An Introduction to Asian Art
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SATURDAY for SEP 10, 2016 EDUCATORS AN INTRODUCTION TO ASIAN ART RESOURCE & ACTIVITY GUIDE TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome 2 WELCOME, EDUCATORS Asian Art at The Ringling 2 About The Ringling’s Center for Asian Art 2 – 3 The Ringling is pleased to present this comprehensive Resource & Map of the Center for Asian Art 3 Activity Guide, designed to How to Use This Guide 3 familiarize you with the art, history, and cultures of Asia. The activity Activities: Indian Sculpture 4 – 7 descriptions and supplementary Activities: Ceramics for Rites & Rituals 8 – 11 resources provided in this guide Activities: Export Porcelain 12 – 14 will introduce you to The Ringling’s growing Asian art collection and Words to Know 15 provide points of inspiration for Where to Learn More 16 incorporating the study of Asian art into your classroom. About The Ringling 16 Upcoming Saturdays for Educators 16 Image Credits 16 ASIAN ART AT THE RINGLING From its inception in the 1920s, The Ringling’s Asian art collection has expanded greatly over the decades. While John Ringling’s passion for collecting art was centered on the European Baroque period, he also purchased a number of large stone objects from India, forming the basis of his Asian art collection and providing the impetus for the Museum to continue collecting art objects from Asia to this day. Subsequent significant gifts and purchases have greatly augmented the collection, and today it encompasses diverse objects from a broad range of Asian cultures. These include stone Buddhist sculpture from Gandhara, a crossroads of the ancient world’s Silk Road; Chinese ceramics from all periods of China’s history; Japanese woodblock prints, both traditional ukiyo-e as well as twentieth-century specimens; Vietnamese, Thai and Korean ceramics; and decorative objects representing Turkomen tribes and other cultural groups. ABOUT THE RINGLING’S CENTER FOR ASIAN ART In 2016, The Ringling debuted a new center for the study and appreciation of the arts and culture of Asia. The Center for Asian Art in the Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt Gallery of Asian Art will foster the exploration of historical and contemporary Asian cultures through research, exhibitions, and programs. The Center makes The Ringling a scholarly destination for the study of Asian arts and culture and provides opportunities for individual research, conferences, and professional and student exchange. 2 INTRODUCTION Commissioned from the internationally renowned architecture firm Machado Silvetti, the Center consists of a new pavilion and a renovation of almost 15,000 square feet within the existing Museum of Art, which together provide over 20,000 square feet of space. The new pavilion’s design incorporates influences from Asian art and architecture, such as the jade green terra cotta tiles covering the exterior, creating a new jewel on The Ringling’s campus. The Center features 6,800 square feet of gallery space for the display of Asian art, a 125-person lecture hall, a seminar room, and open collections storage all linked by a new bridge connecting the Center to The Ringling’s existing Johnson-Blalock Education Center. Extending out from the Museum, and facing Sarasota Bay, the Center includes an open terrace on the ground floor with shaded space surrounded by Asian-inspired gardens and landscaping. MAP OF THE CENTER FOR ASIAN ART, MAIN LEVEL HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE Asia is a huge, diverse, and vibrant place that provides a multitude of entry points for students of all ages and interests. Accordingly, there are many ways that teachers of all subject areas might connect their curriculum to art objects and artifacts from Asia; this guide provides only a few examples. Drawing on some of the stronger and more visible parts of The Ringling’s Asian art collection – Indian sculpture, Chinese and Japanese ceramics, and porcelain meant for foreign consumption – the activity suggestions in this guide are listed by grade level and include questions and contextual information to engage students in careful observation and critical thinking. Teachers of language arts, social studies, and visual art will find that the activities encourage students to consider museum objects as primary sources, artistic exemplars, and the inspiration for lively discussion and written response. Please feel free to adapt the activities to suit the needs and interests of your students! SATURDAY for EDUCATORS | An Introduction to Asian Art 3 ACTIVITIES: Indian Sculpture The roots of The Ringling’s Asian art collection lie in John Ringling’s purchases of Indian sculptural objects. These early acquisitions represent the rich artistic heritage of Gandhara, an ancient region located in present-day Pakistan, where Greco-Roman, Persian, and South Asian cultures intermingled through conquest and trade. An