saya Myo and Saya Saw, painted watercolours depicting aristocratic life.
Oil painting also became very popular towards the end of British rule in Burma.
The founding father of Mynamar’s modern art movement, Ba Nyan, was called the greatest name in Burmese modern painting for his oil paintings.

Mandalay became a site of artistic importance, giving rise to the Mandalay School.
Artists of the Mandalay School, like Ba Kyi, created a distinctive Burmese neo-traditional style. Artists like Bagyi Aung Soe and Kin Maung painted using impressionism, cubism and experimental techniques in combination with Burmese traditional art.
Independence period
From 1962 to 1988, during the Cold War era, postcolonial Myanmar was isolated from the rest of the world as a way to maintain independence.
In 1989, Myanmar began to open international trade, and state control was relaxed.
This allowed Myanmar’s artists more opportunities to engage with international artists.

In 1997, access to the internet allowed a contemporary art community in Myanmar to grow.
However, government censorship, conflict, economic hardship, and isolation have affected Myanmar artists and their art.
For instance, the government restricted art to religious depictions and expressions of the natural beauty of the nation.
Government censorship
The government of Myanmar banned or confiscated artwork on prohibited subjects and censored art exhibitions.
The prohibited subjects included political criticism, nudity, and even the use of certain colors.
In 1970, censors defaced unapproved artworks with stamps reading “not allowed to show” on the front and back.
Approved paintings depicted the political leader Ne Win (1910 – 2002), socialism and its agrarian utopia, the purity of Burmese culture and Buddhism.
Some artists became defiant of the censorship.

Contemporary art in Myanmar
The contemporary art of Myanmar reflects the fact that the country existed in isolation from 1962 to 2011, and is a country with deep rooted Buddhist beliefs.
The art often relates to Buddhism and the difficult socio-political situation.
In this age of globalization, Burmese contemporary art has developed rather on its own terms.
One of the first to study Western art was Ba Nyan, one of the pioneers of Western-style painting in the country along with Ngwe Gaing and others.
Lun Gywe (born 1930) is a prominent master of Burmese painting and the mentor of many younger generations of artists.
Lun Gywe is a master with colors, often in an impressionistic manner, and the beauty of women features prominently in his work.
His works appear in the National Museum of Myanmar and the National Art Gallery of Malaysia.

San Hlaing was a Burmese artist born on 24 December 1923 in Pyapon, Ayeyarwady Region, Myanmar.
He was a versatile artist who not only illustrated the traditional but also commercial arts.
He studied under artists Ngwe Gaing, Hla Maung Gyi, Sayar Mhat, and artist U Thein Nyunt.
In the special issues of Taing Lone Kyaw and Myanma Alin Newspaer, all the covers were of U Sann Hlaing’s paintings. Shumawa, Ngwe Taryi, Pe Phu Hiwar, Mahaythi, Yadanarmon, Myatsumon magazines, Loke Thar, Pyi Thu Kye, Khit Myanmar, Myitmaka, Byar Deik Pan, Taya Yeik Myaing Journals, U Sann Hlaing works were seen monthly and consecutively.
From the No (1) issue of Sit Pyan, he drew illustrations for a long period.

The 10 Jataka Tales and 550 Nipats were illustrated by U Sann Hlaing, which fall with Myanmar styles and cultures.
Aung Kyaw Htet (born 1965) is a devout Buddhist who grew up in a small village, two factors which have a strong influence on his art.
His paintings of religious life in Burma show monks and nuns realistically, though non-essential objects are omitted from the paintings to focus on the religious aspects. Aung Kyaw Htet paints the faces of monks and nuns in great detail to show their humanity.
His works are represented in the National Museum of Myanmar and the National Art Gallery of Malaysia.
Other artists whose works have been included in the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery of Malaysia include MPP Yei Myint, Myint Swe, Min Wai Aung, and Aung Myint.

The younger generation of upcoming international contemporary artists include Nyein Chan Su The Maw Naing and the Gangaw Village Artist Group.
Other contemporary artists include Po Po (born 1957), a self-taught artist who lives and works in Yangon and works with various media, especially with installation works.
He has staged solo exhibitions since 1987, such as “Untitled” and “Solid Concept”. He participated in the Kwangju Biennale 2000, the Flying Circus Project 2004 and the Yokohama Triennale 2005.
Wah Nu was born in Yangon in 1977, and launched her artistic career after graduating from the University of Culture, Yangon in 1998, where she majored in music.

Since then she has mainly been adopting painting and video as media. In 2004, she held her first solo exhibition, “Cloud Department” in Yangon, followed in 2005 by “Self-Identity” at the Art-U Room gallery, in Tokyo, Japan.
She has shown in group exhibitions including Bangladesh Biennale 2004, Fukuoka Triennale 2005[36], and Another Seven Artists in Yangon 2008. Recently, she participated in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane with her husband, Tun Win Aung, who works in multimedia installations and performance arts.
Most of the young artists who were born in the 1980s have greater opportunities to practice art inside and outside the country.

Performance art is a popular genre among young Burmese artists, including Aung Ko, Moe Satt, Mrat Lunn Htwann, and Nyan Lin Htet. Nyan Lin Htet started making performance art in the early 2000s and later joined the contemporary theatre group Annees Folles for intensive theatre training with Japanese theatre director Arata Kitamura in Japan.
Since 2005, Lin Htet has been involved in the international performance art and theatre scenes. After founding the Yangon-based experimental theatre group Theatre of the Disturbed in 2005, Lin Htet directed theatrical adaptations of dramatic and literary works by Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Franz Kafka as well as dramatic works by local playwrights including himself. In 2007, he was awarded the two-year artist-in-residency program at the Cité Internationale des arts in Paris, with the support of Alliance Française de Rangoun and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Source: wikipedia

 

Thangka in Nepal
A thangka (Nepali pronunciation: [ˈt̪ʰaŋka]; Tibetan: ཐང་ཀ་; Nepal Bhasa: पौभा) is a Tibetan Buddhist painting on cotton, silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, or mandala. Thangkas are traditionally kept unframed and rolled up when not on display, mounted on a textile backing somewhat in the style of Chinese scroll paintings, with a further silk cover on the front.
So treated, thangkas can last a long time, but because of their delicate nature, they have to be kept in dry places where moisture will not affect the quality of the silk.

Most thangkas are relatively small, comparable in size to a Western half-length portrait, but some are extremely large, several metres in each dimension; these were designed to be displayed, typically for very brief periods on a monastery wall, as part of religious festivals.
Most thangkas were intended for personal meditation or instruction of monastic students.
They often have elaborate compositions including many very small figures.

A central deity is often surrounded by other identified figures in a symmetrical composition. Narrative scenes are less common, but do appear.
Thangka serve as important teaching tools depicting the life of the Buddha, various influential lamas and other deities and bodhisattvas.
One subject is the Wheel of Life (Bhavachakra), which is a visual representation of the Abhidharma teachings (Art of Enlightenment).
The term may sometimes be used of works in other media than painting, including reliefs in metal and woodblock prints.
Today, printed reproductions at poster size of painted thangka are commonly used for devotional as well as decorative purposes.
Many thangkas were produced in sets, though they have often subsequently become separated.

History
Tibetan Buddhist painting developed from widespread traditions of early Buddhist paintings which now only survive in a few sites such as the Ajanta Caves in India and the Mogao Caves in China, which have very extensive wall paintings and were the repository for what are now the earliest surviving Tibetan paintings on cloth. The thanka form developed alongside the tradition of Tibetan Buddhist wall paintings, which are or were mostly in monasteries.

The early history of the form is more easily traced through these murals, which survive in greater numbers than the portable paintings that certainly once existed.
The art form originated from the Newari art of Phauba from Nepal, from the early years artists were commissioned from Nepal, furthermore, ancient texts have been found wherein instructions were provided as to the proportions, postures, and geometrical measurements of these deities to the monasteries from Nepal.

Most thanka were commissioned by individuals, who were believed to acquire merit by doing so. They might then be given to a monastery or another individual, or retained for use by the commissioner.
Some thangka have inscriptions on their backs recording that they were the personal meditation image (thugs dam) of a notable monk.
Most artists were probably monks, although lay artists seem to have also existed, as they did for metalwork sculpture.
The commissioner would provide the materials, which were often valuable, and by tradition, the compensation to the artist was regarded as a “gift” rather than a fee.

The word “thangka” means “thing that one unrolls” in Classical Tibetan.
Thangka is very rarely signed, but some artists are known, more because they were important monastic leaders than famous as artists.
The painting was a valued accomplishment in a monk.
The earliest surviving Tibetan paintings on cloth are from the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang on the Silk Road in Gansu province, China.

The “Library Cave” was a repository of old or worn-out manuscripts, paintings, prints, textiles and other items which was sealed off in the 11th century, after several centuries of deposits.
Many of the paintings have Tibetan inscriptions or are in a style that can be recognized as Tibetan, as opposed to the dominant Han Chinese style and some pieces reflect Indian styles.
Though they are hard to date, it is thought that these pieces mainly come from a period c. 781–848 during Tang dynasty rule.

Surviving tangkas on cloth certainly from Tibet itself started in the 11th century, after the revival of Buddhism; there are some 20 surviving from the 11th and 12th centuries.
Such early examples typically have compositions that are already complex, but less so than in later examples.
Later the typical compositions show a central figure flanked by smaller figures, often in framed compartments, or surrounded by flaming halos or seated on small clouds.

Behind these figures, a landscape background including much sky is often indicated, though little of it may be visible.
The central figure may be a deity, arhat, or important monk, and the same groups make up the background figures.
Several of the figures may be different “aspects” or reincarnations of each other according to Buddhist theology.
In the example at left the flanking bodhisattvas are in a style, one of several found in such figures in this period, that appears derived from central Indian art.

Over the following centuries Tibetan painting, both on walls and thangka, continued to develop in its distinctive style, balancing between the two major influences of Indo-Nepalese and Han Chinese painting, despite Buddhism being on the general decline in these regions.
Styles could vary considerably between the different regions of Tibet, as well as the wider region where tangkas were painted. Within Tibet the regions nearer Nepal and the rest of China were often more influenced by regional styles.

Bhutanese tangkas were mainly influenced by Central Tibet.
The different monastic orders also developed somewhat different stylistic characters.
Tibetan painting incorporated many elements from Han Chinese painting, especially from the 14th century onwards, reaching a peak in the 18th century.
One aspect of this was allowing more space and emphasis to the landscape background. In general, the style of figures in thangkas remains derived from the Indo-Nepalese tradition.

According to Giuseppe Tucci, by the time of the Qing dynasty, “a new Tibetan art was then developed, which in a certain sense was a provincial echo of the Chinese 18th century’s smooth ornate preciosity.
Since the Yuan dynasty, Tibet was administered as part of China, but when the Qing dynasty came to power court interest in Tibetan Buddhism increased, and many refined and elegant works were produced by Imperial artists and sent to Tibet, influencing local styles.

As well as the court style, there was influence from the regions of China near Tibet.[12]
Tangkas were painted in all the areas where Tibetan Buddhism flourished, which apart from those mentioned already included Mongolia, Ladakh, Sikkim, and parts of Himalayan India in Arunachal Pradesh, Dharamshala, and Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh.
It is also practiced in parts of Russia (Kalmykia, Buryatia, and Tuva) and Northeast China.

