1.
Taito, Tokyo
–
Taitō is a special ward located in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. In English, it is known as Taito City, as of May 1,2015, the ward has an estimated population of 186,276 and a population density of 18,420 persons per km². The total area is 10.11 km² and this makes Taito ward the smallest of Tokyos wards in area, and third smallest in population. The ward was founded on March 15,1947, during the Edo period, the Yoshiwara licensed quarter was in what is now Taitō. Situated in the portion of the wards area of Tokyo, Taitō is surrounded by five other special wards, Chiyoda, Bunkyō, Arakawa, Sumida. Taitō is famous for its typical Shitamachi districts, public high schools are operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education. The Central Library is located in the first and second floors of the Lifelong Learning Center, the city operates the Lifelong Learning Center, a complex including a multi-media room, a studio, and other facilities. The Central Library is on the first and second floors of the Lifelong Learning Center, Tokyo Ricoh Office Solution and Ricoh Technosystems, divisions of Ricoh, are headquartered in Taitō as of 2008. Chikumashobo, a publisher, has its headquarters in the Kuramae area of the ward,1 Ueno Route National Highways Route 4 Route 6 The City of Taito operates the Taito Riverside Sports Center. The center includes a gymnasium, tennis courts, two fields for adults, one baseball field for children, one large swimming pool, one childrens pool. The gymnasium includes two courts, two halls, a Japanese-style archery range, a sumo ring, a training room, a table tennis room, an air-rifle shooting range. Taitō City official website Taitō City official website Taito Culture Guide Book Bunka Tabou
Taito, Tokyo
–
A street in Ueno, Taitō
Taito, Tokyo
–
The statue of
Saigō Takamori in Ueno Park
Taito, Tokyo
–
Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Garden is the former estate of the
Iwasaki clan, who were founders of Mitsubishi. The building was constructed in Western style.
Taito, Tokyo
–
The five-storied pagoda at Sensō-ji
2.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
Japan
–
The
Golden Hall and
five-storey pagoda of
Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world,
National Treasures, and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Japan
Japan
–
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the
Mongol invasions of Japan. The
Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.
Japan
–
Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population.
Edo period, 1798
3.
Art museum
–
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection, the term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art, however, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. In broad terms, in North American usage, the word gallery alone often implies a private gallery, the term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are found clustered together in large urban centers. Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages. Contemporary art galleries are open to the general public without charge, however. They usually profit by taking a portion of art sales, from 25% to 50% is typical, there are also many non-profit or collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly, a gallerys definition can also include the artist cooperative or artist-run space, which often operates as a space with a more democratic mission and selection process. A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, the shows are not legitimately curated and will frequently or usually include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artists resume, University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art that are developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in both the West and East, making it a global practice, although largely overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in America alone. This number, in comparison to other kinds of art museums, throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions and monarchs and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces. Although these collections of art were private, they were made available for viewing for a portion of the public. In classical times, religious institutions began to function as a form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects often donated their collections to temples and it is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. At the Palace of Versailles, entrance was restricted to wearing the proper apparel – the appropriate accessories could be hired from shops outside
Art museum
–
The Louvre in
Paris,
France, is one of the world's largest museums and
the most visited art museum in the world.
Art museum
–
The Gallery of
Cornelis van der Geest,
Willem van Haecht, 1628. A private picture gallery as an early precursor of the modern museum.
Art museum
–
University of Tartu Art Museum is the oldest museum in
Estonia.
Art museum
–
The art collection at the
Palace of Versailles in
France was periodically open for 'respectable' public viewing.
4.
Ueno Station
–
Ueno Station is a major railway station in Tokyos Taitō ward. Ueno Station is close to Keisei-Ueno Station, the Tokyo terminus of the Keisei Main Line to Narita Airport Station, there is a memorial plate about this poem in the station. Like most major stations in Japan, Ueno station contains and is surrounded by extensive shopping arcades, uenos includes a branch of the Hard Rock Cafe. The station has two levels of tracks and a deep underground station for the Tohoku Shinkansen tracks. Through tracks 1 to 4 on two platforms on the main level are used by Yamanote Line and Keihin-Tohoku Line trains. Tracks 5 to 9 on two platforms and one side of a terminal platform lead to the Ueno-Tokyo Line to Tokyo Station. Tracks 10 to 12 terminate inside the building, and below these on a deck are further terminal tracks 13 to 17. Two subterranean island platforms serve Shinkansen tracks 19 to 22, chest-high platform edge doors were installed on the two Yamanote Line platforms in November 2015, and brought into use from December. Both the Ginza and Hibiya line station have two tracks, however, unlike in other Tokyo Metro stations, each lines tracks are counted separately. The station opened on July 28,1883, after the destruction of this first building in the fires caused by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, Japanese Government Railways constructed the current station buildings. In 1927, Tokyo Underground Railway opened Japans first subway line from here to Asakusa Station, following World War II, the neighbourhood in front of Ueno Station was a major center of black market activity. Today, that market is gathering people as a name of Ameya-Yokochō, in fiscal 2013, the JR East station was used by 181,880 passengers daily, making it the thirteenth-busiest station operated by JR East. In fiscal 2013, the Tokyo Metro station was used by an average of 211,539 passengers per day, the daily passenger figures for each operator in previous years are as shown below. Note that JR East figures are for boarding passengers only
Ueno Station
–
Main building of the station
Ueno Station
–
Main hall
Ueno Station
–
Platforms 14 and 15
Ueno Station
–
Ginza Line platforms
5.
