Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Asian Art--Western Eyes
Description
The course will address the problem of how one sees and understands the art of
cultures other than one’s own. It will analyze the relationship between the cultural
contexts of viewer and object, the nature of the translation of languages or aesthetic
discourse, and the diverse ways in which art is understood as the materialization of
modes of experience and communication.
Through text, exhibition and discussion, the seminar will pursue a detailed study of
works of art of a variety of cultures in Asia. The course will investigate the various
systems of symbolic forms that have shaped and found expression in art and analyze
the complex structural interrelationships between aesthetic (form) and extra-aesthetic
(meaning) levels in cultural communication in these societies. In particular, the course
will be concerned with assessing the manner in which our own cultural perceptions and
scholarly disciplines inform and limit understanding of the art of Asia both today and in
the past.
Books
The following books have been ordered from the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop on South
Pleasant Street:
Golden, Arthur. Memoirs of a Geisha. New York: Knopf, 1997.
Kubler, George. The Shape of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1961.
All other readings on the syllabus can be found on the reserve shelf in Frost Library.
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
The Course
The class will meet on Mondays at 2:00 in FAY 202/3. There will be at least one field
to Cambridge and Boston to look at the Asian galleries at the Harvard University Art
Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts. In addition, we will try to schedule a trip to
New York City to look at the Asian galleries at the Metropolitan Museum and Asia
Society.
The lectures, discussion sessions and readings have been designed to help you come
to your own understanding of the ways the art of various cultural traditions has been
presented and interpreted. Since such a wide range of material is to be covered in only
one semester, regular attendance is essential. The assigned readings should be
completed before each class and because the class will be run as a seminar you should
be prepared to participate in class discussions.
Requirements
There will be four writing assignments and an in-class presentation modeled after a
College Art Association panel. All assignments must be typewritten.
1)
An analysis of the mode of presentation of non-Western art on the Web
Page of a museum, due February 15.
2)
An investigation of a Western methodological approach to non-Western
objects, due March 22.
3)
A formal comparison of two woodblock prints, due April 5.
4)
A final paper and in-class presentation. An outline of the presentation will
be due on April 12; a fifteen-minute presentation, on April 26; and a
fifteen page paper based on the in-class presentation, due the last day of
reading period at 5:00 pm.
In addition, you will be asked to prepare brief topics for in-class discussion.
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Bibliography
Abe, Stanley. “Inside the Wonder House: Buddhist Art and the West.” In Donald
Lopez, ed., Curators of the Buddha. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp.
63-106.
Ackerman, James. “Art and Evolution.” In Gyorgy Kepes, ed. The Nature and Art of
Motion. New York: George Braziller, 1965, pp. 32-40.
-----. “Style.” In James Ackerman and Rhys Carpenter, eds. Art and Archaeology.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963, pp. 164-186. XEROX
Alpers, Svetlana. “The Museum as a Way of Seeing.” In Ivan Karp and Steven D.
Lavine, ed. Exhibiting Cultures. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1991. pp.
25-41.
Ames, Michael M. Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums.
1972.
Arnheim, Rudolph. “Art as Religion.” In To the Rescue of Art. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1992. pp 227-235.
Bagley, Robert. “Meaning and Explanation.” Archives of Asian Art, no. XLVI (1993),
pp. 7-26. XEROX
Baker, Malcolm and Brenda Richardson, eds. A Grand Design--The Art of the Victoria
and Albert Museum. New York: Abrams, 1997.
Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence--A History of the Image before the Era of Art.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1994.
Bennett, S.J. “Patterns of Sky and Earth: A Chinese Science of Applied Cosmology.”
Chinese Science, vol. 3 (March, 1978), pp. 1-26. XEROX
Bush, Susan and Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1985.
Chang, K.C. Art, Myth and Ritual. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
1988.
Clunas, Craig. “Oriental Antiquities/Far Eastern Art.” positions 2:2 (1994), pp. 318-355.
XEROX
Coomaraswamy, Ananda. "The Origin of the Buddha Image." The Art Bulletin 9, no. 4
(1927), pp. 287-328. XEROX
Czuma, Stanley. Kushan Sculpture. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1985.
Danto, Arthur. “Artifact and Art.” In The Center for African Art, ed. ART/Artifact. New
York: Center for African Art, 1988. pp. 18-32.
Davis, Whitney. "Style and History in Art History. In Margaret Conkey and Christine A.
Hastorf, eds. The Uses of Style in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990. pp. 18-31.
Duncan, Carol. Civilizing Rituals--Inside Public Art Museums. London and New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Fagg, William. “In Search of Meaning in African Art.” In Anthony Forge, ed. Primitive
Art and Society. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, pp, 151-168.
Fisher, Philip. Making and Effacing Art: Modern American Art in a Culture of Museums.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Focillion, Henri. The Life of Forms in Art. 2nd ed. New York: Wittenborn Shultz, 1948.
Fong, Wen, ed. The Great Bronze Age of China. New York: Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 1981.