Other traditions of Buddhist scroll paintings are not usually covered by the term thangka, although they may have many similarities, and descend from the same origins.
An example is Japanese painting, where several very early examples survive from the Nara (710-794) and Heian periods (794 to 1185).
Most of these are National Treasures of Japan. Raigō-zu developed as one popular genre, showing the Amida Buddha accompanied by bodhisattvas welcoming the souls of the faithful to his Western Paradise. These were, and still are, carried into the house of a person who was near death.

Types
Based on technique and material, tangkas can be grouped by types. Generally, they are divided into two broad categories: those that are painted (Tib.) bris-tan—and those made of silk, either by appliqué or embroidery.
Tangkas are further divided into these more specific categories:
Painted in colors (Tib.) tson-tang—the most common type
Appliqué (Tib.) go-tang
Black Background—meaning gold line on a black background (Tib.) nagtang
Blockprints—paper or cloth outlined renderings, by woodcut/woodblock printing
Embroidery (Tib.) tsem-thang
Gold Background—an auspicious treatment, used judiciously for peaceful, long-life deities and fully enlightened Buddhas
Red Background—literally gold line, but referring to the gold line on a vermillion (Tib.) mar-tang

Whereas typical tangkas are fairly small, with the painted area between about 20 to 50 centimeters high, there are also giant festival tangkas, usually appliqué, and designed to be unrolled against a wall in a monastery for particular religious occasions.
These are likely to be wider than they are tall, and may be sixty or more feet across and perhaps twenty or more high.
In Bhutan, at least these are called thongdrels.
There are also larger-than-average thankas that were designed for altars or display in temples.

Somewhat related are Tibetan tsakli, cards that look like miniature tangkas perhaps up to 15 centimeters high, and often square, usually containing a single figure.
These were mostly produced in sets and were usually used in earlier stages of training monks, as initiation cards or offerings, or to use when constructing temporary mandalas.
Another related form is the painted wooden top cover for a manuscript book, giving a long narrow strip, typically some 6 cm by 55 cm, often painted with a row of seated figures in compartments. The techniques for both these forms are essentially the same as for thangka, and presumably, the same artists worked on them.

Because tangkas can be quite expensive, people nowadays use posters of tangkas as an alternative to the real tangkas for religious purposes.
Sources on Asian art often describe all-textile tangkas as “tapestry”, but tangkas that meet the normal definition of tapestry with the image created only by weaving a single piece of fabric with different colors of thread are extremely rare, though a few tapestry examples in the Chinese kesi technique are known, mostly from the medieval period.
There is a large example in the Hermitage Museum, although in this and other pieces, the different colors are woven separately and then sewn together in a type of patchwork.
Most thangka described as tapestry are some combination of embroidery, appliqué and other techniques.

Process
Thangkas are painted on cotton or silk.
The most common is a loosely woven cotton produced in widths from 40 to 58 cm (16 – 23 inches).
While some variations do exist, tangkas wider than 45 cm (17 or 18 inches) frequently have seams in the support.
The paint consists of pigments in a water-soluble medium of animal glue.
Both mineral and organic pigments are used.
In Western terminology, this is a distemper technique; although it is often described as a form of gouache, this is incorrect, and the paint was applied as a warm liquid, mixed shortly before application.

In Nepal, 24-carat gold is also plated over some parts of thangka paintings which makes the art a little more expensive.
The Role of Natural Pigments: Thangka paintings traditionally utilize natural pigments sourced from minerals, plants, and even precious stones.
These pigments not only lend vibrant colors but also hold symbolic significance.
For example, gold symbolizes enlightenment, lapis lazuli represents the sky, and cinnabar signifies vitality.
Understanding the symbolism behind these pigments adds depth to the appreciation of Thangka art. Sacred Geometry and Proportions: Thangka paintings are not merely artistic expressions but also embody spiritual principles and sacred geometry.
The precise measurements and proportions used in creating Thangkas are based on ancient mathematical and philosophical concepts, such as the golden ratio and mandala symbolism.

This aspect reflects the harmony between art and spirituality in Tibetan culture.
The Ritual of Thangka Creation: Creating a Thangka is not just a creative process but also a spiritual practice.
Artists often undergo rigorous training and follow specific rituals before, during, and after painting a Thangka.
These rituals involve purification ceremonies, chanting mantras, and invoking blessings from spiritual masters.
This imbues each Thangka with a sacred energy that resonates with those who view or meditate upon it. The Living Tradition of Thangka Painting: While Thangka paintings have a rich history dating back centuries, the tradition is very much alive today.

Contemporary Thangka artists are not only preserving ancient techniques but also innovating with new styles and interpretations.
Some artists blend traditional Tibetan motifs with modern artistic influences, creating unique expressions that appeal to a global audience.
Empowering Communities Through Thangka Art: Beyond their aesthetic and spiritual value, Thangka paintings play a significant role in empowering communities in the Himalayan region. Many Thangka painting schools and cooperatives provide training and employment opportunities for local artists, particularly in rural areas.
By supporting Thangka art, buyers contribute to the preservation of Tibetan culture and the livelihoods of Himalayan communities.

The eldest thangka has inscriptions on the back, usually, the mantra of the deity depicted, but sometimes also information as to later owners, though rarely information about the original commissioner or artist.
Sometimes x-rays allow pious inscriptions placed under the paint on the front of the image to be seen. Inscriptions may be made in the shape of a stupa, or sometimes other shapes.[15]
The composition of a thangka, as with the majority of Buddhist art, is highly geometric. Arms, legs, eyes, nostrils, ears, and various ritual implements are all laid out on a systematic grid of angles and intersecting lines.

A skilled thangka artist will generally select from a variety of predesigned items to include in the composition, ranging from alms bowls and animals, to the shape, size, and angle of a figure’s eyes, nose, and lips.
The process seems very methodical but often requires a deep understanding of the symbolism involved to capture the spirit of it.
Thangka often overflows with symbolism and allusion.
Because the art is explicitly religious, all symbols and allusions must be in accordance with strict guidelines laid out in Buddhist scripture.
The artist must be properly trained and have sufficient religious understanding, knowledge, and background to create an accurate and appropriate thangka:

Tibetan art exemplifies the nirmanakaya, the physical body of Buddha, and also the qualities of the Buddha, perhaps in the form of a deity.
Art objects, therefore, must follow rules specified in the Buddhist scriptures regarding proportions, shape, color, stance, hand positions, and attributes in order to personify correctly the Buddha or Deities.
Nepal
The earliest surviving thangka paintings from Nepal date to about the 14th century AD, but this is probably well after Buddhists and Hindus began to make illustrations of the deities and natural scenes. Historically, Tibetan and Chinese influence in Nepalese paintings is quite evident in Paubhas (Tangkas), and Nepalese styles have been a significant influence on Tibetan art. Paubhas are of two types, the Palas which are illustrative paintings of the deities and the Mandala, which are mystic diagrams paintings of complex test prescribed patterns of circles and squares each having specific significance.

It was through Nepal that Mahayana Buddhism was introduced into Tibet during reign of Angshuvarma in the seventh century AD.
There was therefore a great demand for religious icons and Buddhist manuscripts for newly built monasteries throughout Tibet.
A number of Buddhist manuscripts, including Prajnaparamita, were copied in Kathmandu Valley for these monasteries. Astasahas rika Prajnaparamita for example, was copied in Patan in the year 999 AD., during the reign of Narendra Dev and Udaya Deva, for the Sa-Shakya monastery in Tibet.

For the Nor monastery in Tibet, two copies were made in Nepal, one of Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita in 1069 AD and the other of Kavyadarsha in 1111 AD.
The influence of Nepalese art extended to China in regular order in the thirteenth century. Nepalese artisans were dispatched to the courts of Chinese emperors at their request to perform their workmanship and impart expert knowledge, with the Nepalese innovator and architect Balbahu, known by his popular name Araniko becoming the chief Imperial artist of Kubilai Khan.

After the introduction of paper, palm leaf became less popular, however, it continued to be used until the eighteenth century.
Paper manuscripts imitated the oblong shape but were wider than the palm leaves.
From the fifteenth century onwards, brighter colours gradually began to appear in Nepalese thangka. Because of the growing importance of the tantric cult, various aspects of Shiva and Shakti were painted in conventional poses.
Mahakala, Manjushri, Lokeshvara and other deities were equally popular and so were also frequently represented in thangka paintings of later dates.

As Tantrism embodies the ideas of esoteric power, magic forces, and a great variety of symbols, strong emphasis is laid on the female element and sexuality in the paintings of that period.
Religious paintings worshipped as icons are known as Paubha in Newari and thangka in Tibetan. The origin of Paubha or thangka paintings may be attributed to the Nepalese artists responsible for creating a number of special metal works and wall- paintings as well as illuminated manuscripts in Tibet.
Realizing the great demand for religious icons in Tibet, these artists, along with monks and traders, took with them from Nepal not only metal sculptures but also a number of Buddhist manuscripts.
One of the earliest specimens of Nepalese Thangka painting dates from the thirteenth /fourteenth century and shows Amitabha surrounded by bodhisattva.

Another Nepalese thangka with three dates in the inscription (the last one corresponding to 1369 A.D.), is one of the earliest known thangka with inscriptions.
The “Mandala of Vishnu ” dated 1420 A.D., is another fine example of the painting of this period.
Early Nepalese Tangkas are simple in design and composition.
The main deity, a large figure, occupies the central position while surrounded by smaller figures of lesser divinities.
During the reign of Tibetan Dharma King Trisong Duetsen, the Tibetan masters refined their already well-developed arts through research and studies of different country’s traditions.

Thanka painting’s lining and measurement, costumes, implementations and ornaments are mostly based on Indian styles.
The drawing of figures is based on the Nepalese style and the background sceneries are based on Chinese style.
Thus, the thangka paintings became a unique and distinctive art.
Although the practice of thanka painting was originally done as a way of gaining merit it has nowadays evolved into a commercial business and the noble intentions it once carried have been diluted.

Tibetans do not sell Tangkas on a large scale as the selling of religious artifacts such as tangkas and idols is frowned upon in the Tibetan community and thus Tibetan groups have been able to monopolize its (thangka’s) popularity among Buddhist and art enthusiasts from the west.
Thangka has developed in the northern Himalayan regions among the Lamas.
Besides Lamas, Gurung and Tamang communities are also producing Tankas, which provide substantial employment opportunities for many people in the hills.
Newari Thankas or paubha have been produced in Kathmandu Valley from the 13th century.
Source: Wikipedia

 

Art of Thailand
Thai art refers to a diverse range of art forms created in Thailand from prehistoric times to the present day, including architecture, sculpture, painting, textiles, decorative arts, crafts, ceramics, and more.
While Buddhism has played a significant role in Thai art, with many sculptures and paintings depicting Buddha images and religious themes,[1][2] nature, including flora and fauna, as well as mythical creatures, has been a major inspiration for Thai art, with colorful motifs appearing in various types of art forms.
In contemporary Thai art, traditional works remain significant and continue to influence artists’ concepts.

Prehistory
One of the earliest examples of artistic expression in Thailand can be found in over 410 documented rock art sites across the country, featuring both prehistoric and historic art.
The majority of these sites showcase monochrome red pictograms that depict animals, humans, geometric shapes, and handprints.
While the dating of many sites remains unknown, some rock art sites have been reported to date back 3,000–5,000 years ago.

Nong Ratchawat, situated in Suphanburi province, is an important prehistoric site that provides valuable insights into the lifestyles of the people who settled in the area around 2000–500 BCE. Excavations have unearthed evidence of rice cultivation, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing, building construction, and the creation of polished stone axes and pottery using locally available materials.
The inhabitants were skilled in weaving textiles from plants possessing strong fibers, such as flax, hemp, and ramie.
During the Iron Age, Nong Ratchawat became a prominent trading hub in the Mae Klong River Basin and the Tha Chin River Basin, attracting merchants from different parts of the world and leading to cultural and ethnic diversity.