Museum
–
Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public, the goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, the city with the largest number of museums is Mexico City with over 128 museums. According to The World Museum Community, there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, the English museum comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as museums. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens, however, Pausanias gives another place called Museum, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite to the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill, the purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the education of the public. The purpose can also depend on ones point of view, to a family looking for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, a trip to a local history museum or large city art museum could be a fun, and enlightening way to spend the day. To city leaders, a healthy museum community can be seen as a gauge of the health of a city. To a museum professional, a museum might be seen as a way to educate the public about the museums mission, Museums are, above all, storehouses of knowledge. In 1829, James Smithsons bequest, that would fund the Smithsonian Institution, stated he wanted to establish an institution for the increase, Museums of natural history in the late 19th century exemplified the Victorian desire for consumption and for order. Gathering all examples of classification of a field of knowledge for research. As American colleges grew in the 19th century, they developed their own natural history collections for the use of their students, while many large museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, are still respected as research centers, research is no longer a main purpose of most museums. While there is a debate about the purposes of interpretation of a museums collection, there has been a consistent mission to protect. Much care, expertise, and expense is invested in efforts to retard decomposition in aging documents, artifacts, artworks. All museums display objects that are important to a culture, as historian Steven Conn writes, To see the thing itself, with ones own eyes and in a public place, surrounded by other people having some version of the same experience can be enchanting. Museum purposes vary from institution to institution, some favor education over conservation, or vice versa. For example, in the 1970s, the Canada Science and Technology Museum favored education over preservation of their objects and they displayed objects as well as their functions. One exhibit featured a printing press that a staff member used for visitors to create museum memorabilia
Museum
–
The
Louvre Museum in
Paris (
France), one of the largest and most famous museums in the world.
Museum
–
The
Uffizi Gallery, the most visited museum in
Italy and an important museum in the world. View toward the
Palazzo Vecchio, in
Florence.
Museum
–
The
Museum Island in
Berlin.
Museum
–
The
British Museum in
London.
6.
Art
–
In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art. The oldest documented forms of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, during the Romantic period, art came to be seen as a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science. Though the definition of what art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency. The nature of art, and related such as creativity. One early sense of the definition of art is related to the older Latin meaning. English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, however, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art, Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness in the Phaedrus, and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homers great poetic art, in Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, the forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is an imitation of men worse than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation—through narrative or character, through change or no change, Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankinds advantages over animals. The second, and more recent, sense of the art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. The creative arts are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks that are compelled by a drive and convey a message, mood. Art is something that stimulates an individuals thoughts, emotions, beliefs, works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are considered applied art
Art
–
Clockwise from upper left: a
self-portrait by
Vincent van Gogh; a female ancestor figure by a
Chokwe artist; detail from the
Birth of Venus by
Sandro Botticelli; and an Okinawan
Shisa lion.
Art
–
Works of art can tell stories or simply express an aesthetic truth or feeling. Panorama of a section of A Thousand Li of Mountains and Rivers, a 12th-century painting by Song dynasty artist
Wang Ximeng.
Art
–
20th-century Rwandan bottle. Artistic works may serve practical functions, in addition to their decorative value.
Art
–
Venus of Willendorf, circa 24,000–22,000
BP
7.
Archaeology
–
Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
Archaeology
–
Roman ruins,
Lausanne, Switzerland.
Archaeology
–
An early photograph of Stonehenge taken July 1877
Archaeology
–
Artifacts discovered at the 1808
Bush Barrow excavation by Sir
Richard Colt Hoare and
William Cunnington.
Archaeology
–
Mortimer Wheeler pioneered
systematic excavation in the early 20th century. Pictured, are his excavations at
Maiden Castle, Dorset, in October 1937.
8.
Asia
–
Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
Asia
–
Two-point equidistant projection of Asia and surrounding landmasses.
Asia
–
Asia
Asia
–
The racial diversity of Asia's peoples,
Nordisk familjebok (1904)
Asia
–
Ptolemy's Asia
9.
