Asian Art All images of artwork in this packet can be see in person at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Art Institute's Asian collection shows the work of nearly five millennia from China, Korea, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, and the Near and Middle East. It includes 35,000 objects of great archaeological and artistic significance, including Chinese bronzes, ceramics, and jades; Chinese and Japanese textiles; Japanese screens and paintings; Indian and Persian miniature paintings; and Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture. The collection of Japanese woodblock prints is one of the finest in the world.” -Description of the Asian Exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago

Jades a deep green gemstone that's used in jewelry and ornaments, is a mineral that's mined, cut, and polished to make gems, sculptures, and other objects. Bead with Animal Mask, Shang dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BC), 13th-11th century B.C.

Textiles works of art using threads and fibers sometimes in combination with paints or dyes Uchikake, Shôwa period (1926–1989), c. 1935

Bronzes Artwork made of copper or other alloys Icon Plaque (Kakebotoke) with Kannon Bosatsu, 13th century

Screens method of creating an image on paper, fabric or some other object by pressing ink through a screen with areas blocked off by a stencil. Southern Barbarians, Mid 17th century Pair of six-panel screens; ink, colors, and gold on paper

Woodblock prints Method of carving into a block of wood or other material and painting on top to create a print Sea Coast, Futomi, 1956

Monochromatic Printing/Drawing Munakata Shikō. The Night Visit, from the series The Tale of the Auklet, 1938

Early Japanese paintings almost look abstract Early Japanese paintings almost look abstract. Artists wanted to create unique, original paintings that were very simple. Portraits, scenes of daily life, and studies of plants and animals were some of the things that were commonly painted. Since the wilderness was hard to come by, wilderness was desired and was seen as sophisticated. The Shinto and Buddhist love of nature is also shown and often animals and plants are meant to be seen as ancient symbols.

Landscape in the Style of Ancient Masters: after Wang Meng (c Landscape in the Style of Ancient Masters: after Wang Meng (c. 1308-1385), Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 1642

Landscape in the Style of Ancient Masters: after Gao Kegong (1248-1310), Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 1642

Many artists you may know were influenced by Japanese prints such as Manet and Van Gogh. Van Gogh copied the techniques and textures of Japanese woodcuts.

Dark ink on paper is the most basic formula for printed images the world over, usually using india ink. In Japan, printing with black ink was used well before color printing became popular in the 1760s. Monochromatic commercial prints are known as sumizuri-e, or pictures printed in ink.

After the development of full-color printing, some publishers chose to continue printing with only black ink because it was cheaper and some believed it required more skill. Meaning, it was believed to be harder to get all the detail, texture, lightness, and darkness of an image using only shades and tints of gray. A shade is when you add black to a color to make it darker and a tint is when you add white to a color to make it lighter. Using just one color in an artwork is called monochromatic (mono=one).

India ink is also used in calligraphy which a skilled way of writing using a paintbrush that has a fine tip.