Arts of East Asia

This subject will introduce students to the mediums, genres, and vocabulary of pre-modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean visual culture. Weekly lectures and tutorials will focus on either a specific medium (ink painting, calligraphy, ceramics, timber frame architecture, urban landscape, gardens) or a theme (tombs, Buddhism, Confucianism, genre painting, narrative painting) and through case studies, the political, social, and cultural factors that inform and shape works of art will be considered. The objects and sites under consideration will sometimes raise historical questions about the impact of one tradition upon the others, allowing us to see East Asia as a culturally connected macroregion; in other cases, the lectures will bring together works that require us to think critically about how we analyse and interpret the history of artistic production. Ultimately, this subject will provide students a foundation and framework to consider the history of East Asian art, as well as the tools by which to consider the dimensions and character of the common narratives applied to this history.

学习中国、日本、韩国等东亚地区的艺术。

• 1Identify key mediums, genres, and traditions in pre-modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean visual culture, including painting, calligraphy, ceramics, architecture, sculpture, gardens, and multi-media spaces.
• 2Analyse the influence of political, social, religious, and cultural factors in shaping East Asian artistic production, using specific case studies to support your conclusions.
• 3Compare the artistic traditions of China, Japan, and Korea, highlighting both shared elements and regional distinctions, and assess the impact of intra- and interregional exchanges.
• 4Apply visual, material, and iconographic analysis and vocabulary to interpret East Asian art and articulate relationships between pre-modern and modern visual culture.
• 5Evaluate primary texts related to East Asian visual culture to gain insight into the limitations, freedoms, and motivations behind artists, architects, and designers' choices.