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Historical Argumentation:

Using Art as Historical Evidence

WHA 2015 Workshop

Savannah, GA

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Trade and Artistic Syncretism

Historical Thinking Skills utilized:

Skill 1: Crafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence
Skill 2: Chronological Reasoning: Patterns of Continuity and Change
Skill 3: Comparison and Contextualization
Skill 4: Historical Interpretation and Synthesis

Periods Covered

Period 2&3 -- Buddha’s journey through art

Period 4&5 -- Chinoiserie Goes West�Period 5 - Meiji Restoration Art meets Impressionism

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Integrating Art into the APWH Curriculum

“art can be a powerful pedagogical vehicle for engaging students in the process of historical inquiry and develop their historical thinking.”
“when various arts are used, students can better learn how to understand multiple perspectives.”
“students acquire a wider range of background knowledge and become more interested in learning about history.”

(Suh, 2013)

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Approaching Art Analysis

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

“...the left brain is for details, the right brain is for the big picture.”

Students need to approach art analysis with both sides of the brain.

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Teaching Source Analysis (use of Historical Evidence)

	Underlying Questions
Content	What point(s) is the document trying to make? What does the document not say , ie: does it selectively include and/or exclude information?
Audience	Who was the source created for? How might the audience have affected the content of the source? How might the audience have affected the reliability of the source?
Purpose	Why did the author create the source? Why was the document created at this time? Why has it survived to the present?
Context	When and where was the source produced? What contemporaneous events might have affected the author’s viewpoint and/or message?
Point-of-View	What was the author’s point of view? Does the author’s point of view undermine the explicit purpose of the source? How can you tell, if at all, what other beliefs the author might hold?

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Teaching Source Analysis of Art

Need different strategies to analyze art.
Students need to be provided a scaffold.

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Teaching Source Analysis of Art

Historians assess five key aspects of an artifact when studying the past.

CREATOR: Who wrote the document or made the artifact?
CONTEXT: Where and when was it created?
AUDIENCE: For whom was it made?
PURPOSE: What was the intended use of the document or object?
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: How does this object affect our understanding of history?

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3 Focus Areas in the APWH Curriculum

Period 3.1.III D:�Increased cross-cultural interactions resulted in the diffusion of literary, artistic, and cultural traditions, as well as scientific and technological innovations.

Objective:

To use art as evidence of the link between commercial exchanges and artistic diffusion and syncretism

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

Footprint of the Buddha. 1st century, Gandhara.

In the first century B.C., India's artists, who had worked in the perishable media of brick, wood, thatch, and bamboo, adopted stone on a very wide scale. Stone railings and gateways, covered with relief sculptures, were added to stupas. Favorite themes were events from the historic life of the Buddha, as well as from his previous lives, which were believed to number 550. The latter tales are called jatakas and often include popular legends adapted to Buddhist teachings. In the earliest Buddhist art of India, the Buddha was not represented in human form. His presence was indicated instead by a sign, such as a pair of footprints, an empty seat, or an empty space beneath a parasol.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/budd/hd_budd.htm

"Sanchi2". Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanchi2.jpg#/media/File:Sanchi2.jpg

The earliest archaeological evidence for the presence of Buddhist stupas dates to the late 4th century BCE in India. Buddhist scriptures claim that stupas were built at least a century earlier. It is likely that before this time, stupas were built with non-durable materials such as wood, or even as just burial mounds, little is known about these early stupas, particularly since it has not been possible to identify the original ten monuments. However, some later stupas, such as at Sarnath and Sanchi, seem to be embellishments of earlier mounds. The earliest evidence of monastic stupas dates back to the 2nd century BCE. These are stupas that were built within Buddhist monastic complexes. These stupas replicated older stupas made of wood in stone.

