Kategoria BISAC: Art >> Asian - General

How has fashion mirrored the social and cultural changes that have taken place in modern China? To what extent has fashion contributed to those changes?

This book provides the first comprehensive account of modern Chinese fashion from 1978 to the present day. The post-Mao era witnessed the birth of the Chinese market economy, the reawakening of Chinese fashion, and the rejuvenation of Chinese society. The program of economic reform turned China into the world's leading manufacturing powerhouse, and the Chinese fashion industry now plays a key international role. During the same...

In Milestones on a Golden Road, Richard King presents pivotal works of fiction published under the watchful eye of China's Communist regime between 1945 and 1980. Addressing questions of literary production, King looks at how writers dealt with shifting ideological demands, what indigenous and imported traditions inspired them, and how they were able to depict a utopian Communist future to their readers, even as the present took a very different turn. Early "red classics" were followed by works featuring increasingly lurid images of joyful socialism, and later by fiction exposing...

This is the first book to fully capture the story of the exotic and exciting game of Mahjong or "Mah Jongg," offering an intimate look at the history of the game as well as the visual beauty of the tiles. When authors Ann Israel and Gregg Swain began playing Mahjong, they were unaware of the vintage collections that existed not only in the United States but also as far ranging as...

In a critical reassessment of chinoiserie, a style both praised and derided for its triviality, prettiness, and ornamental excesses, Stacey Sloboda shows that it was no mute participant in eighteenth-century global consumer culture, but was instead a critical commentator on that culture. Analysing ceramics, wallpaper, furniture, garden architecture and other significant examples of British and Chinese design, this book takes an object-focused approach to studying the cultural phenomenon of the 'Chinese taste' in eighteenth-century Britain.

Demonstrating that the ornamental...

Kyoto was Japan's political and cultural capital for more than a millennium before the dawn of the modern era. Until about the fifteenth century, it was also among the world's largest cities and, as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, it was a place where the political, artistic, and religious currents of Asia coalesced and flourished. Despite these and many other traits that make Kyoto a place of both Japanese and world historical significance, the physical appearance of the premodern city remains largely unknown. Through a synthesis of textual, pictorial, and archeological sources,...

This richly illustrated, full-colour volume offers an innovative study of the long, painted scrolls of Northeast Thailand and Laos that depictthe Prince Vessantara Buddhist birth story. A 31-metre scroll in the Asian Civilisations Museum provides the focus for this popular narrative. The scroll is reproduced in its entirety, with comparative illustrations from other scrolls. The authors analyze these scrolls in the context of the Bun Phra Wet - the Thai-Lao and Lao ceremony in which they are used - and consider the complex interplay of text, art, ritual, and belief which occur in these...

This volume tells the story of the early collectors who contributed to the Raffles Museum, Singapore, one of the oldest ethnographic museums in Southeast Asia. It examines the motivations of these 19th and early 20th-century naturalists, explorers, business, and missionaries.

A catalogue of the Hickey Collection, Singapore, which was donated to the Asian Civilisations Museum. Blanc de Chine became one of the most popular varieties of porcelain at home and abroad. This volume tells the history of the production and its reception, while showcasing one of the finest collections of this celebrated ware.

In Milestones on a Golden Road, Richard King presents pivotal works of fiction published under the watchful eye of China's Communist regime between 1945 and 1980. Addressing questions of literary production, King looks at how writers dealt with shifting ideological demands, what indigenous and imported traditions inspired them, and how they were able to depict a utopian Communist future to their readers, even as the present took a very different turn. Early "red classics" were followed by works featuring increasingly lurid images of joyful socialism, and later by fiction exposing...