Nestorianism was the first branch of Christianity brought to China. After breaking from the Western church during the Council of Ephesus in 431 over differences concerning the nature of the Holy Trinity, Nestorians took refuge in Persia and dispersed widely through Asia.
The primary goal of the Conservation department at the Asian Art Museum is to preserve the museum’s collection for future generations. This goal is achieved through a number of activities including controlling the surrounding environment, performing conservation treatment, and researching fabrication methods and deterioration processes.
Socially, economically, and artistically, a pleasure quarter formed its own culture in which courtesans were distinguished from ordinary prostitutes and elevated to the level of icons of
femininity...
Daoism is an indigenous Chinese religion. Tao is often translated as “way” or “path.” The teachings of Daoism advocate following the Way and integrating with the natural world.
A wide variety of spiritual figures makes up the Buddhist pantheon in Bhutan. Many of these deities are the focus of Buddhist practices such as meditations, visualizations, chanting of sacred sounds (mantras), sacred dances (Cham), and other elaborate rituals.
When we consider acquiring an object for the Asian Art Museum’s collection, our first step is to focus a trained eye on it...
View vocabulary related to the Edo period (1615-1868) in Japan.
Edo had a distinct consumer society born of the necessity to support the immense numbers of military living there. Learn more.
After 150 year of civil war, the Shogunate was determined to enforce and maintain a stable society. The Shogunate further extended its control of the people through a class system with social and economic constraints. Learn more.
Tea played an important role in the shaping of culture in the Edo period (1615-1868). Learn more.
The rulers of India have for many centuries ridden in elaborate howdahs (thrones or covered pavilions on the backs of elephants) as they went into battle or on the hunt for antelope and tiger. Elephants have also carried rajas and emperors on state occasions, and, when richly decorated and caparisoned, elephants have been the highlight of many a ceremonial procession.
In the early years of Western sea exploration, traders and missionaries began returning to Europe with stories and goods from their visits to China. Information about China was spread through books, prints, and export items, such as porcelain and textiles. Reports compiled by Jesuit missionaries fueled the curiosity of the public and inspired chinoiserie, the evocation of Chinese motifs in art, furniture, architecture, and gardens. Just as Jesuits translated important authors such as Euclid into Chinese, they also translated Confucian works into Latin.
There are a number of clues as to why the furnishing of tombs and the proper respect for ancestors was felt to be vital in early China.
Learn more about the various formats of Chinese painting.
Background information on the Hindu deity, Ganesha, and Hindu architecture.
The stone pagoda structure is called the Great Wild Goose Pagoda enclosed within the Ci’en (Temple of Mercy) monastery in present-day Xi’an. It was erected in 652 to commemorate the return of the temple’s abbott, the celebrated monk Xuanzang. This heroic figure to Chinese Buddhist history traveled west across the Silk Road and throughout India for sixteen years, exploring the homeland of Buddhism before returning with hundreds of sutras (Buddhist texts).
The first record of tea drinking in Japan occurs early in the Heian period (794–1185) whenit was introduced to the Japanese aristocracy by scholar-monks returning from Tang dynasty China. Learn more.
Himeji Castle is among the finest surviving examples of the defensive structures built in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as samurai strongholds and symbols of power. Learn more.
Hinduism has a number of holy texts or scriptures. The best known are two epic poems, the Ramayana (Story of Rama) and the Mahabharata (The Great Chronicle of the Bharata Dynasty). How did the Story of Rama reach Southeast Asia? The religions of Hinduism and Buddhism (and, later, Islam), with their related literatures, were carried to Southeast Asia by merchants and pilgrims. Learn more.
Hindu temples are numerous in form, and probably evolved from a variety of sources, including the worship of natural sites, mounds, trees, due to the need for a place to conduct ritual practices and house images of deities. Learn more.
Religion pervades many aspects of Hindu life, and religious observance is not limited to one location, time of day, or use of a particular text. It assumes many forms: in the home, at the temple, on a pilgrimage, through yogic practices, dance or music, at the roadside, by the river, through the observation of one’s social duties and so on. Learn more.
Learn about Hinduism in Bali.
Japan’s Edo period dates from 1615, when Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated his enemies at Osaka Castle, to 1868, when the Shogun’s government collapsed and the Meiji emperor was reinstated as Japan’s main figurehead. This 250-year period takes its name from the city of Edo that started out as a small castle town and grew into one of the largest cities of the modern world, now called Tokyo. Learn more.
Search Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA) for oral histories, letters, diaries, photographs, newspapers and other records.
The earliest surviving representations of the Buddha date from hundreds of years after his death, so they are not portraits in the usual sense. Buddha images vary greatly from place to place and period to period, but they almost always show these conventional features . . .
Learn how to read a woodblock print.
Beginning in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (ca. 1071‒ 221 BCE) was the development of the so-called ‘hundred schools’ of philosophy, a creative flowering of genius that laid the foundations for all major schools of Chinese thought with the exception of Buddhism. At this time, philosophers began to travel around from court to court offering advice on everything from how to run the state, how to achieve victory in battle and how to achieve immortality. The most famous systems of thought to develop during this time were . . .
