The main attraction of the handscroll for the artist is that it is virtually infinite in terms of the development of an idea, or series of ideas. Whether painting a landscape or writing drunken poetry, you go on until you reach a logical conclusion, then you stop. For this reason, most of the finest Chinese artists produced their most important works as handscrolls. More
In as far as the Indian term 'tantrism' is known in the West, it is generally linked with mystery and mysticism as well as with sex, magic and hocus-pocus. Indeed, tantrism is connected with all these and even more. Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Jainism, Vajrayana, Bönpo, Ayurveda and Shamanism are some of the philosophies, religions and sciences that were somehow influenced by tantrism. More
The collection of Eva and Konrad Seitz is one of the most important private collections of Indian paintings in Europe. The 60 works presented here provides an excellent survey of Indian miniature painting from 1575 to 1850 at the court of the north Indian Mughal rulers and at the ateliers in the Deccan further south, which has hitherto received far less attention. More
Accompanying an exhibition that promises to be the most comprehensive survey of Indian painting that the West has ever seen, this beautiful two volume catalogue spans 800 years of Indian painting, and some 240 masterpieces by more than 40 artists. These great Indian masters are unquestionably the equals of Dürer, Michelangelo or Vermeer. More
‘One Hundred Years of Beatitude’ surveys varied highlights of the Sydney L. Moss gallery’s idiosyncratic taste across aspects of mostly Edo period painting, calligraphy, sculpture, lacquer, netsuke and the smoking paraphernalia of ‘tonkotsu’ and ‘tabakoire’. It contains an unmistakable flavour of the Chinese influence and especially of a Confucian content in Japanese art, in both literary and socio-political regards. The survey begins with twenty-plus paintings and calligraphies. More
Throughout the world, the art of printing has been intimately linked with religious practices. In the case of East Asia, printing technology evolved within the context of Buddhism, and its development was related to the acquisition of religious merit. This catalogue surveys and illustrates the collection of Japanese religious prints formed by Manly Palmer Hall, founder of the Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles. More