National Treasures of Japan
–
A National Treasure is the most precious of Japans Tangible Cultural Properties, as determined and designated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. A Tangible Cultural Property is considered to be of historic or artistic value, classified either as buildings, each National Treasure must show outstanding workmanship, a high value for world cultural history, or exceptional value for scholarship. Approximately 20% of the National Treasures are structures such as castles, Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, the items span the period of ancient to early modern Japan before the Meiji period, including pieces of the worlds oldest pottery from the Jōmon period and 19th-century documents and writings. The designation of the Akasaka Palace in 2009 and of the Tomioka Silk Mill in 2014 added two modern, post-Meiji Restoration, National Treasures, Japan has a comprehensive network of legislation for protecting, preserving, and classifying its cultural patrimony. The regard for physical and intangible properties and their protection is typical of Japanese preservation and restoration practices, methods of protecting designated National Treasures include restrictions on alterations, transfer, and export, as well as financial support in the form of grants and tax reduction. The Agency for Cultural Affairs provides owners with advice on restoration, administration and these efforts are supplemented by laws that protect the built environment of designated structures and the necessary techniques for restoration of works. Kansai, the region of Japans capitals from ancient times to the 19th century, has the most National Treasures, Kyoto alone has about one in five National Treasures. Fine arts and crafts properties are owned privately or are in museums, including national museums such as Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nara, public prefectural and city museums. Religious items are housed in temples and Shinto shrines or in an adjacent museum or treasure house. Japanese cultural properties were originally in the ownership of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, feudal Japan ended abruptly in 1867/68 when the Tokugawa shogunate was replaced by the Meiji Restoration. In 1871, the government confiscated temple lands, considered symbolic of the ruling elite, Properties belonging to the feudal lords were expropriated, historic castles and residences were destroyed, and an estimated 18,000 temples were closed. During the same period, Japanese cultural heritage was impacted by the rise of industrialization and westernization, as a result, Buddhist and Shinto institutions became impoverished. Temples decayed, and valuable objects were exported, in 1871, the Daijō-kan issued a decree to protect Japanese antiquities called the Plan for the Preservation of Ancient Artifacts. Based on recommendations from the universities, the decree ordered prefectures, temples, however, these efforts proved to be ineffective in the face of radical westernisation. In 1880, the government allotted funds for the preservation of ancient shrines and temples, by 1894,539 shrines and temples had received government funded subsidies to conduct repairs and reconstruction. The five-storied pagoda of Daigo-ji, the kon-dō of Tōshōdai-ji, a survey conducted in association with Okakura Kakuzō and Ernest Fenollosa between 1888 and 1897 was designed to evaluate and catalogue 210,000 objects of artistic or historic merit. The end of the 19th century was a period of change in Japan as cultural values moved from the enthusiastic adoption of western ideas to a newly discovered interest in Japanese heritage. Japanese architectural history began to appear on curricula, and the first books on history were published, stimulated by the newly compiled inventories of buildings
National Treasures of Japan
–
Some of the National Treasures of Japan
National Treasures of Japan
National Treasures of Japan
National Treasures of Japan
10.
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
–
Besides the designation system, there exists a registration system, which guarantees a lower level of protection and support to Registered Cultural Properties. Cultural Properties are classified according to their nature, the designation can take place at a city, prefectural or national level. In this last case the agency is often not specified. Designations of a different level can coexist, for example, Sankei-en, a traditional Japanese-style garden in Naka Ward, Yokohama, owns both city designated and nationally designated Important Cultural Properties
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
–
Sankei-en 's Rinshunkaku in
Yokohama is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
–
Seiganto-ji,
Wakayama Prefecture
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
–
A
Niō at
Hōryū-ji,
Nara
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
–
Kōchi Castle,
Kōchi Prefecture
11.
Ueno Park
–
Ueno Park is a spacious public park in the Ueno district of Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. The park was established in 1873 on lands belonging to the temple of Kanei-ji. Amongst the countrys first public parks, it was founded following the example as part of the borrowing. The home of a number of museums, Ueno Park is also celebrated in spring for its cherry blossoms. In recent times the park and its attractions have drawn over ten million visitors a year, Ueno Park occupies land once belonging to Kanei-ji, founded in 1625 in the demon gate, the unlucky direction to the northeast of Edo Castle. Various proposals were put forward for the use of the site as a school or hospital. This was the year after the foundation of Yellowstone, the worlds first national park, later that year Ueno Park was established, alongside Shiba, Asakusa, Asukayama, and Fukugawa Parks. It was administered first by the Home Ministrys Museum Bureau, then by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, before passing to the Ministry of the Imperial Household. In 1924, in honour of the marriage of Hirohito, Ueno Park was presented to the city by Emperor Taishō, receiving the name that lasts to this day of Ueno Onshi Kōen. The park has some 8,800 trees, including Ginkgo biloba, Cinnamomum camphora, Zelkova serrata, Formosan cherry, Somei-Yoshino cherry, there is a further 24,800 m2 of shrubs. Shinobazu Pond is a lake with an area of 16 ha, extensive lotus beds. It provides an important wintering ground for birds, species commonly found include the tufted duck, Eurasian wigeon, northern pintail, common pochard, little grebe, great egret, and great cormorant. The Baers pochard, ring-necked duck, and American wigeon have also been recorded, the central island houses a shrine to Benzaiten, goddess of fortune, modelled on Chikubu Island in Lake Biwa. The area was full of rendezvous teahouses, equivalent of the modern love hotel. After the Pacific War the pond was drained and used for the cultivation of cereals, the lotus pond was restored in 1949, although much of it was again accidentally drained in 1968 during work on a new subway line. Inspired, Matsuo Bashō wrote cloud of blossoms - is the bell from Ueno or Asakusa. Ueno Park is home to a number of museums, the very words in Japanese for museum as well as for art were coined in the Meiji period to capture Western concepts after the Iwakura Mission and other early visits to North America and Europe. The Tokyo National Museum was founded in 1872 after the first exhibition by the Museum Department of the new Ministry of Education, in the same year the Ministry of Education Museum opened, now the National Museum of Nature and Science
Ueno Park
–
Visitors enjoying the
cherry blossoms
Ueno Park
–
Seiyōken was founded in 1872, one of the first western-style restaurants in Japan; the first coffee house followed nearby in 1888
Ueno Park
–
Tokyo National Museum
Ueno Park
–
National Museum of Western Art
12.