This image shows mountains and harvested rice in the autumn near the village of Andong in South Korea. Andong has been preserved as a traditional village, and exhibits both upper- and lower-class houses from the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). The Korean peninsula is filled with mountains. Mountains form natural barriers and also create distinctive regions within Korea. Rice is a staple crop in Korea. Land formed the basis of wealth for most of Korean history. Rice was harvested not only for food, but also to pay for taxes.
Wayang performances are a kind of blessing bestowed on special events such as circumcisions, weddings, celebrations of the ancestors, and other rites of passage and public events.
The Southeast Asian country of Indonesia consists of more than 17,000 tropical and volcanic islands that straddle the equator between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
For more than a thousand years Indonesians have used wayang theater as a method of addressing the conundrums of life. The lively puppet traditions of South and Southeast Asia have portrayed epic stories that shrank the cosmos down to a miniature world. The vast expanse of the earth could symbolically be reduced to the few feet of a puppet stage. The puppeteer’s lamp became the sun, throwing light on myriad creatures who, in their nobility or baseness, make up the world.
In addition to giving artistic instruction on the art of writing, a teacher of Islamic calligraphy trained a student in how to prepare and use a multitude of materials and tools.
European art and culture had a significant impact in Japan, both before and during the period of self-imposed isolation . . .
Learn about Japan's refined form of floral arrangement, known as ikebana (“to arrange and give life to flowers”).
The most characteristic element of geisha style is the elaborate coiffure. Developing from simple ponytails into elaborate arrangements, Japanese women’s hairstyles—not only of geisha but also of courtesans and nobles—became so complex by the eighteenth century that women could not arrange their own hair but had to rely on professional hairdressers who went from house to house...
The Kano school, established by Kano Masanobu (1434–1530), primarily served the samurai class. Their bold designs of powerful animals and symbolic plants and trees, blending aspects of native Japanese with Chinese styles, were the perfect decoration for screens and sliding doors in the large official audience halls in samurai residences. Learn more
During the Edo period, Nanga (southern painting) or Bunjinga (scholar or literati painting) artists took a form of Chinese painting as their model. Learn more.
Learn about the Rinpa (or Rimpa) school of Japanese painting during the Edo period of Japan.
The Tosa school, which originated in Kyoto during the Muromachi period (1392–1573), traditionally painted for the imperial family and nobility. They took as their subjects classical Japanese literature, such as the Tale of Genji and the Tales of Ise. Learn more.
Kamishibai (kami-paper, shibai-play) is a popular Japanese storytelling art form that combines oral and visual narration. Learn more.
Learn vocabulary related to the Japanese tea ceremony.
Background information on a Hindu temple called the Kandariya Mahadeva, the largest and tallest of the surviving temples at the temple site of Khajuraho.
The photograph shows the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, in the state of Bihar in eastern India. This temple stands next to a descendent of the bodhi tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment. This site is the most important pilgrimage site in the Buddhist world, similar to Varanasi for Hindus or Mecca for Muslims. Learn more.
Indian rulers adapted to the new British imperial regime in various ways...
The figures of wayang golek can be divided into five main character types: refined, semirefined, strong, emotionally uncontrolled, and special. A character type is indicated through the facial features and shape of the body.
We think of maps as tools for getting from one place to another, as sources of information about the geography of the world, as political objects for claiming territory and demarcating boundaries. They can represent real or imagined lands: districts to be taxed or cosmological realms to be contemplated in meditation. At their core, maps represent the known world, yet fantasy lurks in their peripheries. Maps, above all, give us a glimpse of how people at a certain time and location envisioned their world and their place in it.
By the beginning of the Ming dynasty, Confucianism had been the dominant Chinese philosophy for more than 1,500 years...
During the Muromachi period (1338–1573) the vogue for Chinese art, especially among the Ashikaga shoguns, who ruled as the military leaders of Japan during this period, led to the development of new architectural environments in which to display collections of tea-related objects. Learn more.
Generally speaking, Confucianism had been the dominant ideology and philosophy in China since the Han dynasty.
The Persian New Year celebration, Nowruz, started 3,000 years ago in ancient Persia (modern day Iran) and is still celebrated all over the world. Nowruz means “new day” in Farsi, the official language of Iran. Learn more.
Rituals and traditions of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
How do you celebrate the beginning of a new year? In Japan, people celebrate the New Year on December 31 and January 1. Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year; literally, new month) is an important time of the year, a joyous period imbued with good feelings and nostalgia. People clean their homes, prepare special feasts and stay up past midnight to usher in the New Year.
While Bronze vessels were the most visible implements used in the ancestor rites of the Shang dynasty (approx. 1600-1050 BCE), it was through oracle bones that actual communication with ancestors took place. These bones, primarily the shoulder blades of cattle and the undershells of turtles, were dried and had holes drilled in them at regular intervals.
Learn about the origins of the samurai (lit. “one who serves”).
The vast Tibetan pantheon includes numerous peaceful and wrathful deities, who guide and protect believers on their paths to enlightenment. Among the images of peaceful deities are those of buddhas and bodhisattvas, great teachers, and high monks. Wrathful deities, such as the guardian deities, use their power to protect Buddhism and to destroy the three major obstacles to enlightenment: anger, greed, and ignorance.
