by Reena Jana

“New York will continue to be one of the most active centers for Asian art in the 21st century. With the vast holdings at the Met and the Brooklyn Museum, and exhibitions at the Asia Society, and Japan Society, New Yorkers and visitors have constant chances to see Asian art, both traditional and contemporary. And with organizations like the Asian American Arts Center and the Asian American Arts Alliance, there is increasingly greater attention paid to Asian American artists in the city.”

--Vishakha N. Desai , Senior Vice President of the Asia Society and Director of the Museum and Cultural Programs

Although historians might point to California and the West Coast as centers for Asian culture in America because of their coastal proximity to the East, New York City has long been a major portal for the flow of Asian art into America. More than that, the city has been an important and fertile breeding ground for East-West artistic fusion. American patrons of the arts began a serious pursuit of Asian art during the era of Japonisme, in the 19th century, when Westerners became enamored of Eastern art forms. Collectors at that time were intrigued by the mysterious imagery depicted in the works and grew curious about the unusual techniques of the artists. New York’s elite rode the trend, as did the French Impressionists and the graphic artists of the Art Nouveau movement, whose work was greatly influenced by the dramatic, colorful designs of Japanese printmakers. Even Vincent Van Gogh directly copied work by Japanese artists, appropriating the visions of 19th-century printmaker Hiroshige in oil paint. In the 1880s, firms dealing in Japanese art did brisk business in New York, as highly regarded interior decorators, such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, incorporated Japanese aesthetics into their designs. Many of Tiffany’s lamps and windows borrowed from Japanese styling; symbols found repeatedly in Japanese illustration, such as the peacock, became familiar Tiffany design elements.

The ornate Manhattan homes of America’s reigning Gilded Age families, including the Vanderbilts and the Havemeyers, were among the first in the country to incorporate Asian art into interior design. The Asian references were informed and far-flung: The Havemeyer family library was designed to reflect the bright hues of ancient Noh dance robes, and its walls were painted a shade of green that was inspired by a lacquer panel by Ritsuo, a Japanese printmaker of the 16th century.

New Yorkers were introduced to Japanese wood-block prints by Shugio Hiromichi, the director of the First Japan Manufacturing and Trading Company, a Japanese importer of porcelain and parasols. In 1889, Shugio curated the first significant show of ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world"), colorful wood-block prints and posters representing urban and natural pleasures, such as geisha in outdoor revelry or theater actors in costume. These lyrical, contemplative prints inspired a host of turn-of-the-century painters. James Whistler, in particular, borrowed from the ukiyo-e abstract sensibility in his work, saying, “If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.”

Public collections of Asian art also began in the late 19th century, with New York as a hub of sorts for such collecting activity. Howard Mansfield, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was the first acting curator of Asian art at the institution (a staff curator was added in 1915). Mansfield’s personal collection included Japanese paintings and pottery. Mansfield’s fellow trustee, Charles Stewart Smith (also a founder of the Met), bought 1,700 ukiyo-e and 522 Japanese ceramics, which he donated to the museum. Today, visitors to the Met will find the most comprehensive holdings of Asian art in the Western world: a collection of more than 60,000 pieces spanning more than 2,300 years. Completed in 1998, an entire wing of the museum is devoted to Asian art, occupying an astonishing 64,500 square feet. Nineteenth-century Japanese printmaker Hokusai’s famous Great Wave at Kanagawa (from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji) is part of the collection, as well as the 8th-century Chinese master Han Gan’s Night-Shining White ink drawing.

The pieces on display are presented chronologically and by region, yet similarities in themes and techniques are conveyed in the placement of the objects. For example, traditional blue-and-white Chinese porcelain is showcased in an installation that explores the influence of Asian ceramics on European ceramic design as well as the similarities between Chinese porcelain and that of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Not to be missed is the Astor Court, which is modeled after a scholar’s courtyard in Suzhou, a region in China renowned for its innovative garden architecture. The design of the simulated courtyard, which opened to the public in 1981, dates back to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 a.d.).

The breadth of the Met’s collection can be dizzying. The Charlotte C. Weber Galleries for the Arts of Ancient China feature Neolithic Chinese bronzes and jades, dating from 4500 to 2000 b.c., and rare Buddhist images from the Tang (618-907 a.d.) and Ming dynasties. The Douglas Dillon Galleries, the C. C. Wang Gallery, and the Francis Young Tang Galleries feature scholarly and courtly paintings and calligraphy from the 8th through 18th centuries, as well as works from 19th- and 20th-century China. The Arts of Japan Galleries feature 11 rooms that represent the entire range of Japanese art from Neolithic ceramics to Edo Period wood-block prints.

The Arts of Korea Gallery, an unusual hybrid of contemporary, sleek interior architecture and traditional Korean details, such as wooden plank floors, highlights Buddhist paintings from the Koryo (918-1292 a.d.) and Choson (1392-1910 a.d.) dynasties. And the Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for the Arts of South and Southeast Asia show Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Cambodian, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese art in 15 rooms. Standouts include early Southeast Asian metalwork and Khmer Empire sculptures.