Project MUSE®: Archives of Asian Art - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Archives of Asian Art.daily12026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 58 (2008) through current issueLatest Articles: Archives of Asian ArtTWOProject MUSE®Archives of Asian Art1944-64970066-6637Latest articles in Archives of Asian Art. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Facing China: Truth and Memory in Portraiture by Richard Vinograd (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974308
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Despite having a history of more than two thousand years, Chinese portraiture has rarely been valued as highly as other types of painting, especially landscape painting.1 Historical portraiture, which differed drastically in style, size, and composition, served various functions, such as commemoration, education, and/or religious devotion. In ancient China, the act of creating an image was imbued with a sense of mystery and creative power, as suggested by the etymology of the term xiang (image/representation) and its use in texts like The Book of Change (Yijing) and Tao-te Ching (Laozi).2 Zhen (“true,” “real,” “genuine”) was used to describe the art of portraiture as early as the Six Dynasties period (220–589).3
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallFacing China: Truth and Memory in Portraiture by Richard Vinograd (review)2025-11-07text/htmlen-USFacing China: Truth and Memory in Portraiture by Richard Vinograd (review)2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®282172026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07Lustrous Jade, Luminous Lacquer: Reapproaching Medium and Materiality in Early China
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974309
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Most urinals do not receive much attention from art historians, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) being a notable exception. Yet almost two millennia ago, the Marquis of the Yuanling principality in southern China chose not only to expend a lavish amount of labor and resources to make a lacquered urinal (Figure 1), but also to place it in the head compartment of his tomb, along with a ceremonial platter for divination, among other objects.1Such urinals had a fierce name—huzi 虎子 (lit. “tiger”). Its mouth is stretched to form a large, circular opening. The crouching body is elongated into a bulbous shape with a handle attached to its back. The huzi from the tomb of the Marquis of Yuanling is made with lacquered
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallLustrous Jade, Luminous Lacquer: Reapproaching Medium and Materiality in Early China2025-11-07text/htmlen-USLustrous Jade, Luminous Lacquer: Reapproaching Medium and Materiality in Early China2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®1888852026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07In Search of the Real/Ideal Beauty: Kim Eunho’s Paintings of Mei Lanfang in Postwar Korea
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974310
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In the twilight of his life, a curious phenomenon could be found in the oeuvre of the renowned Korean neo-traditional painter Kim Eunho 金殷鎬 (1892–1979). At the age of seventy, Kim exhibited an inkand-color silk painting of a Chinese beauty (miindo美人圖) at the 1961 Korean Fine Arts Exhibition (Taehan min’guk misul chŏllamhoe 大韓民國美術展覽會), also known as the Kuk-chŏn (국전 國展) (Figure 1).1 This return as a painter to public exhibitions spaces came after an absence of several years following the Korean War (1950–1953). Though the painting was generically entitled Dance (Ch’um 춤), it depicts Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894–1961), the male Peking opera actor internationally acclaimed and recognized for his dan 旦 (female role)
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallIn Search of the Real/Ideal Beauty: Kim Eunho’s Paintings of Mei Lanfang in Postwar Korea2025-11-07text/htmlen-USIn Search of the Real/Ideal Beauty: Kim Eunho’s Paintings of Mei Lanfang in Postwar Korea2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®1663882026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07Light of Devotion: Oil Lamps of Kerala by Carol Radcliffe Bolon (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974311
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In Light of Devotion: Oil Lamps of Kerala, Carol Radcliffe Bolon centers the bell metal oil vilakku (lamp) in a stylistic study of early cast-metal art in Kerala. Case studies present a variety of Hindu oil-lamp types and styles, with explanations provided for identifying dates and stylistic and technical groupings. These discussions, in turn, reinforce an overarching argument in the book that shared stylistic and technical details in the region’s figural oil lamps and cast-metal images can aid in establishing a stylistic chronology for the Kerala-style metal image.This proposal to extend the study of regional bronze images to include figural oil lamps presents itself as both a response and a solution to
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallLight of Devotion: Oil Lamps of Kerala by Carol Radcliffe Bolon (review)2025-11-07text/htmlen-USLight of Devotion: Oil Lamps of Kerala by Carol Radcliffe Bolon (review)2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®210612026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendors of China’s Bronze Age ed. by Fan J. Zhang and Jay Xu (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974312
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Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendors of China’s Bronze Age is a groundbreaking exhibition and an exquisite accompanying catalog that features the material cultures of the Zeng and Chu states from (primarily) the eight centuries of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1046–221 bce) in pre-imperial China. Shifting the focus away from Zhou elites residing in the Central Plains, whose textual tradition often disparaged the cultural traditions of peoples in surrounding areas, the exhibition and catalog narrate a visual history of the southern states through material objects. The catalog is divided into three parts. The first part is composed of three essays that introduce readers to the histories of Zeng and Chu; the second part
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallPhoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendors of China’s Bronze Age ed. by Fan J. Zhang and Jay Xu (review)2025-11-07text/htmlen-USPhoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendors of China’s Bronze Age ed. by Fan J. Zhang and Jay Xu (review)2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®170652026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07The Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court by Yael Rice (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974313
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Presented in the neat, easy-to-use, highly portable quarto format, Yael Rice’s The Brush of Insight is an accessible and much-needed work that contextualizes the nature, function, and purpose of paintings and illustrated books in Mughal India and opens several new doors for scholarship on the arts of the book in the sixteenthand seventeenth-century Mughal world. This review reflects on the book’s engagement with debates in Mughal art history and situates its key themes within the relevant historiographical context.Written with great sensitivity, Brush of Insight examines the role played by painters and paintings in the construction of imperial power during the reigns of emperors Akbar (r. 1556–1605) and Jahangir
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallThe Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court by Yael Rice (review)2025-11-07text/htmlen-USThe Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court by Yael Rice (review)2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®368512026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography by Jeff Rosen (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974314
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The causes, consequences, and legacies of the 1857 Indian Uprising (1857–1859) have been examined through a variety of lenses, yet only recently have scholars begun to explore its impact on Victorian visual culture. Jeff Rosen’s Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography makes an important contribution to this growing field. It is possibly the only published monograph exploring one artist’s response to the event. Moreover, the artist in question is a woman born in India and who produced photographs in Britain in the decade following the conflict. Rosen’s book, therefore, departs from most studies of 1857 imagery, which usually examine the output of male artists during and after the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/427/image/coversmallJulia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography by Jeff Rosen (review)2025-11-07text/htmlen-USJulia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography by Jeff Rosen (review)2025-11-072025TWOProject MUSE®190652026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-11-07