Japanese art
–
It has a long history, ranging from the beginnings of human habitation in Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BC, to the present. Japan has been subject to invasions of new and strange ideas followed by long periods of minimal contact with the outside world. Over time the Japanese developed the ability to absorb, imitate, the earliest complex art in Japan was produced in the 7th and 8th centuries in connection with. After the Ōnin War, Japan entered a period of political, social, in the state that emerged under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate, organized religion played a much less important role in peoples lives, and the arts that survived were primarily secular. Painting is the artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateurs. Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a rather than a pen. With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, a style of woodblock prints became a major form, Japanese ceramics are among the finest in the world and include the earliest known artifacts of their culture. In architecture, Japanese preferences for natural materials and an interaction of interior and exterior space are clearly expressed and they built simple houses of wood and thatch set into shallow earthen pits to provide warmth from the soil. They crafted lavishly decorated pottery vessels, clay figurines called dogū. The next wave of immigrants was the Yayoi people, named for the district in Tokyo where remnants of their settlements first were found. These people, arriving in Japan about 350 BC, brought their knowledge of rice cultivation, the manufacture of copper weapons and bronze bells. The third stage in Japanese prehistory, the Kofun period, represents a modification of Yayoi culture, the period is named for the large number of kofun megalithic tombs created during this period. In this period, diverse groups of people formed political alliances, typical artifacts are bronze mirrors, symbols of political alliances, and clay sculptures called haniwa which were erected outside tombs. The transmission of Buddhism provided the impetus for contacts between China, Korea and Japan. Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, however, the focus in contacts between Japan and the Asian continent was the development of Buddhism. The most common designations are the Suiko period, 552–645, the Hakuhō period, 645–710, the earliest Japanese sculptures of the Buddha are dated to the 6th and 7th century. After the Chinese Northern Wei buddhist art had infiltrated a Korean peninsula, many historians portray Korea as a mere transmitter of Buddhism. The Three Kingdoms, and particularly Baekje, were instrumental as active agents in the introduction and formation of a Buddhist tradition in Japan in 538 or 552 and they illustrate the terminal point of the Silk Road transmission of art during the first few centuries of our era
Japanese art
–
Cypress Tree Byōbu, folding screen by
Kano Eitoku, 1590
Japanese art
–
Sudden Shower at the Atake Bridge,
Hiroshige, 1856
Japanese art
–
Crab,
Kawahara Keiga, 1823-1829
Japanese art
–
Statuette with Snow Glasses, Jōmon Era
13.
Silk Road
–
While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
Silk Road
–
Main routes of the Silk Road
Silk Road
–
Woven
silk textile from Tomb No. 1 at
Mawangdui,
Changsha,
Hunan province, China,
dated to the Western Han Era, 2nd century BCE.
Silk Road
–
A
Scythian horseman from the
Ili river,
Pazyryk, c. 300 BCE.
Silk Road
–
Chinese
jade and
steatite plaques, in the
Scythian -style animal art of the steppes. 4th–3rd century BCE.
British Museum.
14.
Greco-Buddhist art
–
It is also a strong example of cultural syncretism between eastern and western traditions. The influence of Greco-Buddhist art also spread northward towards Central Asia, strongly affecting the art of the Tarim Basin, and ultimately the arts of China, Korea, and Japan. The clearest examples of Hellenistic art are found in the coins of the Greco-Bactrian kings of the period, fortified Greek cities, such as Sirkap in northern Pakistan, were established. Architectural styles used Hellenistic decorative motifs such as fruit garland and scrolls, stone palettes for aromatic oils representing purely Hellenistic themes such as a Nereid riding a Ketos sea monster are found. In Hadda, Hellenistic deities, such as Atlas are found, wind gods are depicted, which will affect the representation of wind deities as far as Japan. Dionysiac scenes represent people in Classical style drinking wine from amphoras and this artistic trend then developed for several centuries and seemed to flourish further during the Kushan Empire from the 1st century AD. Greco-Buddhist art depicts the life of the Buddha in a manner, probably by incorporating the real-life models. The Bodhisattvas are depicted as bare-chested and jewelled Indian princes, the buildings in which they are depicted incorporate Greek style, with the ubiquitous Indo-Corinthian capitals and Greek decorative scrolls. Surrounding deities form a pantheon of Greek and Indian gods, stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expressiveness to be given to the sculpture, sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China. It then lost this sophisticated realism, becoming progressively more symbolic, the style is Greek, adorned with Corinthian columns in excellent Hellenistic execution. Later in Hadda, the Greek divinity Atlas is represented holding Buddhist monuments with decorated Greek columns, the motif was adopted extensively throughout the Indian sub-continent, Atlas being substituted for the Indian Yaksa in the monuments of the Shunga Empire around the 2nd century BC. Sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha were developed. These were absent from earlier strata of Buddhist art, which preferred to represent the Buddha with symbols such as the stupa, the Bodhi tree, the empty seat, the wheel, or the footprints. But the innovative anthropomorphic Buddha image immediately reached a high level of sculptural sophistication. Most of the images of the Buddha are anepigraphic, which makes it difficult to have a definite dating. The next Greco-Buddhist findings to be strictly datable are rather late, AD120 Kanishka casket and Kanishkas Buddhist coins. These works at least indicate though that the representation of the Buddha was already extant in the 1st century AD
Greco-Buddhist art
–
Gandhara Buddha, 1st-2nd century AD
Greco-Buddhist art
–
Silver coin depicting the
Greco-Bactrian king
Demetrius I (200-180 BC) wearing an elephant scalp, symbol of his conquest of India. Back:
Herakles, holding a lion skin and a club resting over the arm. The text reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ - BASILEŌS DĒMĒTRIOU "of King Demetrius".
Greco-Buddhist art
–
Wine-drinking and music (Detail from
Chakhil-i-Ghoundi stupa,
Hadda, 1st-2nd century AD).
