This course explores the interplay between text and image in Asian art history from ancient to early modern periods, centering on the inherent relationship between text and image among art theories and practices in Asia, from North East Asia to the Middle East. Topics include the role of pictures in the origins of writing, the relationships between text and ornament, the origins and development of pictorial narrative, the interplay between text and image in transmitting knowledge and the roles of text and image in religious art.

This course is a comparative inquiry into cultural exchanges between Europe, North America, and Asia from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Examples of topics covered include the impact of Chinese art and architecture on the design of European gardens and interior spaces, the appropriation of Japanese woodblock prints by European and American artists, East Asian artists' interpretation of Western oil painting tradition, and the tension between tradition and modernization in East Asian art scene.