The river watersheds surrounding the site have yielded a plethora of artifacts, including pottery, bronze and iron tools, glass beads, ivory dice, Roman coins, and Lingling-o earrings.
Ban Chiang is another important archaeological site in Thailand, located in Udon Thani province. It showcases the artistic achievements of a prehistoric culture that existed from about 2000 BCE to 300 CE.
The people of Ban Chiang were skilled metalworkers, and evidence of early metallurgy, including copper and bronze artifacts, has been found at the site.
The site also features diverse ceramics, some of which are decorated with distinctive red-on-buff swirl designs painted by hand.

Dvaravati art
The Dvaravati period, lasting from the 6th to the 12th centuries CE, witnessed the spread of Theravada Buddhism throughout central, northern, northeastern, and southern Thailand.
While Theravada Buddhism was the dominant religion during this time, there is also evidence of other religious influences, including Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism.
Dvaravati art, which employed hard blue limestone or quartzite to produce intricate sculptures, stucco, and terracotta decorations, featured symmetrical Buddha images standing or seated on thrones and the Wheel of the Law.

The art style of Dvaravati owed its influence to the art of the Gupta and Post-Gupta periods in northern India, as well as the Buddhist art of Amaravati in southern India.
People of Dvaravati were likely the Mons, as evidenced by various inscriptions during this period.
The Dvaravati period played a significant role in the dissemination of Buddhism across the region, with noteworthy examples of Dvaravati towns including Nakhon Pathom ancient city in Nakhon Pathom province, U-Thong in Suphanburi province, Chan Sen in Nakhon Sawan province, Si Thep in Phetchabun province, Hariphunchai in Lamphun province, Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang in Kalasin province, Champasi in Maha Sarakham province, Sema in Nakhon Ratchasima province, Baan Dong Lakorn in Nakhon Nayok province, Ku Bua in Ratchaburi province, and Yarang in Pattani province.

Srivijaya art
During the 8th-13th centuries CE, Southern Thailand may have been influenced by the Srivijaya Kingdom, which encompassed Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.
This resulted in similarities between Srivijaya art in Southern Thailand and Central Java art in Indonesia, specifically in bronze sculptures and votive tablets.
The ancient sites in Chaiya, Southern Thailand, also bear resemblances to Central Java art, with Wat Phra Borommathat Chaiya being the most similar.

The majority of sculptures discovered in Southern Thailand are of religious significance, depicting figures such as the Avalokitesvara, Buddha protected by a Nāga, and clay votive tablets with Buddhist iconography.
Srivijaya art in Southern Thailand, from Surat Thani to Songkhla, displays the influence of Indian art styles such as Gupta, post-Gupta, and Pala–sena, indicating a strong connection to Mahayana Buddhism.

Khmer art in Thailand – Lopburi art
Between the 11th and 13th centuries CE, central and northeastern Thailand was ruled by the Khmers of Cambodia and as a result, Brahmin–Hinduism emerged.
It led to the development of artistic styles, sculptures, and architecture similar to the Khmer also known as Khom in the Thai language.
This artistic expression is known as the Lopburi style, named after the ancient city of Lopburi or Lavo and refers to both the Khmer-influenced and genuinely Khmer artistic movement in Thailand.

Lopburi artists were primarily associated with Brahmin-Hinduism, and later, Mahayana Buddhism.
Surviving examples of their art are mainly stone and bronze carvings.
The Lopburi architectural style used bricks and stones, with the Prang style being the most common, influenced by the Khmer Angkor style.[19] In the 13th century AD, the Sukhothai Kingdom was established, and the Lopburi Kingdom came under its influence.
During this time, artistic works aimed to establish a Thai identity.

U-Thong art
U-Thong art, also known as Suphannaphum-Ayothaya art, emerged in central Thailand between the 12th and 15th centuries CE, contemporaneously with Chiang Saen and Sukhothai art.
This style received its name from the U-Thong Kingdom, which was centered in the U Thong District, although this kingdom’s existence is ambiguous.
It is characterized by a Buddha image style influenced by Dvaravati, Lopburi, and Sukhothai arts, with the Dvaravati influence being the most prominent.

The resulting architecture and fine arts are collectively referred to as U-Thong and can be found in various provinces, including Suphanburi, Nakhon Pathom, Chai Nat, Lopburi, and Ayutthaya.
U-Thong architecture is closely related to Theravada Buddhism and features low-roofed ubosot, vihāra, and chedis constructed with wood.
A unique style of U-Thong chedi has an octagonal base, eight-sided structure, lotus crystal-adorned roof, and bell.
These chedis are commonly found at various temples, such as Sankhaburi in Chai Nat province or some temples in Suphanburi.

Another type of U-Thong chedi is found at Wat Phra Borommathat in Chai Nat province and shows similarities to Srivijaya art.
Bronze sculptures from the U-Thong period exemplify elaborate casting, inheriting from the earlier Dvaravati art. Sukhothai art mixed with U-Thong art, resulting in lighter Buddha statues with flame auras, eventually becoming characteristic of early Ayutthaya art. The U-Thong or Ayothaya Kingdom was dissolved with the establishment of the Ayutthaya Kingdom.

Sukhothai art
Sukhothai art emerged in the 13th to 15th centuries CE, and coincided with the establishment of the Sukhothai Kingdom.
This art form was influenced by Theravada Buddhism, which was propagated from Lanka through Nakhon Si Thammarat.
One of the most notable characteristics of Sukhothai art is the authentic Sukhothai-style chedi, also referred to as Phum khao bin, which has a distinct lotus-shaped design.

Another defining feature of Sukhothai art is the Buddha images’ graceful and elegant form, which exhibits refined proportions, a distinctive flame-like halo around the head, and a serene expression.
These Buddha images are typically seated in the half-lotus posture with the right hand performing the earth-touching gesture or walking with one foot forward and the right hand raised to the chest.
The walking Buddha, in particular, is a unique style closely associated with Sukhothai.

The Sukhothai Kingdom was also renowned for its exceptional glazed ceramics, which were produced in the Sangkhalok style.
These ceramics featured delicate blue-green or grayish-green tints and intricate designs painted in black or a darker hue of the glaze.
They were fired at high temperatures, resulting in a durable and robust body.
Despite its short-lived existence, the Sukhothai Kingdom’s artistic legacy remains influential to this day.
The kingdom’s artistry and craftsmanship were absorbed into the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which succeeded it.

Lanna art
Lanna art, also known as Chiang Saen art, denotes an artistic tradition that emerged in northern Thailand, spanning the period from the 14th to the 19th century AD.
Its inception was in Chiang Saen; however, the establishment of the Lanna Kingdom with Chiang Mai as its capital caused a shift in artistic production.

Lanna’s art is deeply entrenched in Theravada Buddhism, which was the dominant religion in the region.
While initially, it drew inspiration from Hariphunchai art, it gradually evolved its distinct style.
Lanna chedis are typically bell-shaped, evolving from a round plan to a polygonal plan as seen in the pagoda at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.
Some chedis, for example, the one containing King Tilokaraj’s ashes at Wat Chet Yot, were influenced by Sukhothai architecture.
The Buddha images of Lanna are frequently depicted with specific attributes like a round face, a smiling expression, and curled-up hair or an egg-shaped face with a halo of flames.

Ayutthaya art
Ayutthaya art thrived between the 14th and 18th centuries CE, during the rise and dominance of the Ayutthaya Kingdom across much of mainland Southeast Asia.
It inherited the artistic traditions of late U-Thong art and developed a distinctive style that blended various cultural influences from Sukhothai, Lopburi, India, Persia, China, Japan, and Europe.
Ayutthaya also exerted its artistic influence over its vassal states of Angkor and Lanna.

The art of Ayutthaya was characterized by a diverse array of techniques and styles, including the grand palaces and monasteries decorated with chedis, prangs, and Buddha images.
Religious icons were often adorned with regal attire and crowns, emphasizing the close relationship between the king and the Buddha.
Artisans showcased their expertise in the creation of lacquerware and mother-of-pearl inlay, producing functional and decorative objects with intricate designs and vivid paintings.
These techniques were frequently used to decorate religious objects such as Buddha images.
Chang Sip Mu, which means Ten Essential Traditional Craftsmanship, played a crucial role in both civilian and military fief houses during the Ayutthaya period.

This is evidenced by its recognition under the Three Seals Law implemented by King Borommatrailokkanat.
Despite the name suggesting only ten groups of highly skilled craftsmen, the group actually comprised more than ten groups who were experts in various fields.
However, after the Burmese army burned down the city in 1767 CE, various branches of fine arts that had thrived during the late Ayutthaya period had to disperse because craftsmen were taken away.
Despite this unfortunate event, the city’s artistic heritage can still be appreciated today at the archaeological site of the historic city and in various museums.

Rattanakosin art
Rattanakosin art is a style of art that emerged in 1780, when the Rattanakosin Kingdom was founded by King Rama I.
The king wanted to revive the artistic traditions that had been lost during the destruction of the Ayutthaya Kingdom by the Burmese.
He re-established Chang Sip Mu, a group of ten craftsmen who were responsible for creating fine art in Bangkok.
Later, this group became part of the Fine Arts Department.
The early Rattanakosin art was influenced by the late Ayutthaya art, which was characterized by the use of bright colors, gold leaf, and solid backgrounds in paintings.

The artists also restored some of the art forms that had been damaged or lost, such as lacquerware and mother-of-pearl inlay.
During the reign of King Rama III, Rattanakosin art began to incorporate elements from other cultures, such as European and Chinese.
This was especially evident in architectural art, which blended Thai and Chinese styles.
For example, the Grand Palace and Wat Pho were built with Chinese-style roofs and decorations.
King Rama IV introduced more changes to Rattanakosin’s art, as he was interested in Western science and culture.
He adopted European architectural styles and techniques, such as Gothic and neoclassical, and also learned about linear perspective from Western paintings.
He hired Khrua In Khong, a talented painter who applied linear perspective to Thai paintings and created realistic scenes of nature and society.

King Rama V continued the modernization and westernization of Rattanakosin art, as he traveled to Europe and brought back new ideas and materials.
He commissioned many buildings that combined Thai and European styles, such as the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall and the Vimanmek Mansion, and mixed-style such as Chakri Maha Prasat Throne Hall.
He also supported the production of Benjarong, a type of porcelain with colorful patterns that had previously been imported from China with Thai patterns but later began to be produced locally.

Contemporary art
Contemporary Thai art emerged in the 1990s, blending old and new Thai cultural features with a diverse color palette and patterns to create modern and appealing art.
However, its roots can be traced back to Khrua In Khong, the first Thai artist to adopt the Western realist style in his paintings, which added more depth and realism to his works.

Silpa Bhirasri, an Italian sculptor who came to Thailand in 1923 and founded the School of Fine Arts, which later became Silpakorn University, played a pivotal role in introducing modern art concepts and techniques to Thai artists and students.
He taught them perspective, anatomy, composition, and color theory, and established the National Art Exhibition in 1949, providing a platform to showcase and promote Thai art.
Silpa Bhirasri’s famous sculptures and paintings reflected his artistic vision and appreciation of Thai culture and history, making him widely regarded as the father of Thai contemporary art.
Silpa Bhirasri’s influence can be seen in the works of Fua Haripitak and Sawasdi Tantisuk [th], who were Thailand’s avant-gardes in the 1950s and 1960s.

