Montag | 18.15 Uhr | Nebulous Images „Clouds” in the Art of Japan Prof. Dr. Kristopher Kersey, UCLA / Ishibashi Foundation Visiting Professor One of the most characteristic and identifiable aspects of Japanese pictorial culture is the prevalence of clouds: blue bands of hazy mist, bold and textured fields of nebulous gold, and nuanced monochrome degradations of diluted ink. Yet despite the longstanding prominence of clouds in Japanese art, it was only in the late nineteenth century that scientist began to document, sort, and name these atmospheric phenomena according to the typology still used today. As this lecture will demonstrate, the modern meteorological understanding of clouds overshadows the far more interesting operations of “clouds” in the history of Japanese art. One might be tempted at first to dismiss such forms as secondary, extraneous, or even “filler,” yet such nebulous images are actually among the most sophisticated elements within the pictorial tradition of Japan. In a global context, moreover, the complex deployment of clouds in Japanese painting serves to refute any purported theoretical universalism stemming from European art history. Far from ancillary, clouds are tied to a rich repertoire of powerful and multivalent pictorial strategies. Adresse CATS – Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Gebäude 4010 R.010.01.05 Voßstraße 2 69115 Heidelberg Veranstalter Institut für Kunstgeschichte Ostasiens Homepage Veranstalter Kontakt Institut für Kunstgeschichte Ostasiens Kontakt URL |