Asian Art

Visitors to the Museum will encounter many key themes and representative works from the history of art across Asia. The collection of Asian art numbers almost 7,000 objects. Noteworthy items include the world-class South Asian paintings from the encyclopedic collection of Edwin Binney 3rd; Buddhist sculpture of China and Japan; Ukiyo-e woodblock prints; and a wide variety of ceramics, metalwork, and decorative arts ranging in date from about 1,600 BCE until the present-day. Approximately 150 objects from the Museum’s extensive collection of Asian art are always on display in the permanent collection galleries. Every six months, all of the light-sensitive artwork, including works on paper and textiles, are rotated, providing the visitor with a fresh look at about 50 new objects. The installation in the central Asian Court includes ancient jades and bronzes from China and the Museum’s most significant works of Buddhist sculpture from across Asia, which span more than two millennia . Visitors will also see a Tibetan-style altar and hear chanted prayers to the Buddha and other deities depicted in the sculptures. The Persian art display features the Museum’s recently restored Persian tile painting along with medieval manuscript pages, metalwork, and ceramics. Art associated with the tastes of four predominant social groups in Asia are on view. The warrior samurai class of Edo-period Japan (1615–1868), prized swords and domestic objects with extensive use of gold. The more subtle aesthetic of the twentieth-century Mingei movement of Japan reveals an appreciation of hand craftsmanship in objects for daily use. In China, during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), amateur scholar artists cultivated refined sensibilities in landscape paintings, calligraphy, and objects that contain encoded messages about moral rectitude. In contrast, brightly colored textiles, ceramics, and other objects were in vogue among members of the imperial court of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).