Art History 791G - S-Asian Art

This seminar examines how global encounters through expanding trade networks shaped material and print culture in early modern China and Japan. Early modern luxury objects were not only coveted items for consumption, but conduits for the exchange of knowledge, scientific discourses, and concepts of cultural difference that were in turn reshaped within local contexts in Europe and Asia. Topics include the trade and appropriation of blue-and-white porcelain, discourses around European perspectival systems, garden designs, the role of Catholic missionaries in disseminating technical and scientific knowledge, and export painting and ceramics. The final project engages with local museums by identifying and researching export objects in American collections.

Open to Graduate students only.