Trees aren’t always just trees

There were some kind of cypress (I think) trees near our home in south India that looked like guests at a cocktail party, one limb reaching out for a drink, another curling back as though to bring a cigarette to the lips.  Maybe that's why I get such a kick looking at the inventive depiction …

A basket made of ivory

So many works, so few column inches...  Here is one of many pieces I couldn't squeeze into my review of the Asian Export Art Gallery at the Peabody Essex Museum (which you can read in the WSJ or in my archive).  The museum simply labels it, "Basket, 1800-15."   What is it, you ask?  Why, …

Ah, my little astrolabe…

On and off for the last year and a half, I've been obsessing on astrolabes.   I'd master (or so I thought) one of its functions -- say, figuring out what time the sun will set on a given day.  Then  I'd give astrolabes a rest, focus on a review or other deadline, and come back …

The power of leaving a hand- or footprint.

A couple of people were taken with the notion, mentioned in my review of "Faith and Empire," that by making a foot- or handprint, one creates a permanent link with the object, the way, say, the shroud that wrapped a saint's body becomes a relic. Credit goes to  Kathryn Selig Brown, a scholar of Tibetan …

Portraits in bronze

One of the many treats in "Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism" at the Rubin Museum of Art are two bronze portraits of lamas.  We see so many idealized Buddha and bodhisattva figures, it's easy to forget that the sculptors were also capable of expressing people's individuality.  Meet lama Change Rolpai Dorje …

Sri Lanka, the ‘jeweled isle’

For personal reasons, I'm not traveling these days but I managed to make one exception: a same-day round trip to LA to spend exactly 2 1/2 hours at LACMA in order to see "The Jeweled Isles: Art From Sri Lanka." The first article on art I ever wrote for the WSJ was on a 1993 …

Triumph of Death

The Triumph of Death painting discussed in my WSJ Masterpiece essay is so complex, I thought it would be helpful to provide some closer views.  Here are snapshots I took in Palermo, beginning at the center then moving clockwise around the painting. And here is how all the elements come together -- this photo clearly …

Asia Week musings

Standing before a six-paneled folding screen at the Giuseppe Piva Gallery’s show, I found myself thinking about, of all things, perspective. Painted in the 17th century, the screen depicts moments from a battle in October 1600 that ushered in the Tokugawa shogunate. As great as the battle scenes are, what caught my attention was the …

An Ho — a great gift, a great loss

Not long ago, I was telling a curator of Chinese art that the next time he was anywhere near New York state, he had to meet An Ho, who had trained with Pu Ru, one of the last scholar-artists of China.  This caught his attention -- but there was so much more to be said …

Kings dreaming of immortality

Some say it's the Year of the Rooster, but in my book, it's year of the Han.  There has been a succession of shows highlighting this dynasty, which ruled from 206 B.C. to 220 AD.  It so consolidated a sense of identity that ethnic Chinese today still identify as "Han." In New York alone, there …