-----. Summer Mountains. New York: Metropolitan Museum, 1976.
-----. "Toward a Structural Analysis of Chinese Landscape Painting." Art Journal, no.
28 (1969), pp. 388-397. XEROX
Fong, Wen and James Watt. Possessing The Past--Treasures from the National
Palace Museum, Taipei. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996.
Forge, Anthony. “Learning to See in New New Guinea.” In Philip Mayer, ed.,
Socialization. London: Tavistock Press, 1970, pp. 269-291.
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
-----. "Style and Meaning in Sepik Art." In Anthony Forge, ed. Primitive Art and
Society. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 169-192.
Foucher, Alfred. "The Greek Origin of the Buddha Image." In The Beginnings of
Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology. London:
Humphrey Milford, 1917, pp.111-137.
Freedberg, David. The Power of Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Geertz, Clifford. “Art as a Cultural System.” In Local Knowledge. New York: Basic
Books, 1983, pp. 94-120.
-----. “Religion as a Cultural System.” In Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic
Books, 1973, pp. 87-125.
Goldwater, Robert. “Art History and Anthropology.” In Anthony Forge, ed. Primitive Art
and Society. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 1-10.
Guth, Christine. Art, Tea and Industry--Masuda Takashi and the Mitsui Circle.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Halliday, Donna. “Teddy Bear Patriarchy--Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York
City, 1908-1936. Social Text, no. 10 (Winter 1984/85), pp. 20-64. XEROX
Hay, John. “Chinese Space in Chinese Painting.” In Gerstle, Andrew and Anthony
Milner, eds. Recovering the Orient-Artists, Scholars, Approriations. Chur:
Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994.
pp. 151-174.
-----. "Surface and the Chinese Painter." Archives of Asian Art 38 (1985), pp. 95-123.
XEROX
A History of the Asiatic Department. A Series of Illustrated Lectures Given in 1957 by
Kojiro Tomita (1890-1976). Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1990.
Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things.” In Arjun Appadurai, ed. The Social
Life of Things: Commodoties in Cultural Perspective. 1988. pp. 64-91.
Kuwayama, Takami. “Native Anthropologists: With Special Reference to Japanese
Studies Inside and Outside Japan.” Minzokugaku kenky (Japanese Journal of
Ethnology), vol. 61, no. 4 (1997), pp. 517-542. (XEROX of English language summary)
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Lawton, Thomas and Linda Merrill. Freer: A Legacy of Art. Washington, D.C.: Freer
Gallery of Art, 1993.
Lewis, Martin W. and Karen E. Wigen. The Myth of Continents. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1997.
Loehr, Max. Ritual Vessels of Bronze Age China. New York: Asia Society, 1968.
McClellan, Andrew. Inventing the Louvre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994. pp. 1-12.
Meech, Julia. “The Other Havermeyer Passion: Collecting Asian Art.” In Frelinghuysen,
Alice Cooney, et al. Splendid Legacy: The Havermeyer Collection. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. pp. 129-150.
Miles, Margaret. Image as Insight. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.
Mitchell, Timothy. “Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order.” In Nicholas B. Dirks, ed.
Colonialism and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993, pp. 289-317.
Morse, Anne Nishimura and Samuel C. Morse. Object As Insight--Japanese Buddhist
Art and Ritual. Katonah: Katonah Museum of Art, 1996.
Morse, Samuel C. "J ch
manuscript). XEROX
and the By d -in in the Insei Period." (Unpublished
-----. “The Standing Image of Yakushi at Jingo-ji and the Formation of the Plain-wood
Style.” Archives of Asian Art, vol. 40 (1987), pp, 36-55. XEROX
-----. "Style As Ideology--Realism and Kamakura Sculpture." Realism in Oriental Art-Proceedings of the International Symposium on Art Historical Studies 12, (1994).
XEROX
Okakura Kakuzo. The Ideals of the East. Rpt. London: Murray, 1920.
Panofsky, Erwin. “Art History as a Humanistic Discipline.” In Meaning and the Visual
Arts. New York: Doubleday, 1955, pp. 1-25.
Pearce, Susan M. Museums, Objects, and Collections. Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution, 1993.
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Piper, Jordan. “The Meaning of the T’ao-t’ieh.” History of Religions, vol. 18-19 (19789), pp. 18-41. XEROX
Prown, Jules. “Mind in Matter: an Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.”
Winterhur Portfolio, vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 1-19. XEROX
Rosenfield, John M. “Japanese Buddhist Art--Alive in the Modern Age.” In
Cunningham, Michael, ed. Buddhist Treasures from Nara. Cleveland: Cleveland
Museum of Art, 1998. pp. 232-234.
Rydell, Robert. All The World’s A Fair: Visions of Empire at American International
Expositions, 1876-1916. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Vogel, Susan. “Introduction.” In The Center for African Art, ed. ART/Artifact. New
York: Center for African Art, 1988. pp. 11-17
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse--Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins, 1978.