On these stone carvings the Buddha was never depicted as a human figure. Instead the artists chose to represent him by certain attributes, such as the horse on which he left his father’s home, his footprints, or a canopy under the bodhi tree at the point of his enlightenment. The human body was thought to be too confining for the Buddha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanchi#/media/File:Sanchi_stupa_detail.jpg

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3 Focus Areas in the APWH Curriculum

Period 4.1 VII�As merchants and governments increase their wealth, funding for art increases

Objective:

To use art as evidence of the link between commercial exchanges and artistic diffusion and syncretism

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Chinoiserie Goes West - Other uses

Holy water font, about 1735

Porcelain
China
H: 8 1/2 in, W: 5 3/8 in, D: 3 in (H: 21.6 cm, W: 13.7 cm, D: 7.6 cm)

Top is scalloped-edged in irregular pattern with "IHS" monogram set off by floral design and swags. Bottom has gadrooned bowl for holy water with tear drop finial at bottom and floral design. Lid is semicircle with similar floral pattern and gadrooned rim. For Jesuit market.

http://explore-art.pem.org/object/asian-export-art/AE85322_AB/detail

Madonna and child, 1690-1710

Porcelain
Dehua, China

This is a porcelain Dehua Maddona and Child standing on a wave base, a cross adorning her chest. Sculptures of Guanyin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, were exported to Europe in large quantities as decorative pieces. Potters also added cross-shaped necklaces to adapt these figures for Christian worship.

http://explore-art.pem.org/object/asian-export-art/AE85957/detail

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3 Focus Areas in the APWH Curriculum

Period 5.2 II.�Beginning in the 18th century, peoples around the world developed a new sense of commonality based on language, religion, social customs and territory.

Objective:

To use art as evidence of the link between commercial exchanges and artistic diffusion and syncretism

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Japanese Art Meets Impressionism

Keisai Eisen, 1790-1848

courtesan wearing uchikake with dragon design

signed Keisai Eisen ga, with censor's seal Kiwame, and publisher's seal Ue, Kawaguchi (Kawaguchiya Uhei of Fukusendo), ca. 1830s

kakemono-e (vertical oban diptych) 29 by 9 5/8 in., 73.7 by 24.3 cm

Eisen created at least three other variations of the subject of a courtesan dressed in a distinctive black dragon uchikake (two vertical diptychs and an oban sheet). For comparison with the other Eisen designs and with prints of the same subject by Katsukawa Shunsen (1762- ca. 1830), Utagawa Yoshiiku (1833-1904) and Utagawa Kunihisa II (1832-1891), see Chiba City Museum of Art, Keisai Eisen: Artist of the Floating World, pp. 222-228. The proliferation of this subject suggests a fashion for hand-painted uchikake decorated in sumi ink by Kano school artists (which would have been a very expensive indulgence), a decadent display which was likely initiated and embraced by high-ranking courtesans.

This print is very similar to another vertical diptych by Eisen which was reproduced on the cover of Paris Illustre le Japon in 1886, and then famously copied in oil twice by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) the following year- in the background of the painting Portrait of Pere Tanguy, and in the brightly-colored larger-scale interpretation The Courtesan.

Reference:

Keisai Eisen: Artist of the Floating World, Chiba City Museum of Art, 2012, pp. 222-228

http://www.scholten-japanese-art.com/printsV.php?printID=1032

�

The Courtesan illustrates Van Gogh’s interest in Japan and Japanese prints. He based his painting on a work by the Japanese artist Kesai Eisen, which had been used for the cover of a special number of Paris Illustré. He copied and enlarged the Japanese figure by tracing on a grid, giving her a colorful kimono and placing her against a bright yellow background.

The border around the figure is a unified whole. The watery landscape with bamboo canes, water lilies, frogs, cranes and, in the distance, a little boat – are all motifs Van Gogh borrowed from other Japanese prints. The choice of animals was certainly not accidental: in 19th century France, prostitutes were often referred to as grues (cranes) or grenouilles (frogs); they are a reference to the woman’s "profession".

The Courtesan is not the only painting based on Japanese prints. Two other examples are Flowering plum orchard: after Hiroshige and The Bridge in the Rain, both after woodcuts by Utagawa Hiroshige from Van Gogh’s own collection.

