Book Description:
From the time of Marco Polo's journeys and the legendary Silk Road, the ancient cultures of Asia have fascinated and enriched the West. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, interest in Asian art and thought has never been more intense. Presented here are the highlights of the Cleveland Museum of Art's celebrated collection of Asian art, the range and quality of which have been made possible by a steadfast commitment that dates from the founding of the museum in 1913. Demonstrating a breadth of vision that was unusual for the time, the museum sought not only the arts of China and Japan, then beginning to acquire a presence in America's young museums, but also those of Korea, India, and Southeast Asia. In the intervening three quarters of a century this interest was cultivated by a series of generous collectors and gifted curators, including the museum's third director, Sherman E. Lee, who gradually built one of the premier collections of Asian art in the West. Masterworks of Asian Art presents for the first time more than one hundred of the finest objects in full color, including Chinese paintings and textiles, traditional Japanese ink paintings and medieval stoneware, and superb examples of Cambodian and early Indian stone sculpture. The commentaries reflect the latest scholarship in the field, and an introduction by Michael R. Cunningham, curator of Japanese and Korean Art, recounts the history of the collection's formation in detail. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon.com Review /Source Content From its incorporation in 1913, one of the stated intentions of the Cleveland Museum was to form fine collections of Asian art (no such proposals related to Western art). Thanks to a series of generous donors and enlightened curators, notably Langdon Warner and Sherman Lee, Cleveland's Asian holdings are now among the finest in the West, yet they are among the least published. Consequently, this book of the museum's treasures is long overdue.<p> More than 100 objects have been selected. They are divided into three categories: China and Central Asia, India and Southeast Asia, and Japan and Korea, with each region introduced by a short but useful art historical summary. A full page is devoted to an illustration of each object, with commentary reflecting the latest scholarship in the field given on the facing page. Cleveland has been lucky in the timing of its collecting: many of the Japanese objects acquired by Sherman Lee after World War II would not be allowed to leave Japan today. And the joyful Krishna lifting Mt. Govardhana (Cambodian, 6th century), one of the sculptural masterpieces of the world, has no counterpart outside Phnom Penh and could never be replaced (its lower portion was put together from fragments that had lain hidden in a Belgian garden for 40 years). The accession numbers of the objects from a 15th century Korean Amita triad, acquired in 1918, to recently discovered Chinese textiles that are revolutionizing the field indicate a continuous history of discriminating collecting that is still maintained today. <I> John Stevenson</I>
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