Artwork
Seated Buddha, 200–300. Pakistan; perhaps Jamalgarhi, Peshawar valley, ancient region of Gandhara. Schist. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60S393.
Background Information
As with art, literature, and philosophy, the Tang dynasty (618-906) nurtured a Golden Age of development and innovation in science and technology that culminated in the Song dynasty (960-1279). The expansive exchange of foreign goods and information during the Tang, together with the high value placed upon close observation and analysis that characterized the Song, set the stage for vigorous scientific innovations. Important advances were made in astronomy, agriculture, industry, medicine, and military technologies.
Background Information
The samurai was expected to embody good character and ethical conduct. Learn more about the “way of the warrior.”
Background Information
An overview of the religious practices of the samurai.
Video
Digitized from VHS, this video re-tells a popular Korean folktale using a painted Korean screen from the collection of the Asian Art Museum.
Background Information
Rituals and traditions of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Activity
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.
Background Information
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.
Background Information
Lesson
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.