Oil on canvas

105.5 x 60.5 cm

Paris, 1887

Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam

"Van Gogh - la courtisane" by Vincent van Gogh - 367art.net. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Van_Gogh_-_la_courtisane.jpg#/media/File:Van_Gogh_-_la_courtisane.jpg

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Activity

Part I: Initial Viewing

Question #1-3 - Individually

Share your observations with your group.

Question #4-5 - Discuss with your group to come up with a joint statement.

Part II: Next Steps

After reading the article, discuss and answer the questions with your group.

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

Shiva as Lord of Dance,

Period: Chola period (880–1279)

Date: ca. 11th century

Culture: Indian (Tamil Nadu)

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/39328

Stela with a four–armed Vishnu, 10th–11th century

India, Punjab

This elaborate stela of the god Vishnu shows him at the center holding his usual attributes (clockwise from upper right): a chakra (war discus), a conch-shell trumpet, and a gada (mace). His raised hand is held in abhayamudra, or the fear-allaying gesture. He wears a tall miter and a long garland of flowers. His head is surrounded by an ornate nimbus with bands of lotus petals, flames, and abstracted triangular floral motifs. Flanking his legs are six figures: the personifications of his discus and conch trumpet (who also hold these attributes), his two wives, and two additional attendants. On each side above them are two vertical panels. The innermost contains foliate scrolling and a pot from which plant life emanates. The left panel is topped by a figure of Brahma seated on a lotus and the right by Shiva in a similar attitude. Brahma can be identified by his four heads (three of which are shown) and Shiva by the trident and chakra he holds. The outermost panels show the typical pile-up of elephants surmounted by composite lion-goats (vyalis) and elephant-crocodiles (makaras).

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/68.46

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

Toga-clad statue, restored with the head of the emperor Nerva

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_ancient_Rome#/media/File:Togato,_I_sec_dc._con_testa_di_restauro_da_un_ritratto_di_nerva,_inv._2286.JPG

Figure of Buddha

Swat Valley →Ancient Gandhara → Pakistan

Period

Kushan period mid 1st century - early 5th century → India

The Gandhara area of northwest India gave rise to the first representations of the Buddha in human form in the 2nd century BCE. This standing figure shows a Greco-Roman influence in its classical facial features and the drapery-like folds of the robe. The left hand grasps a corner of the robe while the right hand would have faced palm out and fingers upright in the 'abhaya mudra' (gesture of fearlessness).

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/85.1986/

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion

Made in Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia

Period:

Gupta Dynasty (c.300-c.550)

Date:

c. Third quarter of 5th century

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/87933.html

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Post-Gupta Period, northwest India

According to Buddhist philosophy, bodhisattvas are compassionate beings who delay their own enlightenment in order to help others attain this ultimate goal of Buddhism. Cast in one piece, this very early multi-armed sculpture depicts Avalokiteshvara, the most prominent of the Buddhist bodhisattvas, and

the bodhisattva of compassion.

This post-Gupta style sculpture is clearly identified as Avalokiteshvara by the iconographic device of the small Buddha figure seated upon his head. The bodhisattva is shown in the straight-standing (sambhanga) pose. His twelve hands display various symbolic attributes and hand gestures (mudras). His compassion and wisdom are indicated, respectively, by the lotus and the small rectangular palm-leaf manuscript, while his hand gestures represent reassurance, adoration and charity. Other attributes include fruit, the ascetic’s water pot and a jewel. With hair gathered in a crown of matted tresses, the bodhisattva wears the simple robes of a wandering ascetic. Open and looking ahead, the bodhisattva’s eyes are inlaid with silver and he has the elongated earlobes that indicate a supernatural Buddhist being.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010

http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail-LRG.cfm?IRN=111963

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

Guanyin at Putuoshan:http://www.chinatravelca.com/places/putuoshan/

Guanyin of the South Sea was built on the southeast shores of Putuoshan in bronze, limestone, marble and gold in 1998. It is a statue of Guanyin standing on a lotus throne. The statue of Guanyin is 20 meters high and together with the supporting base it reaches a height of 33 meters. The height of 33 meters could represent the 33 bodies of Guanyin or the 33 layers that the sky has in Buddhist doctrine

Representations of the bodhisattva in China prior to the Song dynasty (960–1279) were masculine. Images which later displayed attributes of both genders are believed to be in accordance with the Lotus Sutra, where Avalokitesvara has the supernatural power of assuming any form required to relieve suffering, and also has the power to grant children. Because this bodhisattva is considered the personification of compassion and kindness, a mother goddess and patron of mothers and seamen, the representation in China was further interpreted in an all-female form around the 12th century. In the modern period, Guanyin is most often represented as a beautiful, white-robed woman, a depiction which derives from the earlier Pandaravasini form.