These artists challenged the conventional norms and expectations of Thai art by creating abstract and expressive works that explored their personal feelings and experiences.
They used bold colors, shapes, and textures to convey their emotions and ideas, incorporating elements of Thai culture and spirituality, such as Buddhist symbols, folk motifs, and astrological signs, into their works.
Their trailblazing efforts paved the way for many more artists of later generations, such as Damrong Wong-Upraj, Manit Poo-Aree, Pichai Nirand, and Anant Panin, to experiment with new forms and styles of expression.

In the mid-1990s, a group of artists created the Chiang Mai Social Installation, which brought art and performance out of the traditional gallery setting and into the streets of Chiang Mai.
The Bangkok Art Biennale, launched in 2018, provides a platform for artists to showcase their work on an international stage.
These developments reflect a growing interest in Thai contemporary art and the increasing willingness of artists to experiment with new forms of expression.
Source: wikipedia

 

 

Art & Culture of Tibet
The vast majority of surviving Tibetan art created before the mid-20th century is religious, with the main forms being thangka, paintings on cloth, mostly in a technique described as gouache or distemper,

Tibetan Buddhist wall paintings, and small statues in bronze, or large ones in clay, stucco, or wood.
They were commissioned by religious establishments or by pious individuals for use within the practice of Tibetan Buddhism and were manufactured in large workshops by monks and lay artists, who are mostly unknown.
Various types of religious objects, such as the phurba or ritual dagger, are finely made and lavishly decorated.
Secular objects, in particular jewelry and textiles, were also made, with Chinese influences strong in the latter.

Himalayan art is an overall term for Tibetan art together with the art of Bhutan, Nepal, Ladakh, Kashmir, and neighboring parts of Mongolia and China where Tibetan Buddhism is practiced.
Sino-Tibetan art refers to works in a Tibetan style and with Tibetan Buddhist iconography produced in either China or Tibet, often arising from patronage by Chinese emperors.
The artists seem to have been a mixture of Tibetan and Chinese, with some Newari from Nepal, and the place of manufacture is often uncertain between the two.

The less common term of Tibeto-Chinese may be used when the Tibetan element is stronger.
Tibetan religious art has been described as “almost unbelievably conservative”, to a large extent representing “the perpetuation of the forms and iconography of the last phase of Buddhist art of India”, ending about the 12th century.
This was the Pala-Sena art of north-east India, relatively close to Tibet, and the home of key figures like Atisha, a missionary from Nalanda in Bihar.

After the decline of Buddhism in India soon after, very little survives from the Indian Buddhist art of this or earlier periods except monumental sculpture, and art historians must deduce much about this vanished culture from Tibetan works.
Other influences on Tibetan art over the centuries came from Chinese and Nepalese Buddhist art.
Landscape backgrounds were adopted from Chinese painting from about the 14th century for some thanka, and Chinese ornamental styles became dominant around 1700.

The finest achievements are typically considered to be in painted thanka and small bronzes (often gilt-bronze), where the best works have very high levels of technical skill.
These were generally private works, only seen within monasteries, and often specifically designed for meditation.
More public art includes large statues for prayer halls, large appliqué thankas for temporary display during Tibetan festivals on thangka walls, and sand mandalas, also temporary.

Artists
Painters and at least the modelers of sculpture were mostly monks, but less so for those made in China, or by the many Nepali artists who worked in or for Tibet.
Many applied arts were made by lay craftspeople, sometimes working on designs for ornament supplied by monks.
Apart from works from recent decades the names of the artists involved are unknown, except in the case of a few leading artist monks, such as Chöying Dorje, 10th Karmapa (1604–1674), and the Mongolian Zanabazar (1635–1715).
There have recently been rather controversial attempts to attribute some surviving works to a well-documented and significant Nepali artist called Aniko or Anige (1245–1306), who worked in painting, sculpture, and architecture in Tibet and China, but it remains uncertain if anything by him, rather than his sons or followers, has survived.

Painting
Paintings come in several types and sizes.
The most important is the thangka, a broad term for portable paintings on cloth or paper that can be stored rolled up.
Larger ones may also be called “banners”, and the really large ones for display on thangka walls at festivals are mostly made from appliqué cloth, with only minimal painting.
Even relatively small thangkas which are much taller than they are wide may be called banners.

The usual painting technique is gouache on fine cotton, but other cloth may be used.
The painting was over an underdrawing.
Colors were originally bright, though many old paintings have faded.
Most, and all before the 16th century, are square or have a vertical “portrait” format, and most are under a metre tall.
There are also images in silk tapestry using the Chinese kesi technique.

The earliest thangka to survive are some from the blocked-up cave near Dunhuang that date from a period of Tibetan occupation there in the 10th century.
Tsakli or “initiation cards” are small painted (or sometimes printed) images on cloth, glued to a card backing, usually showing a relatively simple image of a sacred figure or a pair.
They were produced in sets of perhaps six to over a hundred, and used for instructing monks and also the temporary consecration and protection of sites or objects.
The figure may be identified in ink on the back.

They are one of several Tibetan forms without close comparators in neighboring Buddhist countries.
Most monasteries and temples in Tibet had wall paintings, a large percentage of which had been destroyed or badly damaged.
These were painted over several plaster-like layers of “clay, chopped-up straw, and dung” in the same technique as thangkas.
They usually cover the entire wall above a certain level, using much the same subjects and styles as thangkas.
Paintings and other works were ritually consecrated upon completion.

The book covers more often included painted decoration than the pages of the book.
This is usually on the inside of the wood cover, so the painting is protected.
Initially, books had the very long, thin, shape of Indian palm leaf manuscripts whatever material was used, allowing only a long row of tsakli-like single figures.
Later different shapes were used, allowing larger thangka-style compositions.

Sculpture
The most common material for smaller sculptures is metal, usually “bronze”, which is often gilded. Modern scientific analysis shows that the actual compositions of Tibetan “bronze” (or copper alloy) are even more variable than in bronze from other parts of the world, being very often brass and sometimes almost pure copper.
The compositions sometimes vary considerably from one end of a statue to the other.
Tibetan foundries seem to have used whatever base metal was available, and not to have been too careful in ensuring proper mixing.

Pieces made in China or Mongolia are generally much more homogenous.
Precious metals may be used, especially for Imperial Chinese commissions, but figures mainly in gold or silver are very rare; evidently, some were made, but they have presumably been recycled as bullion later on.
A very high-quality yab-yum pair in the Hermitage Museum with an inscribed date to the Ming Yongle reign of 1403–1425 is made of copper and about 40% gold, but this is a rarity.

Tibet has deposits of gold, but under the influence of Bon, mining was regarded as rather immoral, and only the meagre product of panning in rivers was acceptable.
Large inflows of gold came from China only after the Mongol Yuan dynasty began to heavily patronize Tibetan Buddhism in the late 13th century.
Metal sculptures sometimes have color added by a variety of techniques including inlays, partial gilding, lacquer paint, colored wax, and using alloys with different metal mixtures, especially zinc to give different colors.
Jewels may be inserted into the metal.
The usual basic casting technique is lost wax casting; many works, especially in later periods, are cast in several pieces, and then joined.
Small relics of distinguished teachers were often placed inside the hollow statues, wrapped in paper with writing identifying them.

Many of the common materials for sculpture are not often used in Tibet.
Wood was expensive, and generally used for buildings, furniture, and caskets rather than sculpture (the wood reliefs at the Jokhang in Lhasa are by Nepali sculptors brought in for the purpose).
Wood doorway surrounds in monasteries sometimes had figurative carvings.
But small works in wood, ivory, terracotta, and stone are found.
Stone is mainly used for small steles carved in relief, or rock reliefs carved into cliffs beside paths, which were then painted.

Large sculptures, almost all sacred figures in a meditating or teaching seated position, are mostly for the altars of temples or prayer halls.
The Tibetan prototype for these is the Jowo, a bronze statue of the Buddha in Lhasa, supposedly brought from China by a Tang dynasty princess marrying the Tibetan king.
Most later Tibetan examples are made of clay or rammed earth over a hollow interior stuffed with straw, with wood supports for the largest.
They are then painted and partly gilded, and often finished with varnish.
Tsa-tsa are small relief plaques or miniature chortens made in molds with clay or rammed earth. Many are left in places considered holy, and the chorten-shaped ones play a part in funerary rituals.
Some include ashes from the cremated remains of a deceased person, or objects symbolizing them.
Others, like their Indian predecessors, work as souvenirs of pilgrimages, and are taken home to be displayed.

Other media for Buddhist art
There are types of Buddhist art that are deliberately temporary, for use in rituals and meditation. The best known of these is the sand mandala, a largely geometric image made up of grains of sand or minerals, where necessary dyed to give several bright colors.
These are placed onto a drawn pattern on a flat and even ground surface with great skill, using cone-shaped funnels called chak-pur and fingers.
The mandala is generally square or round and can be between two and three meters across. Making the mandala is itself a religious act, and the image’s temporary nature is part of the teaching.
Many are made for festivals, and after a few days on display they are simply swept away.
The same patterns are often used in painted thangkas, with or without figures, which are generally not attempted in sand.

Torma are sculpted ritual offerings made of edible materials, with yak butter and flour the most common and often the only main ingredients, along with colorings.
They are therefore a form of butter sculpture. Eggs, milk, and other ingredients even including meat may be used.
They are used in various contexts, the most common of which is being placed on altars. Very large ones may be made for special festivals.
Some are eaten after a period of ritual use.

Many types of objects for both religious and secular use were lavishly decorated in the same styles, mixing metalwork with gemstones.
These include vases, offering plates and model mountain “mandala plates”. containers, and other objects for altars, rituals, and the private use of senior monks, as well as use by wealthy lay persons. In recent centuries China was the main influence on the rich ornamentation used, with Nepal and India prominent earlier.

Tibetan Buddhism has several distinctive ritual instruments, some for use on general altars, and others for special tantric rituals; some are used in both.
There are also musical instruments used in religious ceremonies, but these are not covered here. Many of the instruments are shared with the Hindu tantra tradition.
Most are usually in bronze, and the most important is the vajra (or dorje), a small ritual weapon that is normally accompanied by a small bell, the phurba dagger, Kartika flaying knife, the khatvanga staff or wand,[40] and the kapala, a skull cup, using a real skull, but often with an elaborate metalwork setting.

The kangling thigh-bone trumpet, also mainly real bone, may also have metal mounts.
Oracles such as the Nechung or “Official State Oracle” have extremely elaborate costumes and other special ritual implements for giving their predictions.
The costumes include much-carved bone, as do some of those for performers in the cham dances and adepts in some tantric rituals. Apart from necklaces and other jewelry forms, there are “aprons” with bone plaques large enough to hold complex relief carvings.

Woodblock printing was used for both text and images or a combination.
This was both on paper for books or single sheets or on textiles, where it was very widely used for prayer flags.
As with the prayer wheels outside religious buildings, usually made of brass with the prayer inscribed in relief, setting the text in motion, whether by the wind in the case of flags or by hand turning in the case of the wheels, was believed to increase the efficacy of the prayer or mantra. Designs including the Wind Horse are among the most popular.
Usually, the design for the wooden block was drawn by a monk, but carving the block was done by lay craftspeople outside the monastery.[43]

Secular art
Traditional Tibetan society had a relatively small but wealthy upper class, as well as prosperous merchants.
These patronized the religious arts (most wealthy men had spent some of their youth in monastic training), but also the usual range of secular forms.
Monasteries also contained secular art in such forms as woolen Tibetan rugs.
The usual form of these before 1950 was the khaden or sleeping carpet, also used for sitting or meditating on, with either geometric of simple figural designs, the latter often versions of Chinese motifs.

