Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia

Editor:
Mary M Dusenbury

Publication Year:
2015

Publisher:
Yale University Press

Abstract:

With essays by Monica Bethe, Mary M Dusenbury, Shih-shan Susan Huang, Ikumi Kaminishi, Guolong Lai, Richard Laursen, Liu Jian and Zhao Feng, Chika Mouri, Park Ah-rim, Hillary Pedersen, Lisa Shekede and Su Bomin, Sim Yeon-ok and Lee Seonyong, Tanaka Yoko, and Zhao Feng and Long Bo

Color was a critical element in East Asian life and thought, but its importance has been largely overlooked in Western scholarship. This interdisciplinary volume explores the fascinating roles that color played in the society, politics, thought, art, and ritual practices of ancient and medieval East Asia (ca. 1600 B.C.E.–ca. 1400 C.E.). While the Western world has always linked color with the spectrum of light, in East Asian civilizations colors were associated with the specific plant or mineral substances from which they were derived. Many of these substances served as potent medicines and elixirs, and their transformative powers were extended to the dyes and pigments they produced. Generously illustrated, this groundbreaking publication constitutes the first inclusive study of color in East Asia. It is the outcome of years of collaboration between chemists, conservators, archaeologists, historians of art and literature, and scholars of Buddhism and Daoism from the United States, East Asia, and Europe.

Table of Contents:

Colors and Color Symbolism in Ancient China
Colors and Color Symbolism in Early Chinese Ritual Art : Red and Black and the Formation of the Five Colors System / Guolong Lai

Tomb and Grotto Paintings
Wall Paintings at the Mogao Grotto Site, Dunhuang, China : Color Use from Northern Wei to Tang / Lisa Shekede and Su Bomin

Colors in Mural Paintings in Goguryeo Kingdom Tombs / Park Ah-Rim

Dyes on Ancient Chinese and Japanese Textiles
Yellow and Red Dyes in Ancient Asian Textiles / Richard Laursen --
Jincao (Arthraxon hispidus) : A Plant Used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and for Dyeing Yellow / Chika Mouri --
Imperial Yellow in the Sixth Century : A Preliminary Attempt to Reproduce Imperial Yellow Based on Instructions in the Qimin yaoshu / Zhao Feng and Long Bo --

Dye Analysis of Two Polychrome Woven Textiles from the Han and Tang Dynasties / Liu Jian and Zhao Feng --

Color at the Court of Japan
Color at the Japanese Court in the Asuka and Nara Periods / Mary M. Dusenbury 
Color in the Man'yōshū, an Eighth-Century Anthology of Japanese Poetry / Monice Bethe
Embroidered Slippers in the Shōsōin Repository / Tanaka Yoko
Color and Yearly Palace Rituals in Japan during the Nara and Heian Periods / Monica Bethe

Color at the Court of Japan in the Heian Period / Mary M. Dusenbury

Color in Religious Art in Medieval East Asia
Colors of the Five Directions Associated with Deposits Enshrined in Buddhist Statues in Korea / Sim Yeon-Ok and Lee Seonyong
Color Schemes in Early Medieval Japanese Buddhist Imagery / Hillary Pedersen -
Zenmyō's True Colors : Demonstrating Non-Duality of Form and Emptiness in the Kegon Scroll / Ikumi Kaminishi
Daoist Uses of Color in Visualization and Ritual Practices / Shih-Shan Susan Huang
The Substance of Color
Botanical and historical information about the major dye plants used in ancient and medieval East Asia / Mary M. Dusenbury