It is generally accepted among east Asian adherents that Guanyin originated as the Sanskrit Avalokiteśvara (अवलोकितेश्वर). Commonly known in English as the Mercy Goddess or Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin is also revered by Chinese Taoists (Daoists) as an Immortal. However, in Taoist mythology, Guanyin has other origination stories which are not directly related to Avalokiteśvara.

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Buddha’s Journey Through Art

Bodhisattva Maitrya, 200-300 CE, National Museum in Delhi

This nimbate figure of Bodhisattva Maitreya, the future Buddha, radiates primary energy, vitality and the great softness of warmth. He is standing straight with the right hand in abhaya mudra, and the left hand holding a kamandalu, his main cognizance. As he is yet to become Buddha he is adorned with various ornaments signifying his princely association-heavy ear-rings, flat ornamented torque and necklace, three bracelets and armlets. His palm is marked with the auspicious symbol of dharmachakra. The powerful body, especially the pit of the navel, is in perfect anatomical proportion and worked with great sensitivity which renders real beauty to the upper bare part in contrast to the lower garment shown with swirls and loops. His dhoti is beautifully knotted at the right side with a broad waist-band decorated with floral motifs. His hair is arranged in the form of spiral curls all over his head. The plain halo at the back has a scalloped border. The outstanding feature of this image is the smile hovering on his lips and lighting up the face of Maitreya. The image is inscribed and it names the deity. Only the last line of the inscription is now intact. It reads ‘Maitreya Pratima Pratisthapita, i.e., ‘the statue of Maitreya was installed’.�https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/budhisattva-maitreya/PQHqK23ZNIzq6w?projectId=art-project

A statue of Maitreya Buddha in Budai form in Emei, Hsinchu, Taiwan

Budai or Pu-Tai^[1]^[2] (Chinese: 布袋; pinyin: Bùdài), or 布袋 (Hotei) in Japanese,^[3] Bố Đại in Vietnamese, is a Chinese folkloric deity. His name means "Cloth Sack,"^[3]^[4] and comes from the bag that he is conventionally depicted as carrying. He is usually identified with or seen as an incarnation of Maitreya, the future Buddha, so much so that the Budai image is one of the main forms in which Maitreya is depicted in East Asia.^[4] He is almost always shown smiling or laughing, hence his nickname in Chinese, the Laughing Buddha (Chinese: 笑佛).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai#/media/File:Buddha_Beipu.jpg

Budai was an eccentric Chán Monk (Chinese: 禅; pinyin: chán) who lived in China during the Later Liang Dynasty (907–923 CE). He was a native of Fenghua, and his Buddhist name was Qieci (Chinese: 契此; pinyin: qiècǐ; literally "Promise this"). He was considered a man of good and loving character.

Budai is often conflated with (or simply replaces) the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, in spite of the distinct visual differences in how each has been depicted. In India, Nepal, and throughout southeast Asia, Gautama (who lived during the 6th c. BCE) is commonly depicted as being tall and slender in appearance. In contrast, in China and those areas to which Chinese cultural influence spread, the depiction of Budai (who lived during the 10th c. CE) is consistently short and round. Both depictions are the idealized results of the religious, cultural and folkloric traditions which evolved in the centuries after their respective deaths.

http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Budai

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Chinoiserie Goes West - Plate designs

Blue and White Plate with Sea Wave and White Dragon Designs: Ming, Xuande era (1399-1435)

This plate is decorated with white dragons and blue sea waves pattern. One dragon is painted in the center of the plate and two dragons are painted on the plate wall. On the bottom of the plate, six Chinese characters in two lines read "made in Emperor Xuan De's reign of Ming Dynasy" are written inside two blue rings. The dragon was the most mysterious animal in Chinese legendary. People considered it as the symbol of luck, therefore the dragon design was used only for imperial family or ceremony. This plate was one of the representatives of imperial porcelain wares with dragon design in the Ming dynasty.

