Tag Archives: Art History and World Art Studies

[S2E28] 🐫 On the Silk Road(s) with Prof Susan Whitfield

Oliver is joined by Susan Whitfield, Professor in Silk Road Studies at the Sainsbury Institute, to gain a new perspective on the mass of historic maritime and land-based routes known as the Silk Roads. Susan gives us a taste of the material and cultural impact of the enormous trade network stretching to the ends of Europe, Africa and Asia from the 2nd Century BCE, as well as highlighting the role of Japan and China in establishing the network as World Heritage.

[S2E27] 🗺️ Maps & Imagined Travel with Dr Sonia Favi

Oliver is joined by Dr Sonia Favi, researcher at the University of Turin, to discuss the history of imagined travel. Sonia’s digital exhibition, ‘Travels in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868): A Virtual Journey’, explores how late-Edo period maps indulged the imagination of those unable to journey across the country, something all too familiar in the wake of COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Dunhuang Forgeries and Recent Silk Roads Research Symposium

Watch the Kyoto National Museum’s International Symposium “Dunhuang Forgeries and Recent Silk Roads Research” on YouTube in English, Japanese and Chinese.

[S2E21] 😂 Humour in Art: Kawanabe Kyōsai with Dr Koto Sadamura

This week we are joined by Dr Koto Sadamura, Robert & Lisa Sainsbury Research Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute, to discuss the place of humour in art through the works of the eccentric 19th century painter Kawanabe Kyōsai. Kyōsai’s specialty of kyōga, or “comic pictures”, have historically been overlooked when compared with his more traditional works, despite being of equal skill and cultural significance. Koto also unpicks how comic devices such as inversion of legendary figures were used to depict humorous situations which people of all classes could relate to, much like the memes of today.

[S2E17] 🎨 Art & Cultural Exchange with David Elliott

This week we are joined by art historian, curator and writer David Elliott to discuss art as a means of cultural exchange. David shares with us his experience of challenging the Euro-American concept of Modern Art by exhibiting contemporary Asian, African and Latin American artists, as well as his new approach of looking at art history through trousers.

The Accidental Translator with Professor Nicole Rousmaniere

Join our Sainsbury Institute colleague Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere for her lecture at Heidelberg University’s Institute of East Asian Art History on the inherent need to translate throughout her career as a Japanese Art Historian.