Intersections

Cross-Discipline, Cross-Cultural, Multi-Layered Approach

to East-West Studies

Vicki Cook, Pima Community College

Objective: Recreate Infused,

Topical LectureComplicate over-simplified East/West comparative rhetoric

• Separate Lectures for E/W Courese

• Western Imperialism

• Eastern Isolationism/Separatism

• Dual-Ethnocentricism

• Difference as Definition of Culture

• Change as more than reaction to or against previous thought, action

Possibilities: West Civ I and II

History and Culture of Japan/China

Art 105Art

AppreciationPima

Community College

Art 150Art, History and Culture of East AsiaUniversity of

Arizona

Van Gogh and

Japonism (Japonisme)1853 - 1890

Hiroshige and Ukiyo-e

(Woodblock prints)

1797 -1856

Consequences-Intended and Other

• Question of realism or not (temporarily) answered by camera

• Hiroshige retired from professional art to live a Buddhist life

• Demand for ukiyo-e diminished with rise in Western popularity

• Van Gogh’s Japanese style works usually in Eastern studies

• See influences of Japonism in both Art Nouveau and Cubism

• Twos sets of Hiroshige/Van Gogh painting gained some notice in post war academia

Japan

• Meiji Restoration of 1860s

• Open trading

• Increased interest in travel

• Catch-up efforts in industrialization

France/Europe

• Post Enlightenment

• French Revolution

• Napoleon and others

• Abolition of feudalism

• Industrialization

Historical Perspective 1800s

Hiroshige

“I leave my brush in the East

And set forth on my journey.

I shall see the famous

Places in the Western Land”

Van Gogh

“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to…”

Words – Formal and Informal

Topics with Possibilities

• Women in postwar era culture and society

• Philosophical constructions of linear vs. cyclical worldview

• Competing/complimentary styles of religious architecture

• Evidence of classic Western landscape influence in East Asian art

Some Concluding Thoughts

Find intersections of East/West art, history and culture

Help to complicate myths and stereotypes of East/West dualism

Question our own assumptions about presentation of topics

Spark interest of students by letting them choose topics of

interest and form own questions, find answers

Explore new ways of thinking about familiar topics and…

be inspired by others.