Resources

Learn about the objects found in the alcove (Japanese: tokonoma, pronounced “toe-ko-no-ma”) of a traditional Japanese teahouse and the traditions of the Japanese tea ceremony.

Seated Buddha, 200–300. Pakistan; perhaps Jamalgarhi, Peshawar valley, ancient region of Gandhara. Schist. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60S393.

Digitized from VHS, this video re-tells a popular Korean folktale using a painted Korean screen from the collection of the Asian Art Museum.

Rituals and traditions of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Students will create their own books and stamps, and can inscribe poetry or good wishes on each others books. They will then take their books with them on a pilgrimage to the Asian Art Museum, the Japanese tea garden, or the beach, and record their impressions.

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.

Students will: 1.) analyze the role of the puppet master (dalang) in Indonesian rod puppet theater (wayang golek). 2.) Read a summary of the Ramayana or a scene from this Hindu epic. 3.) Identify the different puppet character types. 4.) construct a rod puppet of a character from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.

The Hindu deity Vishnu, 1100–1200. India or Bangladesh; northern Bengal. Phyllite. The Avery Brundage Collection, B62S4+.

Hermit in landscape, approx. 1618–1652, Chen Hongshou (1598-1652). China; Ming dynasty (1368–1644) or Qing dynasty (1644-1912). Hanging Scroll; ink and colors on silk. Museum purchase, B79D8.