15.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
World War II
–
Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the
Battle of Wanjialing, Australian
25-pounder guns during the
First Battle of El Alamein, German
Stuka dive bombers on the
Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the
Lingayen Gulf,
Wilhelm Keitel signing the
German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the
Battle of Stalingrad
World War II
–
The
League of Nations assembly, held in
Geneva,
Switzerland, 1930
World War II
–
Adolf Hitler at a German
National Socialist political rally in
Weimar, October 1930
World War II
–
Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
16.
Tokyo
–
Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
Tokyo
–
Clockwise from top:
Nishi-Shinjuku,
Rainbow Bridge,
National Diet Building,
Shibuya,
Tokyo Skytree
Tokyo
–
Satellite photo of Tokyo's 23 Special wards taken by
NASA 's
Landsat 7
Tokyo
–
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokyo
–
Ginza area in 1933
17.
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
–
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is a cabinet-level ministry in the Government of Japan. Its English name was Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and it is housed in the 2nd Building of the Central Common Government Office at 2-1-2 Kasumigaseki in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The Ministry oversees the Japanese administrative system, manages local governments, elections, telecommunication, post, the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications is appointed from among the members of the cabinet. The Ministry was created on January 6,2001 by the merger of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the Management and Coordination Agency
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
–
2nd Building of the Central Common Government Office, the building which houses the ministry
18.
Ueno, Tokyo
–
Ueno is a district in Tokyos Taitō Ward, best known as the home of Ueno Park. Many Buddhist temples are in the area, including the Bentendo temple dedicated to goddess Benzaiten, the Kanei-ji, a major temple of the Tokugawa shoguns, stood in this area, and its pagoda is now within the grounds of the Ueno Zoo. Nearby is the Ueno Tōshōgū, a Shinto shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu, near the Tokyo National Museum there is The International Library of Childrens Literature. Just south of the station is the Ameya-yokochō, a street market district that evolved out of a black market that sprung up after World War II. Just east is the Ueno motorcycle district, with English-speaking staff available in some stores, Ueno is part of the historical Shitamachi district of Tokyo, a working class area rather than where the aristocrats and rich merchants lived. Ueno Station is the nearest train station and is operated by JR East, Ueno Park and Ueno Station are also home to a large percentage of Tokyos homeless population. Though nearly invisible in other parts of Tokyo, the population in Ueno can be found sleeping or communing in large numbers around the ike of this district. Ueno is the hometown of Yoshida Watch Shop, established in 1901 by Shogoro Yoshida and it is the origin of Orient Watch Co. Ltd. Taitō operates public elementary and junior high schools, public high schools are operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education. Ueno High School Ueno Shinobugaoka High School Ueno Tōshō-gū Ueno travel guide from Wikivoyage Ueno / Official Tokyo Travel Guide GO TOKYO
Ueno, Tokyo
–
Shinobazu Pond and Bentendo Hall in early spring
Ueno, Tokyo
–
Tokyo National Museum
Ueno, Tokyo
–
Cherry blossom in Ueno Park
Ueno, Tokyo
–
Pagoda of Kan'eiji, now in Ueno Zoo
19.
Imperial Household Ministry
–
The Imperial Household Agency is an agency of the government of Japan in charge of state matters concerning the Imperial Family and also keeping of the Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan. From around the 8th century AD up to the Second World War, the Agency is headed by the Grand Steward and he is assisted by the Vice-Grand Steward. The agencys headquarters is located within the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, visitors who wish to tour the Tokyo Imperial Palace, the Kyoto Imperial Palace, the Katsura Detached Palace, and other sites, should register for guided tours with the agency first. The Agency has responsibility for the health, security and travel arrangements of the Imperial family, the Board of the Chamberlains, headed by the Grand Chamberlain, manages the daily life of the Emperor and the Empress. It also keeps the Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan, a Grand Master of the Crown Princes Household helps manage the schedules, dining menus, and household maintenance of the Crown Prince and his family. The Imperial Household Agency can trace its origins back to the established by the Taihō Code promulgated in 701–702 AD. The Ritsuryō system established the namesake Ministry of the Imperial Household which is a precursor to the present agency, the basic structures remained in place until the Meiji Restoration. The early Meiji government officially installed Imperial Household Ministry on 15 August 1869, meanwhile, the Meiji government created the Board of Ceremonies in 1871, which was soon renamed Bureau of Ceremonies in 1872. The Bureau of the Ceremonies was initially under the sway of the Great Council of State but was transferred to the control of the Imperial Household Ministry in September 1877, the Bureau underwent yet another name change to Board of Ceremonies in October 1884. Since then, the name remained unchanged and is, today, the ministry also oversaw the official appointments of Imperial Household Artists and commissioned their work. The Imperial Household Office was a version of the ministry. Its staff size was downscaled from 6,200 to less than 1,500, in 1949, Imperial Household Office became the Imperial Household Agency, and placed under the fold of the newly created Prime Ministers Office, as an external agency attached to it. In 2001, the Imperial Household Agency was organizationally re-positioned under the Cabinet Office and these criticisms have become more muted in recent years, Emperor Akihito has himself done much to make the Japanese monarchy less aloof. Prince Naruhito, in May 2004, criticised the then-Grand Steward of the Imperial Household, Toshio Yuasa, for putting pressure on Princess Masako, Naruhitos wife, to bear a male child. Such research, particularly on the ancient tombs in the Kansai region of western Japan, has the potential to yield a great bounty of information on the origins of Japanese civilization. The Imperial Household Agency is headed by the Grand Steward, whose appointment or dismissal is subject to the Emperors approval, the Grand Steward is vested with comprehensive control over administrate activities within the agency, and supervisory authority over the service performance of the staff. Imperial Household Law Chamberlain of Japan Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan Imperial Household Department, China Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters Shigeru, Yoshida, ISBN 978-0-7425-3932-7/ISBN 978-0-7425-3933-4, OCLC238440967 Kokusai Kyōiku Jōhō Sentā. Tokyo, International Society for Educational Information, OCLC24145536 The Imperial Household Agency Website
Imperial Household Ministry
–
Imperial Household Agency Building on the grounds of the
Imperial Palace in
Tokyo
Imperial Household Ministry
–
Imperial Household Agency building is located near the Sakashita gate of the palace
20.
