The Arts


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Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past


Book Description

Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past: Monument, Image and Text features 31 papers read at the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, held in London in September 2004. The volume covers monumental arts, sculpture and painting, epigraphy and heritage management across mainland Southeast Asia and as far south as Indonesia. New research on monumental arts includes chapters on the Bayon of Angkor and the great brick temple sites of Champa. There is an article discussing the purpose of making and erecting sacred sculptures in the ancient world and accounts of research on the sacred art of Burma, Thailand and southern China (including the first study of the few surviving Saiva images in Burma), of a spectacular find of bronze Mahayana Buddhas, and of the sculpted bronzes of the Dian culture. New research on craft goods and crafting techniques deals with ancient Khmer materials, including recently discovered ceramic kiln sites, the sandstone sources of major Khmer sculptures, and the rare remaining traces of paint, plaster and stucco on stone and brick buildings. More widely distributed goods also receive attention, including Southeast Asian glass beads, and there are contributions on Southeast Asian heritage and conservation, including research on Angkor as a living World Heritage site and discussion of a UNESCO project on the stone jars of the Plain of Jars in Laos that combines recording, safeguarding, bomb clearance, and eco-tourism development.







Orientalia


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The Arts


Book Description







The Arts of China to AD 900


Book Description

This book is the first in a major three-volume series that will survey China's immense wealth of art, architecture, and artifacts from prehistoric times to the twentieth century. The Arts of China to A.D. 900 investigates the beginnings of the traditions on which much of the art rests, moving from Neolithic and Bronze Age China to the era of the Tang Dynasty around A.D. 900. William Watson discusses in lively detail a wide range of art forms and techniques: porcelain and pottery, lacquer, religious and secular painting and sculpture, mural painting, monumental sculpture and architecture. He explains the materials and techniques of bronze casting, jade carving, pottery manufacture, and other arts, and he describes the most important sites, the artifacts that were produced at each one, and the historical interactions between different areas. He discusses the iconography, the technique and the function of every art form. Written by one of the most distinguished scholars in the field of Chinese art and archaeology, this lavishly illustrated book will be a valuable resource for both experts and beginners in the field.




Indian Art and Archaeology


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"Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870-1914 "


Book Description

Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870-1914 examines Paris as a center of international culture that attracted artists from Western and Eastern Europe, Asia and the Americas during a period of burgeoning global immigration. Sixteen essays by a group of emerging and established international scholars - including several whose work has not been previously published in English - address the experiences of foreign exiles, immigrants, students and expatriates. They explore the formal and informal structures that permitted foreign artists to forge connections within and across national communities and in some cases fashion new, transnational identities in the City of Light. Considering Paris from an innovative global perspective, the book situates both important modern artists - such as Edvard Munch, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Marc Chagall and Gino Severini - and lesser-known American, Czech, Italian, Polish, Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Catalan, and Hungarian painters, sculptors, writers, dancers, and illustrators within the larger trends of international mobility and cultural exchange. Broadly appealing to historians of modern art and history, the essays in this volume characterize Paris as a thriving transnational arts community in which the interactions between diverse cultures, peoples and traditions contributed to the development of a hybrid and multivalent modern art.




Satellite Remote Sensing


Book Description

This book provides a state-of-the art overview of satellite archaeology and it is an invaluable volume for archaeologists, scientists, and managers interested in using satellite Earth Observation (EO) to improve the traditional approach for archaeological investigation, protection and management of Cultural Heritage. The recent increasing development of EO techniques and the tremendous advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have resulted primarily in Cultural Heritage applications. The book focuses on new challenging prospects for the use of EO in archaeology not only for probing the subsurface to unveil sites and artifacts, but also for the management and valorization as well as for the monitoring and preservation of cultural resources. The book provides a first-class understanding of this revolutionary scenario which was unthinkable several years ago. The book offers: (i) an excellent collection of outstanding articles focusing on satellite data processing, analysis and interpretation for archaeological applications, (ii) impressive case studies, (iii) striking examples of the high potential of the integration of multi-temporal, multi-scale, multi-sensors techniques. Each chapter is composed as an authoritative contribution to help the reader grasp the value of its content. The authors are renowned experts from the international scientific community. Audience: This book will be of interest to scientists in remote sensing applied to archeology, geoarcheology, paleo-environment, paleo-climate and cultural heritage.