The imitation tiger-skin “tiger rug” at least began as a substitute for real tiger skins, which Buddhist and Hindu tantric masters are often shown sitting on in Indian art, or wearing as a cloak. But it seems to have become a prestigious thing to sit on for all types of people.
Tibetan clothing for the wealthy was elaborate and very brightly colored.
Chinese silks were much used and imitated locally.
Otherwise, women wore skirts of local hand-woven cloth with lines of different colors.
The clothing of the poor in 19th-century photographs generally appears very ragged, at least for working men. Tibetan jewelry, worn in profusion by both sexes, was chunky rather than highly refined, usually mainly in silver.
Turquoise was one of the gemstones mined in Tibet, and much used.

Elite Tibetan women wore their hair elaborately tied high over the head on formal occasions, hanging jewelry on it. Various personal items such as saddles and horse trappings could be highly decorated in similar techniques.
The chab chab, worn by women, is a brooch from which a set of small useful tools such as spoons, picks, and knives hang by short chains.
The chuck muck, not exclusive to Tibet, is a fire-lighting kit, typically hung from the belt by a short strap. Thokcha are small amulets of various shapes made (or supposed to be made) from meteoric iron, which were in use well before Buddhism arrived.

Furniture, in recent centuries tending to loosely follow Chinese forms, can be very finely made, and are usually highly decorated.
Caskets, boxes and covers for manuscripts and storage chests were also important.
Tibetan horse trappings, arms and armor for the elite were often highly decorated; a reasonable number have survived because there was relatively little evolution in what was used for fighting until the 20th century, and also because items were given as votive offerings to monasteries.

Buddhist iconography
A high proportion of both thangkas and sculptures have as their main subject a single sacred figure, or two of them embracing in the yab-yum position.
These are very often surrounded by other figures, much smaller, often representing a wide range of persons or qualities.
Buddhist symbols often appear.
The main figures are buddhas, bodhisattvas, the various types of “deities” in Tibetan Buddhism, and sometimes distinguished monks of the past,[48] who may be regarded as bodhisattvas.
Very often the figures at the top represent the “lineage” of teachings relating to the main figure, including a mixture of semi-legendary early and foundational figures, and more recent monks.

Several of these are yidams or meditation deities.
The appearance of these and their surrounding elements is set out in great detail in texts, which the thangkas follow closely, and monks are required to memorize and meditate on these for very long periods.
In many cases, it is eventually explained to the initiate that the deity has no existence outside the mind of persons meditating on them, and the purpose of the exercise is to realize within the meditator the qualities the deity embodies, as part of the Buddhist practices of refuge and deity yoga.

Tibetan art is especially rich, compared to that of other Buddhist countries, in depictions of “fierce” figures, sometimes called a figure’s “wrathful aspect” or “expression”.
These are to be understood as protective figures, versions of buddhas or bodhisattvas that can also be shown in their pacific aspect. Indeed, thanks to the very complex Tibetan understanding of their nature, important figures have a number of different “aspects”, which may be depicted very differently.
Sometimes these are shown in compartments around the edge of the composition.

They are often depicted standing on much smaller figures personifying the malign forces they have overcome, and the skulls or heads of others may hang from their belt or neck as a mundamala or skull garland. There may also be skulls in their crown.
The foundation story of Tibetan Buddhism has much on early leaders, above all Padmasambhava, subduing evil spirits that previously dominated Tibet.
The Dharmapala are one class of these fierce protectors, and one of them, Mahakala, was at various times given a particular role as the national protector, of Tibet and of the Mongol Empire.
Tibetan Buddhism also arose and consolidated at the same time as Indian Buddhism declined, a process that is still rather unclear, but at times involved considerable violence, perhaps increasing the perceived need for powerful protective figures.

Narrative depictions of the lives of religious figures are found in thangkas, usually with the various events shown around a much larger central figure.
The life of Gautama Buddha is depicted, as well as his previous lives, but the other most important buddhas and bodhisattvas generally lack biographies.
Tibetan figures such as Padmasambhava, and Milarepa, and famous monks such as Sakya Pandita,[60] and the Third Dalai Lama may be treated in a similar style.

From the 18th century, these scenes may be placed in a detailed landscape drawing on Chinese styles.
Another style has a main central figure with much smaller portraits around the edge of the composition, either in compartments or in later examples in a landscape setting.
These may be divine figures or monks who were mentors or pupils.
Other portraits of monks are simpler, concentrating on the main figures.

Some may date to the lifetime of the subject, though others are of figures long dead.
It has been argued that portraits of living and dead figures are distinguished by the dead being shown seated on a lotus throne, but a recent study rejects this and instead argues that the side on which the tögag monastic robe is folded under the arm may indicate this.
Small bronze sculpted portraits are also mostly straightforward, showing the subject seated on a base, not always wearing their ceremonial hat.
One such bronze has an inscription saying it was made for the bedroom of a senior lama, perhaps the subject.

Another subject for thangkas is the various heavens or Pure lands of the main buddhas, especially Amitābha’s Sukhavati, and the mystic earthly kingdom of Shambhala.
In recent centuries, these have also been given panoramic landscape backgrounds.
There are also paintings showing monasteries, usually concentrating on the buildings rather than the (often spectacular) settings.
Buddhist background
As Mahayana Buddhism emerged as a separate school in the 4th century AD, it emphasized the role of bodhisattvas, compassionate beings who forgo their personal escape to nirvana in order to assist others.

From an early time, various bodhisattvas were also subjects of statuary art.
Tibetan Buddhism, as an offspring of Mahayana Buddhism, inherited this tradition.
But the additional dominating presence of the Vajrayana (or Buddhist tantra) may have had an overriding importance in the artistic culture.
A common bodhisattva depicted in Tibetan art is the deity Chenrezig (Avalokitesvara), often portrayed as a thousand-armed saint with an eye in the middle of each hand, representing the all-seeing compassionate one who hears our requests.
This deity can also be understood as a yidam, or ‘meditation Buddha’ for Vajrayana practice.

More specifically, Tibetan Buddhism contains Tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism for its common symbolism of the vajra, the diamond thunderbolt (known in Tibetan as the Dorje).
Most of the typical Tibetan Buddhist art can be seen as part of the practice of tantra. Vajrayana techniques incorporate many visualizations during meditation, and most of the elaborate tantric art can be seen as aids to these visualizations; from representations of meditational deities (yidams) to mandalas and all kinds of ritual implements.
There are distinct tantric rituals, mostly originating in India, but some apparently incorporate elements from Tibetan shamanism.
These are conducted alone or before a small group of initiates.

Bön
The indigenous shamanistic religion of the Himalayas is known as Bön, which has survived in a monastic form, co-existing with Tibetan Buddhism, and producing similar art.
Bon contributes a pantheon of local tutelary deities to Tibetan art.
In Tibetan temples (known as lhakhang), statues of the Buddha or Padmasambhava are often paired with statues of the tutelary deity of the district which often appear angry or dark.

These gods once inflicted harm and sickness on the local citizens but after the arrival of Padmasambhava, these negative forces have been subdued and now must serve Buddha.
Bon images are often extremely similar to Tibetan Buddhist ones, especially those produced by the Nyingma order, which has the closest connections with Bon monasticism. Indeed, even experts are sometimes unable to be sure for which religion some works were produced.
Other works depict the distinct Bon deities and historic teachers, but remain generally close to Buddhist styles; there was evidently considerable interchange between artists in both traditions. In general,

Bon sacred figures do not appear in the complicated different forms and aspects of Buddhist ones, and a Bon fierce protective deity is likely only to have that form.
Some differences are easier to see: Bon art uses the swastika rather than the vajra as a symbol of wisdom, and although their chorten (stupas) are “almost identical”,
Bon devotees walk round them in the opposite direction (anti-clockwise) to Buddhists.

Historical background

First transmission
Pre-Buddhist art in Tibet is relatively little understood, apart from small personal items such as thokcha amulets, and prehistoric rock carvings of animals. All are hard to date. Stylistically, Buddhist art tends to be divided, at some periods more than others, into that from Western, Central, and Eastern Tibet.
Buddhism achieved its final very strong position in Tibet in several stages, with reverses sometimes following periods of strong growth.
The first arrival of Buddhism was traditionally with the two princesses, Nepali and Chinese, who came to marry King Songsten Gampo (reigned c. 627–649).

Each came with monks and statues, and both Indian and Chinese styles of Buddhism (both Mahayana, but already somewhat divergent) were encouraged by the court.
The core of the Jokhang in Lhasa survives from this period, and the Chinese Jowo statue, but Buddhism was essentially a court religion for some time after, and whether any Tibetan art survives is uncertain.
Tongsten Gampo was the first of the “Three Religious Kings” (or “Dharma Kings”), followed by Trisong Detsen and Tri Relwajen, who reigned until about 836 (there are, or may have been, several intervening kings).
King Trisong Detsen invited the Indian monk Śāntarakṣita, of Nalanda, who arrived in 761, but whose efforts were, according to Tibetan tradition, frustrated by evil native spirits.

After retreating, and spending some years in Nepal, Śāntarakṣita returned with the Tantric adept Padmasambhava, who successfully defeated the evil spirits.[77]
In 791 Buddhism was declared the official religion, and King Trisong Detsen eventually felt he had to make a choice between the Indian and Chinese styles of Buddhism.
After hearing both groups of monks making their case, he chose the Indian ones, perhaps for political reasons, and thereafter Sanskrit texts have always been regarded in Tibet as the proper foundation for Buddhism.

By this time some large monasteries had been built, and the Tibetan Empire had begun to encroach on China’s western borders; the Tibetan paintings found in Dunhuang are one major group of survivals.
This period of expansion was soon followed by the Era of Fragmentation after 842, which saw the end of the unified kingdom, and much tension between Bon and Buddhism, which declined severely, especially in Central Tibet.
Second Transmission
The “Later” or “Second Transmission” began under King Yeshe-Ö of the Guge Kingdom in Western Tibet, who succeeded in getting the senior Indian monk Atisha to come to Tibet in 1042.
Spreading over the next decades from Western to Eastern Tibet, Atisha and successors such as Dromtön and Marpa Lotsawa established many monasteries, and new orders of monks.

At this period Indian Buddhism was still a force in north-east India, though in decline, with large monastic complexes such as Nalanda in Bengal and modern Bihar, to the south of the region around Lhasa.
There were considerable monastic interchanges between the two regions, with texts being taken north for copying and translating, and also evidently movement of artworks and probably artists.
A greater number of Tibetan works have survived, many showing accomplished styles, with considerable Indian influence.

Apart from portable works, the two outstanding survivals in wall paintings are the monasteries of Tabo and Alchi in modern Ladakh in India, relatively small establishments in Guge which largely escaped later rebuilding and repainting, and Chinese destruction.
The dominant type of monastic Buddhism in northwest India at the time was Vajrayana (or Tantric Buddhism, Esoteric Buddhism), and various sub-schools of this tradition became the norm in Tibet.
Over the next century a number of monastic orders or schools emerged, the four major schools, with their approximate dates of foundation, being the Nyingma (c. 8th century), Kagyu (11th century), Sakya (1073), and Gelug (1409).
These came to produce art with slight differences in both subject matter and style.