Kyushu National Museum
–
The Kyushu National Museum opened on October 16,2005 in Dazaifu near Fukuoka—the first new national museum in Japan in over 100 years, and the first to elevate the focus on history over art. The striking wood and glass building in the hills, it hosts important collections of Japanese artifacts, particularly ceramics and it hosts temporary exhibitions on the third floor, while the permanent collections are on the fourth floor. The collections cover the history of Kyūshū from prehistory to the Meiji era with particular emphasis on the history of cultural exchange between Kyūshū and neighboring China and Korea. The museum was designed by Kiyonori Kikutake, the museums special focus carries with it a new perspective on Japanese cultural formation in the context of Asian history. The growth and development of todays museum has been a process,1994 -- Agency for Cultural Affairs creates Committee to Investigate the Establishment of a New Type of Museum. 1995 -- Dazaifu is named as site of new Kyushu National Museum, the site is next to the Dazaifu Tenman-gū. 1997 -- Basic Statement of Policy for the Kyushu National Museum is completed,1998 -- Basic Plan for the Kyushu National Museum is completed. 1999 -- Basic Construction Design is completed,1999 -- Regular Exhibition Plan is completed. 2000 -- Design for Implementing Construction is completed,2000 -- Basic Exhibition Design is completed. 2001 -- Construction Phase is begun—1st part of a 3-year plan,2002 -- Implementation of Exhibition Design is completed. 2003 -- Construction Phase is completed,2003 -- Exhibition Phase is begun --. 2004—Work on the building is completed, 2005—Museum is officially opened as the Kyushu National Museum of the Independent Administrative Institution National Museum. Image Quality Management for the Super Hi-Vision System at the Kyushu National Museum, IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications, brochure of the Kyushu National Museum
Kyushu National Museum
–
Kyushu National Museum
21.
Josiah Conder (architect)
–
Josiah Conder was a British architect who worked as a foreign adviser to the government of Meiji period Japan. Conder designed numerous buildings in Tokyo, including the Rokumeikan. He educated many award-winning Japanese architects, earning him the father of Japanese modern architecture. Conder was born in Brixton, Surrey, London to Josiah Conder, a banker, Conder was educated at Bedford Modern School. After studying at the South Kensington School of Art and graduating from the University of London, in 1876 he was awarded the Soane Medal. His curriculum included not only training in architectural practice but also drawing, technical draftsmanship. Conder was charged with transforming the Marunouchi area into a London-style business district by the Ministry of Industry on a five year contract. Despite residing in Japan, he kept up an affiliation with the Royal Institute of British Architects, becoming an Associate in 1874. He became a lecturer until he set up his own practice in 1888. Some of his students set up the Architectural Institute of Japan. He was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasures in 1894, Conder developed a keen interest in Japanese arts and after a long period of petitioning, was finally accepted to study painting with the artist Kawanabe Kyōsai. Kyōsai dubbed Conder Kyōei, incorporating the character ei from the Japanese name for Britain, Conder also studied Enshu school ikebana. His studies led to a number of publications, among them The Flowers of Japan and The Art of Floral Arrangement, Landscape Gardening in Japan and Paintings and he wrote the first after a lecture at the Asiatic Society of Japan. In 1915, the Tokyo Imperial University awarded Conder an honorary doctorate and he remained in Japan for the rest of his life. His grave is at the temple of Gokoku-ji in Bunkyo, Tokyo, conders architectural designs incorporated a wide variety of styles, including European and colonial elements. Although he designed over fifty buildings during his career in Japan, notable buildings surviving today are the residence of Iwasaki Yanosuke, founder of the Mitsubishi group in Yushima and the Mitsui Club in Mita. Barnabas Church, Ushigome, Tokyo Christ Church, Yokohama, second building at Yamate Bluff. 5, Britain & Japan, Themes and Personalities, ed, hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, London, Routledge,1991
Josiah Conder (architect)
–
Josiah Conder
Josiah Conder (architect)
–
Statue of Josiah Conder on the campus of
University of Tokyo
Josiah Conder (architect)
–
Former Iwasaki Family House and Garden (1896)
Josiah Conder (architect)
–
Tokyo Imperial Household Museum
22.
