Asian Art
A broad view of art from East, Southeast and Central Asia, from ancient bronzes and Buddhist sculpture to ink painting, prints and contemporary work.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for Asian Art are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
Asia holds many distinct traditions rather than one, but they have long been connected by trade routes, pilgrimage and the spread of Buddhism. Images of the Buddha travelled from South Asia through the oases of Central Asia into China, Korea and Japan. Chinese ritual bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, Khmer temple reliefs at Angkor Wat (12th century) and the stone terraces of Borobudur in Java (9th century) show how differently the region's courts and faiths shaped art.
Brush and ink link much of East Asia. Chinese scholar-painters such as Bada Shanren and Wang Hui set standards that Korean and Japanese painters answered in their own ways. Woodblock prints by Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige later reached Europe and changed Western composition. Artists including Yayoi Kusama, Ai Weiwei and Takashi Murakami now work across installation, sculpture and painting for a global audience.