Mongol gold
The situation transformed dramatically in the second half of the 13th century, as the protracted process of the Mongol conquest of China (1215–1294) drew to a close.
Tibetan Buddhism had made considerable inroads in Mongolia, and became the official state religion of the new Mongol Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan, though other religions were (most of the time) tolerated and sometimes patronized.
Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (1235–1280), leader of the Sakya order, was made Imperial Preceptor and head of the new Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs.
Over the next century monastic Buddhism received “massive financial and material support by the Yuan state (1260-1368), most prominently in the form of several tons of gold and silver, and hundreds of thousands of bolts of silk”.

Tibetan monasteries were established in China, mostly staffed by monks from Tibet.
A large number of imperial ceremonies using the monks were established—a reform in 1331 reduced the number from 216 to 200 annually.
Each of these might last several days, a “short” one taking a hundred monks for seven days, while a long one used forty monks for three years.
These were lavishly rewarded: one seven day ritual was paid for with 600 kilos of silver. Large donations were used for building monasteries in Tibet, or commissioning art, but donations were also given to large numbers of individual monks, who might use them to make art.
The Sakya order were the largest beneficiaries, but all orders benefited.

The Yuan emperors maintained large imperial workshops, whose main task was producing Buddhist images and designs for them.
About half of the senior artists were Newari or Tibetan, with the rest Chinese.
Drawings of the design were typically approved by members of the court and the Imperial Preceptor, who checked the details of the iconography were correct.
Often old pieces were copied, and creatively reinterpreted.
The Yuan empresses were especially fond of silver statues of female deities, most of which were melted down at some later point, as few of them survive.

The records show that in 1329, the year after she became empress during a brief civil war, Budashiri, wife of the Wenzong Emperor, commissioned goddess figures that used a total of 2,220 kilos of silver.[88]
Although the next Ming dynasty presented itself as a native Chinese dynasty expelling the foreign Mongol overlords, the founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398) had spent several years in a Chinese Buddhist monastery, and he and his successors continued to patronize Tibetan Buddhism, if not on as extravagant a scale as the Yuan.

It suited Chinese governments to keep their neighbor to the West peaceful and largely devoted to religion; when necessary the Chinese intervened militarily in the sometimes fierce disputes between the different orders.
The next Qing dynasty was Manchus, who kept their elite separate from the Han Chinese.
They were largely Tibetan Buddhists, with the older traditions of Manchu shamanism still strong, and continued to patronize Tibetan Buddhism in China and Tibet until the end of imperial rule.

Collecting
There was relatively little Tibetan art outside the country until the end of the 19th century, except in the Chinese imperial collections and in Tibetan monasteries in China.
The first significant foreign collector was Prince Esper Ukhtomsky (1861–1921), a Russian author, publisher, and Oriental enthusiast, with close access to the court.
Ukhtomsky was strongly attracted to Asian art on aesthetic grounds and eventually declared himself a Buddhist.
During his travels in Tibet and Central Asia he amassed a large collection of Chinese and Tibetan art, that eventually numbered over 2,000 pieces.
In 1902 the collection was given to the Ethnographical Department of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
In 1933 it was divided between the Hermitage Museum, which received the largest and best share, and the Museum of the History of Religion, both in what was then Leningrad.

The Hermitage’s share remains the basis of “one of the world’s largest collections of Tibetan art”. Unlike most Western museums, whose collections tend to be stronger in objects from southern and western Tibet, the Ukhtomsky collection is strongest in objects from northern and eastern Tibet, making it especially valuable.
In 1911, the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, United States displayed the world’s first exhibition dedicated to Tibetan art.
The museum continued to add more artifacts until the 1940s, amassing more than 5,000 pieces in its collection including paintings, sculptures, ritual objects, fine textiles and decorative arts.

Today the museum houses over 5,500 Tibetan art artifacts, the largest and most distinctive in the Western Hemisphere, in eight permanent galleries with a Tibetan Buddhist altar as its centerpiece.
The altar was consecrated in 1990 by the 14th Dalai Lama in 1990.
The upheavals in Tibet and China in the 20th century brought about large movements of portable art to the West and the destruction of most that remained in the country.

There was large-scale destruction during and after the invasion and annexation of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China in 1950 to 1951, the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976, and at other times.
While wall paintings, large altar statues, and other large art could usually not be moved, and a high proportion were destroyed, smaller thangka and bronzes were relatively easy to carry and left the country in large numbers.
These were also the types of objects that probably had the greatest appeal to Western collectors, and were still relatively cheap in the mid-century.
Several important private collections were formed, many of which subsequently passed to museums in the West, a process still continuing.

The art historical understanding of Tibetan art and its dating and regional differences also continues to develop.
Apart from museum collections in Tibet, China, St. Petersburg, and Newark, many of the larger Western museums have significant collections, though most thangkas and textiles are not on permanent display for conservation reasons.
Dedicated museums for Tibetan art in the West are the Rubin Museum of Art and Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, both in New York City, and the Museum of Contemporary Tibetan Art in the Netherlands
Source: Wikipedia

 

Art of Vietnam
Vietnamese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in Vietnam or by Vietnamese artists.
Vietnamese art has a long and rich history, the earliest examples of which date back as far as the Stone Age around 8,000 BCE.
With the millennium of Chinese domination starting in the 2nd century BC, Vietnamese art undoubtedly absorbed many Chinese influences, which would continue even following independence from China in the 10th century AD.
However, Vietnamese art has always retained many distinctively Vietnamese characteristics.
By the 19th century, the influence of French art took hold in Vietnam, having a large hand in the birth of modern Vietnamese art.
Traditional art

Prehistory art
Pottery dating to the Stone Age (c. 8000 BCE) has been found in Bắc Sơn, Vietnam.
This pottery was made from clay, and in its beginnings was largely basic and lacking any artistic flare. Moving into the neolithic era, however,
Vietnamese pottery and ceramics started to develop rapidly, showing signs of decor.

Antiquity art
The highly developed Đông Sơn culture that flourished in North Vietnam (from about 1000 BC to the 4th century BC) was the civilization responsible for the world-famous Đông Sơn drums, a product of their advanced bronze-casting skills.
These drums give us an important peek into early Vietnamese life.
They were elaborately decorated with geometric patterns, and most importantly, depicted scenes of everyday life such as farming, warriors donning feather headdresses, construction of ships, musicians, etc.

Archaeological evidence from this period also shows that people in the area had long been weaving cloth.
Many of the people depicted on the drums are shown as wearing elaborate clothing.
Chinese domination from 111 BC to 939 AD
During the ten centuries of rule by the Chinese, the Vietnamese began to apply newly learned Chinese techniques to art and specifically ceramics, however, this was in conjunction with the continued production of art based on native methods; this is proven by the excavation of Chinese tombs in the area.[2]

Late Classical art
Vietnamese art and ceramics during this period of independence (approximately 10th to 15th centuries) flourished.
The ceramics from this period were thought to have been largely influenced by both ancient native styles and the Tang and later Song dynasty’s art, including applying the “three colors” concept to its ceramics.
Chinese-influenced philosophies adopted by the Vietnamese such as Confucianism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Taoism all had a lasting impression on Vietnamese art.
Some also claim there are small traces of Cham influences to be found as well.

The Lý dynasty, beginning in the 11th century is viewed specifically as the golden age of Vietnamese art, and its ceramics became famous across East and Southeast Asia.
The Lý dynasty also saw the construction of many of Vietnam’s landmark structures, including the Temple of Literature, One Pillar Pagoda, and Quỳnh Lâm Temple.
The Trần dynasty that immediately followed in the 13th century saw a more subdued approach to art.
Early modern art

The fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam was quite short-lived, lasting only about two decades, yet it was also seen as the harshest domination.
Many if not most classical Vietnamese books were burnt, and thus much documentation of the era of independence was lost.
It is said that a more extreme than ever process of sinicization was enforced, and countless Vietnamese resources and goods were removed and taken to China.

Nguyễn dynasty
The Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam, saw a renewed interest in ceramics and porcelain art. Imperial courts across Asia imported Vietnamese ceramics.
Despite how highly developed the performing arts (such as imperial court music and dance) became during the Nguyễn dynasty, some view other fields of arts as beginning to decline during the latter part of the Nguyễn dynasty.

Modern art
Vietnamese modern art includes artistic work materialized during the colonial period between the 1860s and 1970s, and significantly ascribed to the founding of “Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine” in October 1925.
Before 1925, paintings and carvings were mainly created for religious purposes, in a decorative manner for example lacquered furniture and utilitarian ceramic and porcelains, subordinated to demands by the local temples and pagodas.
A striking “shift” was obvious after the founding of Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine EBAI, observing a gradual change in perception of art, and the beginning recognition of art for art’s sake.
Vietnamese artists experimented with new ways of seeing, with ideas from two important French teachers, it marks an intensifying cultural transfer and modernity.

New Vietnamese Art (1925–1945)
Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine EBAI was founded by Victor Tardieu, a French academic and naturalist painter.
With a report commission sent to the general Government of Indochina, Victor Tardieu recommended setting up a school “EBAI in Indochina” to train real artists.
Unlike, Ecole professionnelle” in Hanoi, “Ecole des Arts Cambodgeins” and three other schools set up in Cochinchina between 1902 and 1913, these schools were professional schools to train craftsmen.

Tardieu’s idea was to adapt the existing curriculum used in “Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris” by including art history; and technical courses like oil painting and perspective, to train students into real artists..
He planned to “help the Vietnamese artist to get back in touch with the deep meaning and fundamental inspiration of their own traditions.
The magazine publications Ngày Nay (Today) and Phong Hoá (Mores) which were associated with Tự Lực văn đoàn (Self Reliance Literary Association), were committed to modernizing Vietnamese culture through the crucial assessment of both Vietnam’s tradition and Western modernity.

Students in the EBAI were columnists in these two weekly magazines, illustrating cartoons and exhibition information.
The stylized cartoon illustrations were very modern, depicting simple messages.
Oil painting
Following closely to the curriculum of Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, oil painting was first introduced to students as a completely new medium.
Although Western art, in this case, oil painting, was likely first encountered by Le Van Mien (1873–1943) in L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, who returned to Hanoi in 1895, no record shows that he taught and trained craftsman in Bien Hoa or Gia Dinh this western medium.

This medium was thoroughly unknown to the students, and Joseph Inguimberty though it would be hard to assimilate the oil painting techniques to them..
Artists like Tô Ngọc Vân were able to combine Western aesthetic techniques like linear perspective, imitation of nature and modelling in the round into his own oriental traditions with oil medium. Stylized as the ‘poetic reality’ style, his works set female ideals into a linear perspective in an enclosed space, juxtapositioned with a flat colored area, his works emulate with the tendency of idealization imagery.
En Plein Air

Similarly, en plein air was another major practice instituted in EBAI’s curriculum.
Students were brought outdoors for field trips to develop their painting sense of the environment. As noted by art historian Nora Taylor,
“[He … propped his easel under a tree by a rice paddy, took off his shirt, and proceeded to sketch farmers planting their rice seedlings.
Needless to say he earned quite a few giggles and embarrassed glances from his subjects.’ Nobody took off their shirts in public, not even the farmers in the fields.

The French did and so did Tô Ngọc Vân.”
This example quoted by Taylor, argues that the tendency of idealization, we see in Tô Ngọc Vân’s painting reflects a distancing and detachment with the subject matter, a result of artist’s attempt to emulate their French teachers inclusive of whatever they do.[14]
Other than oil medium and en plein air painting method, significant assimilation and adaption of local culture were encouraged by Victor Tardieu and his successor Joseph Imguimberty.