Western world
–
The Western world or the West is a term usually referring to different nations, depending on the context, most often including at least part of Europe. There are many accepted definitions about what they all have in common, the Western world is also known as the Occident. The concept of the Western part of the earth has its roots in Greco-Roman civilization in Europe, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Its political usage was changed by the antagonism during the Cold War in the mid-to-late 20th Century. The term originally had a literal geographic meaning, Western culture was influenced by many older great civilizations of the ancient Near East, such as Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, Sumer, Babylonia, and also Ancient Egypt. It originated in the Mediterranean basin and its vicinity, Greece, over time, their associated empires grew first to the east and west to include the rest of Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal areas, conquering and absorbing. Later, they expanded to the north of the Mediterranean Sea to include Western, Central, numerous times, this expansion was accompanied by Christian missionaries, who attempted to proselytize Christianity. There is debate among some as to whether Latin America is in a category of its own, specifically, Western culture may imply, a Biblical Christian cultural influence in spiritual thinking, customs and either ethic or moral traditions, around the Post-Classical Era and after. European cultural influences concerning artistic, musical, folkloric, ethic and oral traditions, the concept of Western culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic, much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon. The term has come to apply to countries whose history is marked by European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Oceania. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the Roman Empire, Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation, Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the civilized world. Use of the term West as a cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Additionally, closer contacts between the West and Asia and other parts of the world in recent times have continued to cloud the use, herodotus considered the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC a conflict of Europa versus Asia. The terms West and East were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict, the Great Schism and the Fourth Crusade confirmed this deviation. The Renaissance in the West emerged partly from currents within the Roman Empire, Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula about the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. In its 12-century existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy, to a republic, nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire
Western world
–
The
Parthenon (
Athens).
Western world
–
Division of the
Roman Empire after 395 into western and eastern part. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the Roman Empire.
Western world
–
The
Roman Forum (
Rome).
Western world
–
The
Supreme Court of the United States (
Washington, D.C.).
23.
Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
Buddhism
–
Standing Buddha statue at the
Tokyo National Museum. One of the earliest known representations of the
Buddha, 1st–2nd century CE.
Buddhism
–
The Dharmachakra
Buddhism
–
Relic depicting Gautama leaving home. The Great Departure, c.1–2nd century. (
Musée Guimet)
Buddhism
–
Ascetic
Gautama with his five companions, who later comprised the first
Sangha. (Painting in
Laotian temple)
24.
Japanese tea ceremony
–
The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called chanoyu or sadō, chadō, while the manner in which it is performed, Zen Buddhism was a primary influence in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony. Much less commonly, Japanese tea ceremony uses leaf tea, primarily sencha, in case it is known in Japanese as senchadō as opposed to chanoyu or chadō, see sencha tea ceremony. Tea gatherings are classified as a tea gathering chakai and a formal tea gathering chaji. A chakai is a simple course of hospitality that includes confections, thin tea. A chaji is a more formal gathering, usually including a full-course kaiseki meal followed by confections, thick tea. A chaji can last up to four hours, chadō is counted as one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement, along with kōdō for incense appreciation, and kadō for flower arrangement. The first documented evidence of tea in Japan dates to the 9th century, the entry in the Nihon Kōki states that Eichū personally prepared and served sencha to Emperor Saga who was on an excursion in Karasaki in the year 815. It was practiced by Japanese nobles, by imperial order in the year 816, tea plantations began to be cultivated in the Kinki region of Japan. However, the interest in tea in Japan faded after this, in China, tea had already been known, according to legend, for more than a thousand years. The form of tea popular in China in Eichūs time was cake tea or brick tea —tea compressed into a nugget in the manner as Pu-erh. This then would be ground in a mortar, and the resulting ground tea mixed together various other herbs. The custom of drinking tea, first for medicinal, and then largely also for reasons, was already widespread throughout China. In the early 9th century, Chinese author Lu Yu wrote The Classic of Tea, Lu Yus life had been heavily influenced by Buddhism, particularly the Zen–Chán school. His ideas would have an influence in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony. He also took tea seeds back with him, which eventually produced tea that was considered to be the most superb quality in all of Japan and this powdered green tea was first used in religious rituals in Buddhist monasteries. This period, approximately 1336 to 1573, saw the budding of what is regarded as Japanese traditional culture as we know it today. The Japanese tea ceremony developed as a practice, and began to evolve its own aesthetic
Japanese tea ceremony
–
The elaborate and refined Japanese tea ceremony is meant to demonstrate respect through grace and good etiquette as demonstrated here by
Dr. Genshitsu Sen, 15th Grand Master of the
Urasenke Tea School.
Japanese tea ceremony
Japanese tea ceremony
–
A Tea house at
Koishikawa, by
Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese tea ceremony
–
A tea ceremony being performed outdoors with a tetsubin, a brazier, and a tea bowl. A bamboo marker marks the seating position of the host.
25.
Samurai
–
Samurai were the military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan. In Japanese, they are referred to as bushi or buke. In both countries the terms were nominalized to mean those who serve in close attendance to the nobility, the pronunciation in Japanese changing to saburai. According to Wilson, a reference to the word samurai appears in the Kokin Wakashū. By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, the samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, and were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy. While the samurai numbered less than 10% of then Japans population, following the Battle of Hakusukinoe against Tang China and Silla in 663 AD, which led to a retreat from Korean affairs, Japan underwent widespread reform. One of the most important was that of the Taika Reform and this edict allowed the Japanese aristocracy to adopt the Tang dynasty political structure, bureaucracy, culture, religion, and philosophy. As part of the Taihō Code of 702 AD, and the later Yōrō Code, the population was required to regularly for census. With an understanding of how the population was distributed, Emperor Monmu introduced a law whereby 1 in 3–4 adult males were drafted into the national military and these soldiers were required to supply their own weapons, and in-return were exempted from duties and taxes. This was one of the first attempts by the Imperial government to form an organized army modeled after the Chinese system and it was called Gundan-Sei by later historians and is believed to have been short-lived. The Taihō Code classified most of the Imperial bureaucrats into 12 ranks and those of 6th rank and below were referred to as samurai and dealt with day-to-day affairs. Although these samurai were civilian public servants, the word is believed to have derived from this term. Military men, however, would not be referred to as samurai for many more centuries, Emperor Kanmu introduced the title of seii-taishōgun, or Shogun, and began to rely on the powerful regional clans to conquer the Emishi. Skilled in mounted combat and archery, these clan warriors became the Emperors preferred tool for putting down rebellions, though this is the first known use of the Shogun title, it was a temporary title, and was not imbued with political power until the 13th century. At this time, the Imperial Court officials considered them to be merely a military section under the control of the Imperial Court, ultimately, Emperor Kanmu disbanded his army. From this time, the Emperors power gradually declined, while the Emperor was still the ruler, powerful clans around Kyoto assumed positions as ministers, and their relatives bought positions as magistrates. To amass wealth and repay their debts, magistrates often imposed heavy taxes, through protective agreements and political marriages, they accumulated, or gathered, political power, eventually surpassing the traditional aristocracy. Some clans were formed by farmers who had taken up arms to protect themselves from the Imperial magistrates sent to govern their lands
Samurai
–
Samurai in
armor, 1860s.
