Author: Susan Meller Publisher: Abrams ISBN: 1683355571 Category : Design Languages : en Pages : 783
Book Description
The traditional textiles of Central Asia are unknown treasures. Straddling the legendary Silk Road, this vast region stretches from Russia in the west to China in the east. Whether nomadic or sedentary, its peoples created textiles for every aspect of their way of life, from ceremonial objects marking rites of passage, to everyday garments, to practical items for the home. There were suzanis for the marriage bed; prayer mats; patchwork quilts; bridal ensembles; bags for tea, scissors, and mirrors; lovingly embroidered hats and bibs; and robes of every color and pattern. Author Susan Meller has spent years assembling the 590 textiles illustrated in this book. She documents their history, use, and meaning through archival photographs and fascinating travelers’ narratives spanning many centuries. Her book will be a revelation to designers, collectors, students of Central Asia, and travelers to the region. Silk and Cotton is destined to become a classic.
Author: Mariachiara Gasparini Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 0824877985 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
In Transcending Patterns: Silk Road Cultural and Artistic Interactions through Central Asian Textiles, Mariachiara Gasparini investigates the origin and effects of a textile-mediated visual culture that developed at the heart of the Silk Road between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. Through the analysis of the Turfan Textile Collection in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin and more than a thousand textiles held in collections worldwide, Gasparini discloses and reconstructs the rich cultural entanglements along the Silk Road, between the coming of Islam and the rise of the Mongol Empire, from the Tarim to Mediterranean Basin. Exploring in detail the iconographic transfer between different agents and different media from Central Asian caves to South Italian churches, the author depicts and describes the movement and exchange of portable objects such as sculpture, wall painting, and silk fragments across the Asian continent and across the ages. Gasparini’s history offers critical perspectives that extend far beyond an outmoded notion of “Silk Road studies.” Her cross-media work shows readers how certain material cultures are connected not only by the physical routes they take but also because of the meanings and interpretations these objects engage in various places. Transcending Patterns is at once art history, material and visual cultural history, Asian studies, conservatory studies, and linguistics.
Author: Friedrich Spuhler Publisher: National Geographic Books ISBN: 050097084X Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
A remarkable collection of textiles made in Islamic lands and traded along the Silk Road, most of which are published here for the first time. The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, holds a spectacular array of ancient textiles created in Islamic lands, mostly from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, and traded along the Silk Road, the network of ancient trade routes that linked China, Central Asia, and Byzantium for more than 1,500 years. This fascinating volume presents these Islamic pieces along with a selection of predominantly Chinese textiles dating from the Han period (25–220 CE) to the Yuan period (thirteenth– fourteenth century CE). This collection, which has remained largely unpublished until now, is a rich source of information, not only for the history of textiles, but also for the history of the Silk Road itself. Together, the exceptional beauty and variety of the garments and textile fragments reflect the many strands of influence along the Silk Road. New scientific analysis has enabled a number of these textiles to be dated with precision for the first time, making them an especially valuable scholarly resource. Early Islamic Textiles from Along the Silk Road displays an astonishing range of textile motifs, patterns, and calligraphic designs. A selection of rare intact garments vividly evokes the lives of merchants, pilgrims, and travelers, as well as the inhabitants of countries linked by the Silk Road, making this a one-of-a-kind resource.
Author: Jennifer Harris Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1118768906 Category : Design Languages : en Pages : 528
Book Description
A lively and innovative collection of new and recent writings on the cultural contexts of textiles The study of textile culture is a dynamic field of scholarship which spans disciplines and crosses traditional academic boundaries. A Companion to Textile Culture is an expertly curated compendium of new scholarship on both the historical and contemporary cultural dimensions of textiles, bringing together the work of an interdisciplinary team of recognized experts in the field. The Companion provides an expansive examination of textiles within the broader area of visual and material culture, and addresses key issues central to the contemporary study of the subject. A wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches to the subject are explored—technological, anthropological, philosophical, and psychoanalytical, amongst others—and developments that have influenced academic writing about textiles over the past decade are discussed in detail. Uniquely, the text embraces archaeological textiles from the first millennium AD as well as contemporary art and performance work that is still ongoing. This authoritative volume: Offers a balanced presentation of writings from academics, artists, and curators Presents writings from disciplines including histories of art and design, world history, anthropology, archaeology, and literary studies Covers an exceptionally broad chronological and geographical range Provides diverse global, transnational, and narrative perspectives Included numerous images throughout the text to illustrate key concepts A Companion to Textile Culture is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, instructors, and researchers of textile history, contemporary textiles, art and design, visual and material culture, textile crafts, and museology.
