Art History 212

  HENI Talks, "Benin ivory mask (Edo peoples)," in Smarthistory, June 17, 2018, accessed February 26, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/ivory-mask-benin/.  This mask was made in honor of the Mother Queen of Benin, Idia. She worked extremely hard to ensure that her son would be the heir to the Benin throne instead of his half brother. The mask itself also wasn't meant to be worn on the face but rather as an adornment on someone's hip. On the mask you can see figures shown as the knots on the crown, which are meant to be Portuguese merchants and was meant to represent the alliance between the Edu state and the Portuguese. This was a very strategic maneuver on behalf of the Benin people to create an alliance with a European nation. The trade of cloth for brass between the Edu and the Portuguese created a new tradition of Brass work for the Edu people. They created Brass plaques showing their battles with enemies and they became very important pieces for the people of Benin....

    Hung Sheng, "Huang Gongwang, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains," in Smarthistory, November 28, 2015, accessed February 14, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/huang-gongwang-dwelling-in-the-fuchun-mountains/. Dr. Sonia Coman and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Bamboo in the Four Seasons: painting and poetry in Japan," in Smarthistory, March 16, 2018, accessed February 14, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/tosa-mistunobu/. In the "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" scroll we can see the panorama of scenes that took the artist, Huang Gongwang years to finish. The scroll wasn't created in a short period and it wasn't painted at any time, it was when the artist felt it was the time to paint in which he added another section to the scroll. The scroll would have also been burned if it had not been saved by the nephew of Wu Hongyu, a collector. It was Wu Hongyu's dying wish for the scroll to be burnt so he could take it to the afterlife with him, since he was so fond o...