The 105 Artworks of media Gold Leaf and containing the word maio motoko, gold leaf, 2000

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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In the center of this miniature removed from a Gospel book and depicting the Miracle of the Gadarene Swine, Jesus and his followers confront two men whose half-dressed, unkempt state indicates that they are possessed by evil spirits. Jesus performs an exorcism, transferring the demons into a herd of...

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The traditional Chinese subject of bamboo is given a distinctly Japanese treatment in this rendition of the four seasons. Stands of mature bamboo, leafy young bamboo plants, and tapering bamboo shoots are loosely grouped across the surface of this pair of screens, with violets and shepherd’s purse c...

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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 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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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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As the sixth trumpet sounds in the Apocalypse, Saint John, seen in the right margin, hears a voice from the golden altar. The illuminator identified the voice as the Lord/

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The piñanona (scientific nameMonstera deliciosa) is a common plant used for decoration in homes and hotels throughout Mexico. In this canvas, Gabriel Orozco abstracts a composition from the image of a piñanona leaf’s shadow. While Orozco’s earlier paintings tend to focus on geometry and chance varia...

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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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In the section of the Decretals on matrimony, an illuminator provided two full-page diagrams across a double-page spread to explain visually the laws of consanguinity and affinity. These laws were important for determining lines of inheritance and the legality of marriages. The first of these diagra...

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A courtesan leans against an armrest and engages her young attendant (kamuro) in conversation. Close inspection shows that the kamuro holds a small incense burner from which a thin line of smoke is rising, and the courtesan presents her right hand as though requesting the kamuro to hand it to her.Ka...

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When Italian silk mills in Lucca and Venice flourished in the 13th century, technique and patterns were very much dependent on Spain and the eastern Mediterranean. The fabric of this chasuble (in Latin casula, meaning little house, from the originally ‘house-like’ shape of the robe) from Cologne, wo...

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In this book of hours, an image of the Madonna and Child prefaces a prayer commonly found in books of hours. Addressed to the Virgin, it begins with Obsecro te domina (I beseech you lady). The image/

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Yahgulanaas named his ongoing series Coppers from the Hood for the shield-like totems, or coppers, that Haida chiefs traditionally exchanged during potlaches, communal feasts that formed the basis of the pre-colonial economy on the Northwest Pacific Coast and that are still held today. Many of the a...

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This pair of screens, painted in vivid colors on a brilliant gold-leaf background, presents a budding willow and a cherry tree in full bloom alongside two maple trees at the peak of their crimson glory. The compositions are distinctive for their array of related springtime and autumnal plants and fl...

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Many artists and poets of the East and West alike have striven to capture the transitory and fleeting image of swelling waves. Kōrin’s rendition—one of Japan’s most striking representations of this amorphous, ungraspable form—has a strangely menacing feel, due no doubt to the long, tentacle-like fin...

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