Author: Xinru Liu Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195338103 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 169
Book Description
The ancient trade routes that made up the Silk Road were some of the great conduits of cultural and material exchange in world history. In this intriguing book, Xinru Liu reveals both why and how this long-distance trade in luxury goods emerged in the late third century BCE, following its story through to the Mongol conquest. Liu starts with China's desperate need for what the Chinese called "the heavenly horses" of Central Asia, and describes how the traders who brought these horses also brought other exotic products, some all the way from the Mediterranean. Likewise, the Roman Empire, as a result of its imperial ambition as well as the desire of its citizens for Chinese silk, responded with easterly explorations for trade. The book shows how the middle men, the Kushan Empire, spread Buddhism to China. Missionaries and pilgrims facilitated cave temples along the mountainous routes and monasteries in various oases and urban centers, forming the backbone of the Silk Road. The author also explains how Islamic and Mongol conquerors in turn controlled the various routes until the rise of sea travel diminished their importance.
Author: BuYun Chen Publisher: University of Washington Press ISBN: 0295745312 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
Tang dynasty (618–907) China hummed with cosmopolitan trends. Its capital at Chang’an was the most populous city in the world and was connected via the Silk Road with the critical markets and thriving cultures of Central Asia and the Middle East. In Empire of Style, BuYun Chen reveals a vibrant fashion system that emerged through the efforts of Tang artisans, wearers, and critics of clothing. Across the empire, elite men and women subverted regulations on dress to acquire majestic silks and au courant designs, as shifts in economic and social structures gave rise to what we now recognize as precursors of a modern fashion system: a new consciousness of time, a game of imitation and emulation, and a shift in modes of production. This first book on fashion in premodern China is informed by archaeological sources—paintings, figurines, and silk artifacts—and textual records such as dynastic annals, poetry, tax documents, economic treatises, and sumptuary laws. Tang fashion is shown to have flourished in response to a confluence of social, economic, and political changes that brought innovative weavers and chic court elites to the forefront of history. Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/empire-of-style
Author: Xinru Liu Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education ISBN: 1319241638 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
For more than 1500 years, across more than 4000 miles, the Silk Roads connected East and West. These overland trails and sea lanes carried not only silks, but also cotton textiles, dyes, horses, incense, spices, gems, glass, and ceramics along with religious ideas, governing customs, and technology. For this book, Xinru Liu has assembled primary sources from ancient China, India, Central Asia, Rome and the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, many of them difficult to access and some translated into English for the first time. Court histories, geographies and philosophical treatises, letters, travelers’ accounts, inventories, inscriptions, laws, religious texts, and more, introduce students to the complexities of cultural exchange. Liu’s thoughtful introduction considers the many ways the peoples along the Silk Roads interacted and helps students understand the implications for economies and societies, as well as political and religious institutions, over space and time. Maps, document headnotes and annotations, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.
Author: James A. Millward Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199782865 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 169
Book Description
The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction is a new look at an ancient subject: the silk road that linked China, India, Persia and the Mediterranean across the expanses of Central Asia. James A. Millward highlights unusual but important biological, technological and cultural exchanges over the silk roads that stimulated development across Eurasia and underpin civilization in our modern, globalized world.
Author: James C. Y. Watt Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art ISBN: 0870998250 Category : China Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
The material presented in this volume significantly extends what has been known to date of Asian textiles produced from the Tang (618-907) through the early Ming period (late 14th-early 15th century), and new documentation gives full recognition to the importance of luxury textiles in the history of Asian art. Costly silks and embroideries were the primary vehicle for the migration of motifs and styles from one part of Asia to another, particularly during the Tang and Mongol (1207-1368) periods. In addition, they provide material evidence of both the cultural and religious ties that linked ethnic groups and the impetus to artistic creativity that was inspired by exposure to foreign goods.
Author: Helen Wang Publisher: ISBN: Category : Antiques & Collectibles Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
This book focuses on the money of Eastern Central Asia to c. AD 800, a period of over 900 years, across a vast geographical area with a very diverse population of different cultures and traditions. The only relevant historical accounts are those found in the Chinese dynastic histories, yet these contain few references to money in Eastern Central Asia. This study therefore depends almost entirely on the archaeological evidence for money found at sites in the region, in the form of coins and contemporary documentary evidence. The book is arranged in four parts. The first part presents the background to the study, the second the numismatic evidence, the third gives the evidence for money in the contemporary documents excavated at sites in Eastern Central Asia, and the concluding part brings together the data from the numismatic and documentary evidence to create a new framework for money in early Eastern Central Asia.
Author: Susan Meller
Author: Mariachiara Gasparini
Author: Friedrich Spuhler
Author: Jennifer Harris
Author: Xinru Liu
Author: BuYun Chen
Author: Xinru Liu
Author: James A. Millward
Author: James C. Y. Watt
Author: Helen Wang