important center of Buddhist pilgrimage, Gandhara produced narrative and free-standing sculptural images of the Buddha that reflected the naturalistic influence of Greco-Roman art and helped worshippers connect with the tenets of their faith. Additional examples of Indian sculpture in The Ringling’s collection speak to other faiths practiced in India and the spread of religious ideas throughout Asia. Bronze figures of Hindu deities underscore the diversity of Indian culture, and comparisons among Gandharan, East Indian, and Chinese Buddhist images demonstrate the cultural exchange that characterizes many eras in Asian history. GRADES 3-5: Images of the Buddha in Indian Art ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION OBJECTIVE: Gather students in the Center for Asian Art and read this description of the Buddha: Students will identify and The Buddha is the most important figure in Buddhism, a religion that is practiced all over the describe visual world. Images of the Buddha show him with recognizable features. He is usually shown cues used to depict wearing a simple robe that may leave one of his shoulders bare. He often has long, stretched the Buddha in earlobes. He has a bump or knot of hair on top of his head. works of art. Have students walk through the Asian art galleries to see if they can identify the DURATION: Buddha in works of art, standing next to an example when they find one. Visit each of 20-30 minutes the works students find and ask: How did you identify the Buddha in this image? MATERIALS: Next, divide students into teams and hand out written descriptions (photocopied from Pencils, notebooks the information below) of the different gestures (mudras) that the Buddha can be or journals, enough shown making. Each team should see if they can find an example of their assigned copies of the mudra in the galleries. When they find one, they can sketch the work that they see in mudras (shown notebooks or journals, writing next to their drawing the name of the mudra shown in the below) to give one image. to each group of 3- 4 students STANDARDS: LAFS.K12.W.4.10 LAFS.K12.SL.1.1 VA.3.H.1.3 VA.4.H.1.3 Meditation mudra Teaching mudra Do Not Fear mudra Earth Touching mudra EXTENSION Have students select an image of the Buddha that they find in the Center for Asian Art galleries. They should write a visual description of their chosen Buddha image, including the pose, clothing, medium used, and any other attributes they see. 4 ACTIVITIES: Indian Sculpture ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION OBJECTIVE: Take students to view the stone panel Presentation of the Four Bowls in the Galleria of Students will the Center for Asian Art. Discuss: What might be going on here? Pass out copies of the analyze the story below and have students read it in groups: Buddhist narrative shown in a work of As the Buddha sat beneath a tree thinking, two merchants passed by and offered him some art and create food to eat. The Buddha had no bowl to receive their offering. All of a sudden, four heavenly original narrative kings appeared. Each offered a golden bowl to the Buddha. He rejected the fine dishes until images. the kings turned them from gold to humble stone. Then the Buddha accepted the bowls. But, before he began to eat, he turned the four separate bowls into a single bowl. That way, he DURATION: wouldn’t show favoritism to any of the kings. 30-40 minutes Discuss as a class: How do the MATERIALS: written and visual versions of Pencils, notebooks this story compare? What clues or journals, copies did the artist put in this image to of the Presentation tell us what’s going on? Discuss of the Four Bowls how the columns in this panel story (shown at divide it into different scenes right) for all from the Buddha’s life. Ask: Can students you think of other stories that are told in a series of rectangular STANDARDS: pictures like this? (Comic books LAFS.K12.R.3.9 are one example.) LAFS.K12.W.1.3 VA.3-5.C.1.2 EXTENSION VA.3-5.O.3.1 Have students use notebooks or journals to sketch the scene that might have come right before this moment in the story (when the merchants approach the Buddha and offer him some food as he sits under the tree). Back in the classroom, students can write their own original narratives and illustrate them in the same manner used in this work of art, with individual scenes shown in rectangular, side-by-side panels. GRADES 6-8: Hinduism and Buddhism in Indian Art ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION In the Chao Gallery of the Center for Asian Art, have students find the bronze figure of Shiva Nataraja and the East Indian Buddha sculpture. Without reading any information from the labels, students should begin with a visual comparison of the two sculptures. Pass out blank copies of a Venn diagram and have students fill in each side, comparing “Work A” and “Work B” in terms of each figure’s pose, size, facial expression, clothing, and other attributes.