Details

Subject(s)

• Art, Japanese—Heian period, 794-1185—Influence [Browse]
• Art, Japanese—History [Browse]

Series

• Refiguring modernism ; 42. [More in this series]
• Refiguring modernism ; 42 [More in this series]

Summary note

• "Traces the turbulent discourse about the emergence of Japanese art history as a modern field, and presents a new paradigm for discussing the place of non-Western and nonmodern art in global modernity"-- Provided by publisher.
• "If we want to decolonize the history of art, argues Kristopher Kersey, we must rethink our approach to the historical record. This means dispensing with Eurocentric binaries--divisions between Western and non-Western, modern and premodern--and making a commitment to artworks that challenge the perspectives we build upon them. In Facing Images, the question takes elegant and intriguing form: If the aesthetic hallmarks of 'modernity' can be found in twelfth-century art, what does it really mean to be 'modern'? Kersey’s answer to this question models a new historiography. Facing Images begins by tracing the turbulent discourse surrounding the emergence of Japanese art history as a modern field. In lieu of examining canonical works from the twelfth century, Kerseyforegrounds the elusive and the enigmatic in artworks little known and understudied outside Japan; the manuscripts he selects defy traditional art-historical narratives by exhibiting decidedly modern techniques, including montage, self-reference, reuse, noise, dissonance, and chronological disarray. Kersey weaves these medieval case studies together with insights from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship, using a methodology that will prove important for historians: Facing Images produces a history of non-Western art in which diverse and anachronic works are brought responsibly and equitably into dialogue with the present, without being subsumed under Eurocentric formalisms or false universals." -- Publisher's description.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-293) and index.

Contents

• Antinomies : transiting modernity in Japanese art history
• Interface : between visuality and alterity
• Stratigraphy : facing the Eyeless sutras
• Anti-aesthetics : materiality and visuality in The significance of the character "A" (ajigi)
• Viscera : anatomy, prosthesis, and the physiology of vision
• Montage : The anthology of the thirty-six poets and the modernity of collage.

Show 3 more Contents items

Other title(s)

Medieval Japanese art and the problem of modernity

ISBN

• 9780271097169 ((hardback))
• 0271097167 ((hardback))

LCCN

2024012614

OCLC

1424739333

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