Asian Arts

Japanese Art
Japanese art covers a wide range of art
styles and media, including ancient pottery,
sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk
and paper, ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock
prints, kiri-e, kirigami, origami, and more
recently mangamodern Japanese cartooning
and comicsalong with a myriad of other types
of works of art. It has a long history, ranging
from the beginnings of human habitation in
Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BC, to
the present.

Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan,

practiced by amateurs and professionals alike. Until modern
times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen,
and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them
particularly sensitive to the values and aesthetics of
painting. With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, a
style of woodblock prints called ukiyo-e became a major art
form and its techniques were fine tuned to produce colorful
prints of everything from daily news to schoolbooks. The
Japanese, in this period, found sculpture a much less
sympathetic medium for artistic expression; most Japanese
sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium's use
declined with the lessening importance of traditional
Buddhism.

Chinese Art
The arts of China (Chinese: / )
have varied throughout its ancient history, divided
into periods by the ruling dynasties of China and
changing technology, but still containing a high
degree of continuity. Different forms of art have
been influenced by great philosophers, teachers,
religious figures and even political leaders. The
arrival of Buddhism and modern Western influence
produced especially large changes. Chinese art
encompasses fine arts, folk arts and performance
arts.

In early imperial China, porcelain was introduced and was refined

to the point that in English the word china has become
synonymous with high-quality porcelain. Around the 1st century
AD, Buddhism arrived in China, though it did not become popular
until the 4th century. At this point, Chinese Buddhist art began to
flourish, a process which continued through the 20th century. It was
during the period of Imperial China that calligraphy and painting
became highly appreciated arts in court circles, with a great deal of
work done on silk until well after the invention of paper.
Buddhist architecture and sculpture thrived in the Sui and Tang
dynasty. Of which, the Tang Dynasty was particularly open to
foreign influence. Buddhist sculpture returned to a classical form,
inspired by Indian art of the Gupta period. Towards the late Tang
dynasty, all foreign religions were outlawed to support Taoism.

Korean Art
Korean arts include traditions in calligraphy, music,
painting and pottery, often marked by the use of natural
forms, surface decoration and bold colors or sounds. The
earliest examples of Korean art consist of stone age works
dating from 3000 BCE. These mainly consist of votive
sculptures, although petroglyphs have also been recently
rediscovered.
This early period was followed by the art styles of various
Korean kingdoms and dynasties. Korean artists
sometimes modified Chinese traditions with a native
preference for simple elegance, purity of nature and
spontaneity.

Indian Art
Indian Art consists of a variety of art forms, including plastic arts
(e.g., pottery and sculpture), visual arts (e.g., cave paintings), and
textile arts (e.g., woven silk). Geographically, it spans the entire
Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. A strong sense of design is characteristic of Indian
art and can be observed in its modern and traditional forms.
The origin of Indian art can be traced to pre-historic Hominid
settlements in the 3rd millennium BC. On its way to modern
times, Indian art has had cultural influences (e.g., Indus Valley
and Hellenistic), as well as religious influences such as Hinduism,
Buddhism, Jainism and Islam. In spite of this complex mixture of
religious traditions, generally the prevailing artistic style at any
time and place has been shared by the major religious groups.

Middle East
It encompasses the visual arts produced from the
7th century onwards by people who lived within the
territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally
Islamic populations.[1] It is thus a very difficult art
to define because it covers many lands and various
peoples over some 1400 years; it is not art
specifically of a religion, or of a time, or of a place,
or of a single medium like painting.[2] The huge
field of Islamic architecture is the subject of a
separate article, leaving fields as varied as
calligraphy, painting, glass, ceramics, and textiles,
among others.

It is not at all restricted to religious art, but

includes all the art of the rich and varied cultures of
Islamic societies as well. It frequently includes
secular elements and elements that are frowned
upon, if not forbidden, by some Islamic theologians.
[3] Apart from the ever-present calligraphic
inscriptions, specifically religious art is actually less
prominent in Islamic art than in Western medieval
art, with the exception of Islamic architecture where
mosques and their complexes of surrounding
buildings are the most common remains.

Philippines
Artistic paintings were introduced to the Filipinos
in the 16th century when the Spaniards arrived in
the Philippines. During this time, the Spaniards
used paintings as religious propaganda to spread
Catholicism throughout the Philippines. These
paintings, appearing mostly on church walls,
featured religious figures appearing in Catholic
teachings. Due to the Church's supervision of
Filipino art and Spanish occupation of the
Philippines, the purpose of most paintings from the
16th-19th century were to aid the Catholic Church.[

In the early 19th century, wealthier, educated Filipinos

introduced more secular Filipino art, causing art in the
Philippines to deviate from religious motifs. The use of
watercolor paintings increased and the subject matter of
paintings began to include landscapes, Filipino
inhabitants, Philippine fashion, and government officials.
Portrait paintings featured the painters themselves,
Filipino jewelry, and native furniture. The subject of
landscape paintings featured artists' names painted
ornately as well as day-to-day scenes of average
Filipinos partaking in their daily tasks. These paintings
were done on canvas, wood, and a variety of metals.