Lacquer painting
Joseph Imguimberty was fascinated by the lacquered cultural objects and architectural fixtures after visiting the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.
He encouraged his students to start using lacquer as a fine art medium, and set up workshops in EBAI with old artisans, playing a renaissance role in Lacquer painting.
“falling back on the past will be efficient only if it is used as a starting point for new research, for an evolution in line with the contemporary eras; to summarise, the question is to evolve as contemporaries within an extensive of tradition.” Victor Tardieu
Making lacquer painting takes several months, using resin from Son tree taken from the plantation in the Sơn Mài region, numerous layers of application are applied to acquire the desired color and effects.

The most notable artist who excelled in this medium is Nguyễn Gia Trí. Although artists like Trần Quang Trân, Lê Phổ, Phạm Hầu, Nguyễn Khang and Nguyễn Văn Quế attempted lacquer painting, Nguyễn Gia Trí’s achievement in lacquer painting is remarkable for his research on pigments and exploration of new lacquer colors.
Nguyễn Gia Trí’s aim ” was to obtain the same level of painting as with the oil medium regarding perspective, modeling in the round, and infinite variation of colors””.

Silk painting
Other artists like Nguyễn Phan Chánh, Lê Phổ, Mai Trung Thứ, Trần Văn Cẩn, and Lê Văn Đệ, who were the first batch of students to be admitted in EBAI, are most notable for their silk painting.
Like lacquer painting, silk painting was much encouraged for exploration in the school.
Different from the similar practices of silk painting in China and Japan, an intensifying of cultural transfer was observed in Vietnamese silk painting, artists like Nguyễn Phan Chánh blended Western composition principles with Eastern traditions like calligraphy and brush paintings.

In 1931, Paris International Colonial Exhibition, Nguyễn Phan Chánh’s work titled Children Playing a Game of Squares was well-received and this recognition firmly established the medium as a modern Vietnamese expression.
Between 1930 and 1936, Nguyễn Phan Chánh, Lê Phổ, Mai Trung Thứ, and Nguyễn Gia Trí, graduated from EBAI. Victor Tardieu died in 1937 and he was taken after by Evariste Jonchere. Tô Ngọc Vân began teaching in EBAI in 1937.
Artists like Bùi Xuân Phái and Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm who entered EBAI in 1941 were unable to complete the full five-year program due to the 1945 revolution.

An Allied bombing raid of Hanoi that was intended for a Japanese target destroyed part of the EBAI painting department in 1943, resulting the sculpture department being moved to Sơn Tây; the architecture and sculpture department to Dalat while applied arts went to Phủ Lý.
Indochina wars (1945–1975)
The end of the Second World War marked the official closedown of EBAI in 1945. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam reopened a fine arts school in Hanoi for a short period of time in September 1945 ruled by To Ngoc Van. However, artists were sympathetic to the Viet Minh and decided to leave Hanoi to join the resistance movement against the French in the Hills of Tay Bac.

Artists in the North
Notable group of artists in the North during the Cold War were Tô Ngọc Vân, Trần Văn Cẩn, Huỳnh Phương Đông, Phạm Thanh Tâm, Diệp Minh Tuyền, Hòang Trung.
Another small number of artists from well-to-do backgrounds had the opportunity to go to France and make their careers there for the most part. Examples include Lê Thị Lựu, Lê Phổ, Mai Trung Thứ, Lê Văn Đệ, Lê Bá Đảng and Phạm Tăng.
When Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence on 2 September 1945, Vietnamese artists began to resist the influence of romantic realism, the tendency for a nostalgic past, and melancholic dreams.

Artists like Tô Ngọc Vân shook off his romantic style and turned towards modern realism, he moved the closed EBAI (after the Japanese coup de force in March 1945) to Việt Bắc in 1950, the military base of the Revolutionary Army under Hồ Chí Minh.
“[He]… decided that art, as the French saw it, died in 1945 when Việt Nam declared its independence and was reborn in 1946 when the Viet Minh moved the art school to the hills of Việt Bắc, the seat of the revolutionary movement.
In 1946, he declared proudly ’tradition starts now.’

Tô Ngọc Vân’s painting style changed drastically away from the usual ideal women he painted before the First Indochina War.
Tô Ngọc Vân begins teaching resistance art classes in the Northern zone during the war with the French.
This includes setting up the “School of Fine Arts in the Resistance Zone”, and combating decadent art being scientific, national, and popular, art has to abandon religion, mythical and idealist themes, focusing solely on the inspiration and needs of the revolution and being appealing and educational to a majority of people.

Hence artists like Nguyen Hiem, Nguyễn Sáng, Phan Văn Đôn, and Trần Văn Cẩn created works that depicted the countryside, portraits of peasants, and soldiers’ battle scenes, they upheld the belief that artist should show the reality of society instead of idealized imageries.
Tô Ngọc Vân died in 1954 as the result of injuries received at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, The School of Fine Arts in the Resistance Zone was later moved to Hanoi in 1955 and named as the “Vietnam College of Fine Arts” with Trần Văn Cẩn as the principal.

1955
First National Art Exhibition in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1955, after the victory at Điện Biên Phủ where Meeting (Gặp Nhau) by Mai Văn Hiến was praised as the ideal painting that illustrates the idea of community and solidarity between the soldiers and the common people.
“The mood of the painting is reflected in the artist’s simple descriptive style, which lends itself well to its content.”
In a Painting Exhibition that in happened on December 10, 1951, Ho Chi Minh sent a message to the artists that “you, in the artistic field, have your own responsibilities – to serve the resistance, the Fatherland and the people, first and foremost the workers, peasants, and soldiers.”
However, various debates erupted in Hanoi on the role of artists in Society in 1956, during the first meeting of the writers and artist associations, members demanded for greater freedom of expression which went against what Ho Chi Minh had earlier laid down.

Two art and literature journals Nhân văn (Humanism) and Giai Phẩm (Art Works) that supported the argument were subsequently banned.
The following year, the Vietnam Association of Fine Arts in Hanoi or National Arts Association was established with 108 members headed by Thái Bá Vân.
These members were required to be members of the association if they wished their works to be exhibited or sold.
There were no private galleries where artists can display their work formally.
Eventually, this association was governed with official rules and regulations, members are obligated to hold one exhibition at the local level annually and another at national level every 5 years. Non-members were not considered artists, hence they had no opportunity to display any form of art publicly.

Between 1950 and the 1970s, members were paid as “art workers” for poster designs and illustrations, among a few were elites who painted paintings for state visitors.
Realist style, which corresponded with Northern artists’ initial aspirations, was vital in the early days of the revolution, however, due to the strict constraints by the DVR regime and decreasing subsidies, the realist trend reached an apex in the 1960s.
Strict guidelines were attempted to establish in 1962, on the productions of artists’ artworks, they needed to portray a “National Character”, subject matters were usually the countryside, battle scene, and portrait of Uncle Ho.[25]

National Paintings
Anti-colonial and resistance wars culminated in the appropriation of “national” art. It was a period to essentially erase the impact and influence of the French.
Works painted by Nam Sơn, Trần Văn Cẩn, Nguyễn Sáng, and Trần Đông Lương were in fact in the medium Lacquer, silk and oil medium.
The 3 media, encouraged and culturally transferred by the French during the colonial period were renamed as “national”.
In Trần Văn Cẩn’s Portrait painting “Militia Women of a Coastal Region”, the artist depicted a robust figure and confronting gaze, she is a comrade ready to face the enemy.
It is a politically correct painting, filled with a characteristic that fulfills the national painting.

Another theme commonly captured by artists was the landscape around Việt Bắc.
In the Diệp Minh Châu’s “Uncle Ho’s House in Việt Bắc” shows clear proficiency with the medium oil painting, the impressionist strokes of capturing the light through filtering leaves.
In Dương Hứơng Minh’s “Hauling Up Canons” a work on lacquer captures a dramatic scene of soldiers hauling heavy weapons up a steep slope.
The bravery of the men eventually brought the Viet Minh their victory against the French in Điện Biên Phủ.
Similarly, in watercolor painting painted by Phạm Thanh Tâm during the resistance war “shows a clear French influence.
His professors in the resistance zone were trained from the EBAI” The drawings and diary contents have “lyrical and poetic quality” it were regarded as ideal paintings.

Hence, art curator Joyce Fan argues that “the realist techniques thus imparted by the French continue to manifest in the paintings with the sense of detachment and distancing, unlike the social realist use of emotive values to heighten the pathos in the imagery.”
Likewise, the undeniable fact that the intense cultural transfer during the colonial period continues to influence local artists after the exit of the French.
Propaganda Posters
Propaganda posters painted during the period of “Operation Rolling Thunder” in 1965 reflect clear anti-colonial and anti-imperial messages.
Likely inspired by the Soviets and Communist Chinese, they carried a political intention.

Following strictly to the culture of new Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh’s concept, was to “stimulate intellectual and artistic creativity for art and cultural development”.
“Culture is seen as a powerful motor of development, and cultural identity as a constant in the harmonious development of society and the individual.”
“images such as those presented in the propaganda posters and paintings of the time were key indicators of how the population was to perceive the environment, the government, and the future. the posters and paintings were sometimes the only voices the people heard, the only clues they had to knowing and how to respond.”

Artists in the South
Vietnam was divided at the 17 parallel after the Geneva Conference in 1954, separating itself into the Soviet and Chinese-supported North against the Southern Republic reinforced by the United States of America.
This divided Vietnam forced some artists to flee to Saigon and continue their practices in the Republic of Vietnam, most notable artist is Tạ Tỵ, who “considerably bolstered the South’s artistic development in the following years and profoundly contributed to the foundation of the Young Artists Association in 1966, though he chose to remain anonymous in its list of founding members due to privacy reasons.”
Nguyen Gia Tri decided to move to Gia Định and eventually became the director for “Ecole des beaux-art in Gia Định” founded in 1954.
Evident in their works, due to the accessibility of information, their artworks were styled as Western-influenced, more eclectic, experimental, subjective, and individualistic.

They enjoyed more freedom in the subject matters and exhibited freely until 1975.
In 1962, the first international Exhibition of Fine Arts of Saigon was held with 21 countries participating it. Southern artist encountered abstract painting for the first time.
Following up, a second exhibition was planned for 1966 but was unfortunately canceled due to the increased intensity of the war.
In 1966, the Saigon Society of Young Artists (Hội Họa sĩ trẻ Sài Gòn) was founded campaigning to develop modern art, members include Nguyễn Trung and Trịnh Cung.

During the 1960s to 1970s, artists in Saigon experimented with abstraction and other contemporary expressions. As noted by Vietnamese art historian Huỳnh-Beattie, Southern artists did not readily accept and took in American culture, which they deemed as inferior to the French.
Although Americans were heavily involved in Saigon, Beattie argues that little had influenced the art scene in the republic.
After the reunification of Vietnam, southern artists were sent for re-education in 1975.
1976, the Hanoi government merged Ho Chi Minh City and Gia Định National School for Decorative Arts and the Saigon College of Fine Arts into Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts College and established Ho Chi Minh City branch of The Vietnam Association of Fine Arts.
The Period of Renewal from 1985

Artists benefited from greater freedom of expression after the launch of the Đổi Mới campaign. The economic reforms allowed artists a greater outlet for creative expression.
However, Nguyen Quan who was elected into the executive committee of the Vietnam Association of Fine Arts and held a position as the chief editor of the association’s Magazine Mỹ Thuật (Fine Arts) was removed from his position after organizing a workshop with 30 artists in Đại Lải, North of Hanoi in 1986.
The workshop was not acceptable by authority for “the retreat not only promoted individual expression and art for art’s sake, it also went against what the state had instituted over the past three decades in that it allowed for artists to explore their individuality rather than represent that collective sentiment of their community.”