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/blue-and-white-plate-with-sea-wave-and-white-dragon-designs/ZAGdV1DDVIzxfw?projectId=art-project

“Golden Horn” Tondino, Iznik, Turkey

First half of 16th century

Fritware, with blue underglaze painting

The town of İznik was an established centre for the production of simple earthenware pottery with an underglaze decoration when in the last quarter of the 15th century, craftsmen in the town began to manufacture high quality pottery with a fritware body painted with cobalt blue under a colourless transparent lead glaze. The meticulous designs combined traditional Ottoman arabesque patterns with Chinese elements. The change was almost certainly a result of the active intervention and patronage by the recently established Ottoman court in Istanbul who greatly valued Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0znik_pottery

Following the establishment of the Ottoman Empire in the early 14th century, Iznik pottery initially followed Seljuk Empire antecedents.

After this initial period, Iznik vessels were made in imitation of Chinese porcelain, which was highly prized by the Ottoman sultans. As the potters were unable to make porcelain, the vessels produced were fritware, a low-fired body comprising mainly silica and glass.

The originality of the potters was such that their use of Chinese originals has been described as adaptation rather than imitation.^[1] Chinese ceramics had long been admired, collected and emulated in the Islamic world. This was especially so in the Ottoman court and the Safavid court in Persia which had important collections of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. Such Chinese porcelains influenced the style of Safavid pottery and had a strong impact on the development of Iznik ware.^[2] By the mid-16th century, Iznik had its own vocabulary of floral and abstract motifs in tight designs making use of a limited palette. Decoration progressed from pure symmetry to subtle rhythms.

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Chinoiserie Goes West - Plate designs

Dish with symbol of Order of St. Augustine, 1590-1620

Porcelain
Jingdezhen, China

Large, late ming underglaze blue 'kraak' ware armorial charger. The prominent design of a double-headed eagle over a pierced heart in the center of this charger is the symbol of the Order of St. Augustine. The order established missionaries in Macao in 1589, and large jars with these designs are documented there. The museum owns a jar with this same motif (see E83015), of which there are three or four recorded examples. So far as we know, this is the only recorded charger, or large serving dish. Since there were also missionaries in Mexico, and the order originated in Spain, the intended market for these wares is still uncertain. Wanli period/style

http://explore-art.pem.org/object/asian-export-art/AE85571/detail

Plate, about 1708

Porcelain
China

This is a Chinese export porcelain plate boldly painted in underglaze blue with the marriage arms of Abraham van Bleswyk and Antonia Van Hamert of the Netherlands within a narrow band of diamond cell diaper. The surnames of both are painted in an open scroll beneath the arms. The dish is particularly unusual in that the arms are painted so that they extend into the border of the plate.

http://explore-art.pem.org/object/asian-export-art/AE85707/detail

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Chinoiserie Goes West - Plate designs

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Chinoiserie Goes West

Jar, Guan -- Early Ming Dynasty, 15th Century, Jiangxi, China, Jingdezhen

Cincinnati Art Museum,

The Chinese invention of porcelain fueled not only domestic but also global demands, boosting China’s export trade to the West. During the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), a significant development in the decoration of porcelain occurred at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, site of the later Ming imperial porcelain factories: Chinese potters, encouraged by Near Eastern traders, applied decoration utilizing cobalt oxide to achieve a rich underglaze blue, highly favored in the West.