Williams, Elizabeth. A. “Art and Artifact at the Trocadero.” In Stocking, George W. jr.,
ed. Objects and Others--Essays on Museums and Material Culture. History of
Anthropology, vol. 3. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. pp. 146-166.
Wilson, Richard. “Tea Taste in the Era of Japonisme: A Debate.” Chanoyu Quarterly,
no. 50 (1987), pp. 23-39. XEROX
Winter, Irene. "Change in the American Art Museum: The (An) Art Historian's Voice."
In Tucker, Marcia, ed. Different Voices: A Social, Cultural and Historical Framework for
Change in the American Art Museum. New York: Association of Art Museum Directors,
1992, pp, 30-57. XEROX
Wright, Gwendolyn, “National Culture under Colonial Auspices: the Ecole Francaise
d’Extreme Orient.” In Gwendolyn Wright et al, eds. The Formation of National
Collections of Art and Archaeology. 1996. pp. 127-141
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Schedule
Jan. 25
Introduction
Feb. 1 Case Study--The Origin of the Buddha Image
Reading Assignment:
Abe, “Inside the Wonder House.”
Ames, Cannibal Tours, pp. 15-24
Coomaraswamy, “Origin.”
Foucher, “The Greek Origin”
Feb. 8 Orientalist and Nativist Agendas
Reading Assignment:
Clunas, “Oriental Antiquities/Far Eastern Art.”
Lewis and Wigin, The Myth, pp. 73-103
Okakura, Ideals of the East, pp. 1-12.
Said, Orientalism, pp. 1-73
Wright, “National Culture Under Colonial Auspices,” pp. 127141
Feb. 15
Case Study: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual
Reading Assignment:
Belting, Likeness and Presence, pp. 1-16.
Miles, Image as Insight, introduction
Morse, “The Jingo-ji Yakushi.”
Morse, “Style As Ideology”
Morse and Morse, Object as Insight, pp. 8-25 and skim
plates
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Fine Arts 92.1
Feb. 22
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Methodologies: The Nature of the Object and Strategies for
Interpretation
Reading Assignment:
Arnheim, “Art and Religion”
Freedberg, The Power of Images, pp, 27-40,
82-98
Geertz, “Art as a Cultural System.”
Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System.”
Goldwater, “Art History and Anthropology.”
Panofsky, “Art History as a Humanistic Discipline.”
Prown, “Mind in Matter.”
White, Tropics, ch. 2
Mar. 1 Case Study: Ancient Chinese Bronzes
Reading Assignment:
Bagley, “Meaning”
Chang, Art, Myth, and Ritual
Focillion, The Life of Form in Art, pp. 1-16, 53-64
Fong, GBAC, scan plates and entries
Loehr, Ritual Vessels, pp. 11-16
Piper, “The Meaning of the T’ao-t’ieh.”
Mar. 8 Methodologies: Style, Time and Influence
Reading Assignment:
Ackerman, “Style”
Baxandall, Patterns of Intention, pp. 58-62
Davis, “Style and History.”
Forge, “Style and Meaning in Sepik Art.”
Kubler, The Shape of Time.
Mar. 22
Case Study: Northern Song Landscape Painting
Reading Assignment:
Bennett, “Patterns”
Bush and Shih, pp. 141-190, sections on Guo Xi only
Fong, Summer Mountains
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Fine Arts 92.1
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Fong, “Towards a Structural”
Fong and Watt, pp. 121-137
Hay, “Space”
Hay, “Surface”
Mar. 29
Methodologies: Aesthetics--Whose?
Reading Asisgnment:
Ames, Cannibal Tours, pp. 49-69
Bateson, “Style, Grace, and Information.”
Danto, “Artifact and Art.”
Fagg, “In Search of Meaning.”
Fisher, Making and Effacing Art, pp. 3-47
Forge, “Learning to See in New Guinea.”
Kuwayama, “Native Anthropologists.”
Apr. 5
Collecting
Reading Assignment
Clifford, The Predicament of Culture, pp.
215-251.
Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things.”
Pearce, Museums, Objects, and Collections, pp. 1-14; 228255.
Karp and Lavine, ed., Exhibiting Cultures, pp. 25-41.
Apr. 12
Collectors--East and West
Reading Assignment:
Halliday, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy.”
Guth, Art, Tea and Industry, pp. 41-70, 100-128
History of the Asiatic Department
Lawton, Freer, pp. 59-130
Wilson, “Tea Taste.”
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Fine Arts 92.1
Apr. 19
Spring 1999
Prof. Samuel C. Morse
Museums and Display
Reading Assignment:
Alpers, “The Museum as a Way of Seeing.”
Baker and Richardson, A Grand Design.
Duncan, Civilizing Rituals, pp. 7-20
McClellan, Inventing, pp. 1-12.
Rydell, All the World’s,
Vogel, “Introduction”
Williams, “Art and Artifact.”
Winter, Irene. "Change in the American Art Museum.”
Apr. 26
Presentations
Mar. 3 Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
Reading Assignment:
Memoirs of a Geisha
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