From Chinese paintings to Indian caves, Volume 40 of Ars Orientalis takes a wide-ranging look at Asian art history. Four of the issue’s eight articles concern painting, investigating the iconography of the sparrow in the art of Tang-Song China (Bo Liu), two different groups of Indian works (Cathleen Cummings and Laura Parodi), and three 17th-century Ottoman manuscripts (Emine Fetvaci). Painted imagery is also the subject of Hsu Wen-Chin’s study of the decoration of Chinese porcelain. Robert deCaroli’s work examines the function of the visual imagery in the caves of Ajanta and its potential impact on the intended audience. A well-known but poorly understood 17th-century textile, the Marcy-Indjoudjian Cope, has been meticulously studied by Vrej Nersessian. Finally, the Freer Gallery itself is the subject of Ingrid Larsen’s study of Charles Lang Freer as a collector of Chinese painting.
Table of Contents
“Don’t Send Ming or Later Pictures”: Charles Lang Freer and the First Major Collection of Chinese Painting in an American Museum
Ingrid Larsen
Illustrations of Romance of the Western Chamber on Chinese Porcelains: Iconography, Style, and Development
Hsu Wen-Chin
Deciphering the Cold Sparrow: Political Criticism in Song Poetry and Painting
Bo Liu
“The Abode of a Nàga King”: Questions of Art, Audience, and Local Deities at the Ajaåæà Caves
Robert DeCaroli
Composition as Narrative: Sāhībdīn’s Paintings for the Ayodhyākaṇḍa of the Jagat Singh Rāmāyaṇa
Cathleen Cummings
The Marcy-Indjoudjian Cope
Vrej Nersessian
Enriched Narratives and Empowered Images in the Books of Ahmed I
Emine Fetvacı
Two Pages from the Late Shah Jahan Album
Laura Parodi