The Art Museum’s jar belongs to a large group of Chinese blue-and-white porcelains manufactured for the Near Eastern trade. It was found in Damascus, Syria, a primary Western market for such wares. In the 1960s alone, more than 800 examples surfaced in the shops and stalls of cities such as Aleppo and Damascus, where they had survived in private hands since their export in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

In a fashion typical of such export wares, the painted decoration on the Art Museum’s jar combines elements of Western origin such as the scrolling vine (seen on the neck and body) with Chinese motifs such as tree peony blossoms. The delicate fruiting sprays of grapes, lychees, loquats, and pomegranates depicted on the shoulder are based on illustrations from Chinese pharmaceutical texts. The band of lotus blossoms within lappets - scale- or plaque-shaped designs - encircling the base of the jar is a rare decorative element.

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/jar-guan/ZgG5kljbMPVsfw?projectId=art-project

Vessel with Inscription and Chinoiserie Decoration: Iran, 1627, Pergamonmuseum, National Museums in Berlin

The six fields on the outside of this squat bowl are filled with Chinese landscape motifs, with birds and flowers in two alternating variations. A border of scale-like motifs marks the transition to the neck, where between passages of latticework and scale-like patterns are four cartouches with a Persian poem and the date of production of the bowl. The bottom of the inside is decorated with a medallion in which, against a rocky background, a bird of prey is depicted beneath a gnarled pine. The blue painting in two shades with its distinct contours, the delicate white and the hardness of the body, the Chinese motifs and even an imitation of a Chinese porcelain mark on the foot all point to the great example of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. This was collected in Safavid Iran, especially by Shah Abbas I (1587-1629), the ruler at the time this piece was produced, who donated his collection to the dynasty's ancestral shrine at Ardabil. This bowl is a fine example of the Persian masters' great skill in artfully combining foreign and domestic elements. This can be seen here more particularly in the form of the vessel and in the inscription. Depictions of such vessels in Persian miniatures suggest that it may have been used for food and originally been provided with a lid. The Persian poem too, which speaks of bread and salt, but is concerned above all with friendship, also suggests spirited talk at a convivial meal.

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/vessel-with-inscription-and-chinoiserie-decoration/WwGRoXpAb7SzAg?projectId=art-project

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Chinoiserie Goes West

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Chinoiserie Goes West

Dish with Peony design, imitating early Ming porcelain, with "heaped-and-piled" brush c 1500, Nashapur, Iran

Porcelain and Faience: The porcelain bowl from China, on display here, is proof of the far-reaching trade relations Hamburg had in the later part of the 16th century and in the 17th century. The Dutch faience imitated this Chinese porcelain, which could not be produced in Europe at that time. https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/porcelain-and-faience/XgHTWGT0DJ4eMw?projectId=art-project

Faience or faïence (/faɪˈɑːns/ or /feɪ-/; French: [fajɑ̃s]) is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated by French speakers with wares exported from Faenza in central Italy.^[1] The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.

Delftware is a kind of faience, made at potteries round Delft in the Netherlands, characteristically decorated in blue on white, in imitation of the blue and white porcelain that was imported from China in the early sixteenth century, but it quickly developed its own recognisably Dutch décor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faience

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Chinoiserie Goes West

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Chinoiserie Goes West - Other uses

Covered butter dish (after English cut glass), about 1770

Porcelain
Jingdezhen, China

Blue and white "Butter Dish" and cover after a cut glass original. The blue under-glaze decoration depicts exotic landscapes.

Antique glass butter dish Bryce Daisy & Button c. 1909 aka Fashion

The Romans introduced a rudimentary form of glass cutting akin to lapidary techniques of faceting and relief-cutting in the 1st century ad. Glass cutting, as practiced by modern glassmakers, developed in Germany during the late 17th century. Its development was promoted by the production of a heavy, colourless crystal glass that did not easily shatter under carving. Cutting was adopted by English and Irish glassmakers as a primary decorative technique during the late 1720s, and the prismatic styles characteristic of cut glass became identified with their products. Much fine cut glassware manufactured by the Irish glasshouse at Waterford was exported to the United States after 1780

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Chinoiserie Goes West - Other uses

A rare, covered, pear-shaped coffee pot painted in iron-red and oxidized silver with the arms of the Royal Prussian Bengal Company of Emden

