Kaikodo Journal XVII Autumn 2000

In the Eye of the Beholder

Corresponding to the exhibition held between September 16 and October 21, 2000. 43 Chinese and Japanese paintings; 39 Chinese, Japanese, and Korean objects (82 color plates). Preface by Howard Rogers. 349 pages.
Includes the essays:
Jay A. Levenson:
    “Multicultural Beauty”
George Fan and Madeline Fan:
    “A Gold and Silver Decorated Buckle: Some
    New Thoughts on Inlay Technique of Archaic
    Chinese Bronzes”
Howard Rogers:
    “Lives of the Painters: Ch’ien Hsuan
    (ca.1240-ca.1311)”

The first essay included in this volume of the journal is the most personal but also broadest in scope, that by Jay A. Levenson, Director of the International Program, Museum of Modern Art, whose experiences suggest the profound capacity of beauty to communicate across cultural and temporal boundaries. The essay by collector George Fan and his artist-daughter Madeline Fan approaches art from a completely different point of view, examining in great detail the physical characteristics of a single object, a Han dynasty belt buckle, and developing a theory on the technique of inlay that has much broader implications. Howard Rogers’s essay on the 14th century master Qian Xuan (Ch’ien Hsuan) seeks to illumine the achievements of a very significant painter and also to raise if not solve questions of interpretation and approach.