The 105 Artworks of media Gold Leaf

The Mishneh Torah is the magnum opus of Moses Maimonides, the renowned medieval philosopher. This remarkable text consolidates Jewish law into a systematic, comprehensive and accessible anthology, still consulted by rabbis and scholars today. This manuscript copy of the Mishneh Torah is one of the m...

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This peony fan shows the blending of literati and popular tastes in the period. Literati artists traditionally disdained a gold ground as vulgar, but Hu uses it to set off his image of the luscious peony, a flower with associations of wealth and seductive beauty.

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Ju Chao's inscription on this decorative fan says the bird is done in the style of the Yangzhou Eccentric Luo Ping (1773–99). Behind Luo Ping 's and Ju Chao's pictures is the idealized realism of the 12th century Song Academy painters. By the 19th century however, nature is no longer a mystery touch...

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Nearly all of Zou Zhilin’s surviving paintings are rendered in a simplified, almost cartoonish combination of chunky lines and dots. Here, he uses this unusual idiom to describe a humble riverside village backed by distant mountains.

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The massive black trunk of an ancient plum tree with bending, twisting branches spans nearly sixteen feet across four sliding panels. The reptilian old tree sprouts blossoms, which convey the atmosphere of a cold early spring morning and symbolize birth and renewal. These panels originally formed on...

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The focus of this composition is a young woman dressed as a gallant samurai, performing the Kabuki skit Chaya asobi, or “Teahouse Entertainments.” Her comic sidekick, the manservant Saruwaka (Young Monkey)—also played by a woman—holds a branch of maple leaves or flowers.In its earliest phase, Kabuki...

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In East Asian cultures, pine trees are venerated as symbols of longevity and virtue. In both screens on display here, two giant pines, each set against a smoothly gilded background, lean markedly to the left, but the composition is balanced by the branches, which reach toward one another. Flamboyant...

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This quilt represents an intersection of two distinct interests: codes and classic literature. The Code Series quilts utilize the principles of the “pigpen cipher,” which substitutes letters with geometric arrangements of lines and dots to graphically encrypt words onto quilts. Using squares of fabr...

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This object, from the Jewish catacombs of Rome, is made from two layers of translucent glass encasing gold leaf. It is actually the base of a vessel that was probably used in funerary banquets. After the walls of the vessel were intentionally broken, the base was affixed near a burial niche as a tom...

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Traditional methods of landscape painting are invoked by Hu in this fan. Mountain forms are built using a system of brush dabs, while forests are created by an assembly of ideogram trees. Dilute ink and pale colors soften the rigor of the traditional conception, producing work with an easy popular a...

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This evocative vignette is signed by a certain Lu Kezheng, an obscure artist who has gone unrecorded in histories of Chinese painting. Centering the composition on the lower half of the fan, Lu left the top shrouded in mist, creating a feeling of suspense by withholding a view into the far distance....

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In Chapter 30, “Mistflowers,” Yūgiri visits Tamakazura after the death of their grand-mother. Yūgiri has learned that Tamakazura is not his sister but his cousin, thus opening up the possibility of courtship. He brings a message of condolence and a love poem, along with a bouquet of mistflowers. As ...

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Across a brilliant gold-leaf background, the artist fashioned a wide undulating line from traditional Japanese paper (washi) soaked in ink and crushed-shell pigment (gofun) and then pressed into compact folds. The pair of screens is titled Kyoku, which in Japanese can mean “bend,” “curve,” “music,” ...

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This screen depicts the interior and court garden of a Chinese palace with groups of Chinese ladies, children, and servants enjoying their courtly life. The theme of Chinese court ladies was favored by high-ranking daimyo families and was exclusively depicted by academic painters of the Kano school....

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