From the publisher’s website: Buddhist culture and thought have had a tremendous impact on the lives and thought of Korean people ever since the religion was introduced to the Korean peninsula in the late fourth century. Most of the time, the religion received strong state support for the construction of temples and pagodas and the … [Read More]
Booklist: Art History (page 4)
The Art of Korea: Highlights from the Collection of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum
From the publisher’s website: This stunning art book explores the rich visual history of Korean peninsula with dozens of Korean paintings, sculptures, figurines, porcelain, and textiles. Korea is home to one of the longest and most vibrant art traditions in the world—yet it is one of the least known in the United States. San Francisco’s … [Read More]
Maedeup: The Art of Traditional Korean Knots
Hee-jin Kim, born in 1934, attended Jin Myeong Girls’ High School in 1946. In 1963, she first developed an interest in traditional ornamental knots, maedeup, which in the aftermath of devastating social turmoil in the first half of the 20th century, was quickly becoming a dying art. Kim embarked on a quest to learn the techniques … [Read More]
Modern Korean Ink Painting
Modern Korean Ink Painting promotes a general understanding of how Korean art and the times it represented were related. The book starts with the dawn of the modern age in Korean art (1876-1910), which looks at the legacy of court painting and the last of the literati painters. Next the book moves on to the … [Read More]
Symbolism in Korean Ink Brush Painting
From the publisher’s website: With more than 200 colour plates, and for the first time available as a study in English, this volume explores the vast heritage of Korean ink brush painting, providing a rich panorama of information that stretches across the entire spectrum of Korean art – including painting, pottery, calligraphy and literature, which … [Read More]
20th Century Korean Art
In recent years the increase in interest in Asian art has led to a number of books being published about Japanese and Chinese artists. However, the exciting Korean scene is still largely undocumented. Now Kim Youngna reveals Korean modern and contemporary artists to the West. Twentieth-Century Korean Art provides a comprehensive, engaging survey that places … [Read More]
Korean Art from the Gompertz and Other Collections in the Fitzwilliam Museum: A Complete Catalogue
From the publisher’s website: The collection of Korean art in the Fitzwilliam Museum is one of the finest outside the Far East, containing rich holdings of early unglazed ceramics, celadon stonewares of the Koryo dynasty, punch’ong wares and porcelains of the Choson dynasty as well as items in glass, jade, bronze, brass, lacquer and wood. … [Read More]
Korean Landscape Painting: Continuity and Innovation Through the Ages
From the publisher’s website: Korean Landscape Painting: Continuity and Innovation Through the Ages discusses the art form beginning at its earliest roots two millennia ago, in the Three Kingdoms period, right up until the 20th century. Accompanied by many maps, pictures and a glossary of names and terms, this book provides a complete overview of … [Read More]
The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings: A History and an Appreciation
Publisher description: The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings originally was written in Korean under the subtitle A History and An Appreciation of Traditional Korean Paintings. As stated above the book began as an illustrated lecture by Lee Dongju 이동주 «李東洲», a self-trained art historian. The book evokes this passionate connoisseur’s acute, entertaining and at times uncomfortably frank … [Read More]
Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea
Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea deals with issues of tradition, modernity, and identity in modern and contemporary Korean art. On a deeper level, this is one of the only books of its kind in English that exposes readers to specific artists and their works, an especially useful resource for those who wish to know more … [Read More]
Art Under Control in North Korea
Publisher description: Nuclear bombs and geopolitical controversy are often the first things associated with the isolated Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea and its volatile leader Kim Jong-il. Yet behind the secretive curtain also lies a little known and slowly expanding world of art. This is the first book to be published in the West which … [Read More]
Painters as Envoys: Korean Inspiration in Eighteenth-Century Japanese Nanga
It is well known that Japanese literati painting of the eighteenth century was inspired by Chinese styles that found their way to Japan through trade relations. However, because Japanese and American art historians have focused on Japanese-Chinese ties, the fact that Japan also maintained important diplomatic–and aesthetic–relations with Korea during the same period has long … [Read More]
Remembering the Forgotten War: The Korean War Through Literature and Art
From the publisher’s website: In contrast to the many books that use military, diplomatic, and historic language in analyzing the Korean War, this book takes a cultural approach that emphasizes the human dimension of the war, an approach that especially features Korean voices. There are chapters on Korean art on the war, translations into English … [Read More]
Korea: Art and Archaeology
This illustrated book, the first authoritative general introduction to the distinctive culture of this country to be published in English, traces its development chronologically from the Neolithic period (c. 6000 BC) right up to the present day. Korea, published in association with the opening of a major new permanent Korean Gallery in the British Museum, … [Read More]
Kim Whanki: A Critical Biography
From the publisher’s website: Kim Whanki (1913-1974) is one of the most representative painters in modern Korean fine-art. Combining eastern instinct with Western logic, his paintings describe Korean characteristics and a sharp modernity through his paintings which embrace both concrete and abstract themes. During his career, he consistently pursued the theme of “Korean eternity.” He … [Read More]
Arts of Korea: the Metropolitan Museum of Art
From the publisher’s website: Of all the cultural and artistic traditions of East Asia, those of Korea have received the least attention in the West. This volume, along with the major exhibition it accompanies, examines the most significant developments in the history of Korean art, from the Neolithic period to the nineteenth century, through outstanding … [Read More]