The Royal Prussian Bengal Company in Emden trading to Canton in China was founded in 1753 but ended sailings in 1756 as a result of the Seven Years War

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/a-rare-covered-pear-shaped-coffee-pot-painted-in-iron-red-and-oxidized-silver-with-the-arms-of-the-royal-prussian-bengal-company-of-emden/jQHuW5IXtTZJ7Q?projectId=art-project

Coffee pot, about 1800

Porcelain
China

This is a London-decorated Chinese export coffee pot and cover painted in sepia with scenes taken from engravings of 'Venus clipping cupid's wings' and 'Diana taking Cupid's bow ', representing sensual and spiritual love. The spout and sides with elaborate gilt scrolls, beneath near classical swags of gold.

http://explore-art.pem.org/object/asian-export-art/AE85975_AB/detail

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Japanese Art Meets Impressionism

One Hundred Famous Views of Edo “Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake” Utagawa Hiroshige | Shizuoka city Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art

The most famous piece in the series, it depicts a sudden evening shower at Shin-Ohashi and was also replicated in an oil painting by Vincent Van Gogh. There is also a distant view of Atake, a place named after a shogunate ship moored there

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshige#/media/File:Hiroshige_Atake_sous_une_averse_soudaine.jpg

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/one-hundred-famous-views-of-edo-%E2%80%9Csudden-shower-over-shin-ohashi-bridge-and-atake%E2%80%9D/QAFL1JRk6OKiNQ?projectId=art-project

Bridge in the rain: after Hiroshige October 1887 - November 1887

"Vincent van Gogh - Brug in de regen- naar Hiroshige - Google Art Project" by Vincent van Gogh - rwGc5ZWvzXZ0vA at Google Cultural Institute, zoom level maximum. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Brug_in_de_regen-_naar_Hiroshige_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg#/media/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Brug_in_de_regen-_naar_Hiroshige_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Compared with the colours in the original woodcut by Japanese artist Hiroshige, which was the inspiration for this work, the colours of van Gogh's 'The bridge in the rain' are somewhat muted. He reproduced the falling rain by using long vertical touches in dark blue applied with a fine brush. Van Gogh decorated the brightly-coloured frame with Oriental characters that he based on to two different prints by other artists.

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Japanese Art Meets Impressionism

Plum Estate, Kameido (Kameido Umeyashiki)

Hiroshige brings us face to face with the celebrated "Sleeping Dragon Plum" of Kameido. This tree, the most famous in Edo, was known for the purity of its double blossoms, which, according to one Edo guidebook, were "so white when full in bloom as to drive off the darkness." We are so close that we can almost smell the tree's powerful fragrance, reputed to have lured the shogun Yoshimune as he passed nearby in the early eighteenth century. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4202/Plum_Estate_Kameido_Kameido_Umeyashiki_No._30_from_One_Hundred_Famous_Views_of_Edo

Flowering plum orchard: after Hiroshige, October 1887 - November 1887, Vincent van Gogh

Description

Van Gogh made this painting after a Japanese print by Hiroshige from the extensive collection he shared with his brother. He closely followed the composition of Hiroshige, but did not stick to the exact colours of the original. The Oriental characters he painted on the frame were derived from a Japanese example. The text they create has no coherent meaning and their function is primarily decorative.

The ancient plum tree that was the subject of the original print by Hiroshige had the poetic nickname of 'the sleeping dragon plum tree'. A name it got from the way that the tree branched out via a network of underground roots only to emerge above ground somewhere else.

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/asset-viewer/flowering-plum-orchard-after-hiroshige/2wF6nM1fOWEp8Q?projectId=art-project

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Japanese Art Meets Impressionism

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And Vice Versa

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And Vice Versa

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Debriefing

How do you integrate art and use art for historical argumentation in your classroom?
What are some of the challenges you face in regards to using art in your world history classroom?
What other areas would you integrate artistic syncretism in your world history curriculum?

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THANK YOU!

We would appreciate your feedback!

Email:

leea@weston.org

Access our presentation at:

http://bit.ly/WHart

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