Contemporary Art
Nowadays, besides working with traditional materials like oil, acrylic, and lacquer on wood, the younger generation of Vietnamese artists have become very active in involving different forms of art, such as installation, performance, and video art with many of them attaining international recognition for their artworks and exhibitions worldwide.
For example, Nhà Sàn Collective (formerly Nhà Sàn Studio), established in 1998, was the first artist-led, non-profit initiative to be run in Vietnam..
Nhà Sàn Studio nurtured the first generation of Vietnamese avant-garde artists who emerged in the early 1990s.
RMIT University Vietnam’s art collection is one of the most prestigious collections of contemporary Vietnamese art in the world.
This collection is historically important,  one will continue to grow the understanding of Vietnamese culture for generations to come.

The Vietnamese artists in the collection range from established and mid-career artists, whose works feature in significant exhibitions and notable private collections and public institutions worldwide, to young emerging artists who continue to tackle issues with fresh and new interpretations.
RMIT University is at the forefront of creative education and this collection allows both students and the wider community to experience the artistic expression of an important generation of contemporary Vietnamese artists.
The art collection is managed by the RMIT Library Vietnam.
Source: Wikipedia

Bhutan Art
Bhutanese art is similar to Tibetan art. Both are based on Vajrayana Buddhism and its pantheon of teachers and divine beings.
The major orders of Buddhism in Bhutan are the Drukpa Lineage and the Nyingma.
The former is a branch of the Kagyu school and is known for paintings documenting the lineage of Buddhist masters and the 70 Je Khenpo (leaders of the Bhutanese monastic establishment). The Nyingma school is known for images of Padmasambhava (“Guru Rinpoche”), who is credited with introducing Buddhism into Bhutan in the 7th century.

According to legend, Padmasambhava hid sacred treasures for future Buddhist masters, especially Pema Lingpa, to find. Tertöns are also frequent subjects of Nyingma art.
Each divine being is assigned special shapes, colors, and identifying objects, such as the lotus, conch shell, thunderbolt, and begging bowl.
All sacred images are made to exact specifications that have remained remarkably unchanged for centuries.
Bhutanese art is particularly rich in bronzes of different kinds, collectively known by the name Kham-so (made in Kham) even though they are made in Bhutan because the technique of making them was originally imported from that region of Tibet.

Wall paintings and sculptures, in these regions, are formulated on the principal ageless ideals of Buddhist art forms.
Even though their emphasis on detail is derived from Tibetan models, their origins can be discerned easily, despite the profusely embroidered garments and glittering ornaments with which these figures are lavishly covered. In the grotesque world of demons, the artists apparently had greater freedom of action than when modeling images of divine beings.
The arts and crafts of Bhutan that represent the exclusive “spirit and identity of the Himalayan kingdom” is defined as the art of Zorig Chosum, which means the “thirteen arts and crafts of Bhutan”; the thirteen crafts are carpentry, painting, paper making, blacksmithy, weaving, sculpting and many other crafts.

The Institute of Zorig Chosum in Thimphu is the premier institution of traditional arts and crafts set up by the Government of Bhutan with the sole objective of preserving the rich culture and tradition of Bhutan and training students in all traditional art forms; there is another similar institution in eastern Bhutan known as Trashi Yangtse.
Bhutanese rural life is also displayed in the Folk Heritage Museum in Thimphu.
There is also a Voluntary Artists Studio in Thimphu to encourage and promote art forms among the youth of Thimphu.
Traditional Bhutanese arts

In Bhutan, the traditional arts are known as zori chum (zo = the ability to make; rig = science or craft; chusum = thirteen).
These practices have been gradually developed through the centuries, often passed down through families with long-standing relations to a particular craft.
These traditional crafts represent hundreds of years of knowledge and ability that has been passed down through generations.
The great 15th century tertön, Pema Lingpa is traditionally credited with introducing the arts into Bhutan.
In 1680, Ngawang Namgyal, the Zhabdrung Rinpoche, ordered the establishment of the school for instruction in the thirteen traditional arts.
Although the skills existed much earlier, it is believed that the zorig chusum was first formally categorized during the rule of Gyalse Tenzin Rabgye (1680-1694), the 4th Druk Desi (secular ruler).

The thirteen traditional arts are:
Dezo – Paper Making: Handmade paper made mainly from the Daphne plant and gum from a creeper root.
Dozo – Stonework: Stone arts used in the construction of stone pools and the outer walls of dzongs, gompas, stupas, and some other buildings.
Garzo – Blacksmithing: The manufacture of iron goods, such as farm tools, knives, swords, and utensils.
Jinzo – Clay arts: The making of religious statues and ritual objects, pottery, and the construction of buildings using mortar, plaster, and rammed earth.
Lhazo – Painting: From the images on thangkas, wall paintings, and statues to the decorations on furniture and window frames.
Lugzo – Bronze casting: Production of bronze roof-crests, statues, bells, and ritual instruments, in addition to jewelry and household items using sand casting and lost-wax casting. Larger statues are made by repoussé.
Parzo – Wood, slate, and stone carving: Inwood, slate or stone, for making such items as printing blocks for religious texts, masks, furniture, altars, and the slate images adorning many shrines and altars.
Shagzo – Woodturning: Making a variety of bowls, plates, cups, and other containers.
Shingzo – Woodworking: Employed in the construction of dzongs and gompas
Thagzo – Weaving: The production of some of the most intricately woven fabrics produced in Asia.
Trözo – Silver- and gold-smithing: Working in gold, silver, and copper to make jewelry, ritual objects, and utilitarian household items.
Tshazo – Cane and bamboo work: The production of such varied items as bows and arrows, baskets, drinks containers, utensils, musical instruments, fences, and mats.
Tshemazo – Needlework: Working with needle and thread to make clothes, boots, or the most intricate of appliqué thangkas.

Characteristics of Bhutanese arts
Articles for everyday use are still fashioned today as they were centuries ago.
Traditional artisanship is handed down from generation to generation.
Bhutan’s artisans are skilled workers in metals, wood and slate carving, and clay sculpture. Artifacts made of wood include bowls and dishes, some lined with silver.
Elegant yet strong woven bamboo baskets, mats, hats, and quivers find both functional and decorative usage.
Handmade paper is prepared from tree bark by a process passed down through the ages.

Each region has its specialties: raw silk comes from eastern Bhutan, brocade from Lhuntshi (Kurtoe), woolen goods from Bumthang, bamboo wares from Kheng, woodwork from Tashi Yangtse, gold and silver work from Thimphu, and yak-hair products from the north or the Black Mountains.
Most Bhutanese art objects are produced for use of the Bhutanese themselves.
Except for goldsmiths, silversmiths, and painters, artisans are peasants who produce these articles and fabrics in their spare time, with the surplus production being sold.

Most products, particularly fabrics, are relatively expensive. In the highest qualities, every step of production is performed by hand, from dyeing hanks of thread or hacking down bamboo in the forest, to weaving or braiding the final product.
The time spent in producing handicrafts is considerable and can involve as much as two years for some woven textiles.
At the same time, many modern innovations are also used for less expensive items, especially modern dyes, and yarns.
Bhutan must be one of the few places where hand-woven polyester garments can be bought.

Products

Textiles
Bhutanese textiles are a unique art form inspired by nature and made in the form of clothing, crafts and different types of pots in an eye-catching blend of color, texture, pattern and composition.
This art form is witnessed all over Bhutan and in Thimphu in the daily life of its people.
It is also a significant cultural exchange garment that is gifted to mark occasions of birth and death, auspicious functions such as weddings and professional achievements and in greeting dignitaries.
Each region has its own special designs of textiles, either made of vegetable-dyed wool known as yathra or pure silk called Kishuthara.
It is the women, belonging to a small community, who weave these textiles as a household handicrafts heritage.

Paintings
Most Bhutanese art, including ‘Painting in Bhutanese art’, known as lhazo, is invariably religion-centric.
These are made by artists without inscribing their names on them.
The paintings encompass various types including the traditional thangkas, which are scroll paintings made in “highly stylised and strict geometric proportions” of Buddhist iconography that are made with mineral paints.
Most houses in Bhutan have religious and other symbolic motifs painted inside their houses and also on the external walls.

Sculptures
The art of making religious sculptures is unique in Bhutan and hence very popular in the Himalayan region.
The basic material used for making the sculptures is clay, which is known as jinzob.
The clay statues of Buddhist religious icons, made by well-known artists of Bhutan, embellish various monasteries in Bhutan.
This art form of sculpture is taught to students by professional artists at the Institute of Zorig Chosum in Thimphu.

Papermaking
Handmade paper known as deysho is in popular usage in Bhutan and it is durable and insect resistant.
The basic material used is the bark of the Daphne plant.
This paper is used for printing religious texts; traditional books are printed on this paper.
It is also used for packaging gifts.
Apart from handmade paper, paper factories in Bhutan also produce ornamental art paper with designs of flower petals, and leaves, and other materials.
For use on special occasions, vegetable-dyed paper is also made.

Wood carving
Wood carving known as Parzo is a specialized and ancient art form, which is significantly blended with modern buildings in the resurgent Bhutan.
Carved wood blocks are used for printing religious prayer flags that are seen all over Bhutan in front of monasteries, on hill ridges and other religious places.
Carving is also done on slate and stone.
The wood that is used for carving is seasoned for at least one year prior to carving.

Sword making
The art of sword making falls under the tradition of garzo (or blacksmithing), an art form that is used to make all metal implements such as swords, knives, chains, darts, and so forth. Ceremonial swords are made and gifted to people who are honored for their achievements. These swords are to be sported by men on all special occasions.
Children, wear a traditional short knife known as the dudzom.
Terton Pema Lingpa, a religious treasure hunter from central Bhutan, was the most famous sword maker in Bhutan.

Boot Making
It is not uncommon to see Bhutan’s traditional boots made of cloth.
The cloth is hand-stitched, embroidered, and appliquéd with Bhutanese motifs.
They are worn on ceremonial occasions (mandatory); the colors used on the boot denote the rank and status of the person wearing it. In the pecking order, Ministers wear orange, senior officials wear red and the common people wear white boots.
This art form has been revived at the Institute of Zorig Chosum in Thimphu.
Women also wear boots but of shorter length reaching just above the ankle.

Bamboo Craft
Bamboo Craft made with cane and bamboo is known as thazo.
It is made in many rural communities in many regions of Bhutan.
Few special items of this art form are the belo and the bangchung, popularly known as the Bhutanese “Tupperware” basket made in various sizes.
Baskets of varying sizes are used in homes and for travel on horseback and as flasks for a local drink called the arra.

Bow and Arrow Making
To meet the growing demand for bow and arrow used in the national sport of archery, bamboo bows, and arrows are made by craftsmen using specific types of bamboo and mountain reeds. The bamboo used are selected during particular seasons, shaped to size and skilfully made into the bow and arrow.
Thimphu has the Changlimithang Stadium & Archery Ground where Archery is a special sport.

Jewellery
Intricate jewelry with motifs, made of silver and gold, are much sought after by women of Bhutan. The traditional jewellery made in Bhutan are heavy bracelets, komas or fasteners attached to the kira, the traditional dress of Bhutanese women, loop earrings set with turquoise and necklaces inlaid with gem stones such as antique turquoise, coral beads and the zhi stone. The zhi stone is considered a prized possession as it is said to have “protective powers”; this stone has black and white spiral designs called “eyes”.
The zhi is also said to be an agate made into beads.
Source:Wikipedia