Hand-coloured photograph by
Felice Beato.
Samurai
–
Samurai around the 1860s
Samurai
–
Saigō Takamori (seated, in Western uniform), surrounded by his officers, in samurai attire, during the 1877
Satsuma rebellion. News article in
Le Monde Illustré, 1877.
Samurai
–
Iron helmet and armor with gilt bronze decoration,
Kofun era, 5th century.
Tokyo National Museum.
26.
Kabuki
–
Kabuki is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers, the individual kanji, from left to right, mean sing, dance, and skill. Kabuki is therefore sometimes translated as the art of singing and dancing and these are, however, ateji characters which do not reflect actual etymology. The kanji of skill generally refers to a performer in kabuki theatre, since the word kabuki is believed to derive from the verb kabuku, meaning to lean or to be out of the ordinary, kabuki can be interpreted as avant-garde or bizarre theatre. The expression kabukimono referred originally to those who were dressed and swaggered on a street. The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Izumo no Okuni, possibly a miko of Izumo-taisha and it originated in the 17th century. Japan was under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate, enforced by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the name of the Edo period derives from the relocation of the Tokugawa regime from its former home in Kyoto to the city of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Female performers played both men and women in comic playlets about ordinary life, the style was immediately popular, and Okuni was asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of success, rival troupes quickly formed. For this reason, kabuki was also called 遊女歌舞妓 during this period, Kabuki became a common form of entertainment in the ukiyo, or Yoshiwara, the registered red-light district in Edo. A diverse crowd gathered under one roof, something that happened nowhere else in the city, Kabuki theaters were a place to see and be seen as they featured the latest fashion trends and current events. The stage provided good entertainment with exciting new music, patterns, clothing, performances went from morning until sunset. The teahouses surrounding or connected to the theater provided meals, refreshments, the area around the theatres was lush with shops selling kabuki souvenirs. Kabuki, in a sense, initiated pop culture in Japan, the shogunate was never partial to kabuki and all the mischief it brought, particularly the variety of the social classes which mixed at kabuki performances. Women’s kabuki, called onna-kabuki, was banned in 1629 for being too erotic, following onna-kabuki, young boys performed in wakashū-kabuki, but since they too were eligible for prostitution, the shogun government soon banned wakashū-kabuki as well. Kabuki switched to male actors, called yaro-kabuki, in the mid-1600s. Male actors played both female and male characters, the theatre remained popular, and remained a focus of urban lifestyle until modern times. The modern all-male kabuki, known as yarō-kabuki, was established during these decades, after women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata or oyama, took over
Kabuki
–
The July 1858 production of
Shibaraku at the Ichimura-za theater in Edo. Triptych woodblock print by
Utagawa Toyokuni III.
Kabuki
–
The earliest portrait of
Izumo no Okuni, the founder of kabuki (1600s)
Kabuki
–
Oniji Ōtani III (Nakazō Nakamura II) as Edobee in the May 1794 production of Koi Nyōbo Somewake Tazuna
Kabuki
–
The two Kabuki actors Bando Zenji and Sawamura Yodogoro; 1794, fifth month by
Sharaku
27.
Sculpture
–
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
Sculpture
–
The Dying Gaul, or The Capitoline Gaul a Roman marble copy of a
Hellenistic work of the late 3rd century BCE
Capitoline Museums, Rome
Sculpture
Sculpture
–
Michelangelo 's
Moses, (c. 1513–1515), housed in the church of
San Pietro in Vincoli in
Rome. The sculpture was commissioned in 1505 by
Pope Julius II for his
tomb.
Sculpture
–
Assyrian
lamassu gate guardian from
Khorsabad, c. 721–800 BCE
28.
Metalworking
–
Metalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large-scale structures. The term covers a range of work from large ships and bridges to precise engine parts. It therefore includes a wide range of skills, processes. Metalworking is a science, art, hobby, industry and trade and its historical roots span cultures, civilizations, and millennia. Metalworking has evolved from the discovery of smelting various ores, producing malleable and ductile metal useful for tools, modern metalworking processes, though diverse and specialized, can be categorized as forming, cutting, or joining processes. Todays machine shop includes a number of machine tools capable of creating a precise, the oldest archaeological evidence of copper mining and working was the discovery of a copper pendant in northern Iraq from 8,700 BCE. The earliest substantiated and dated evidence of metalworking in the Americas was the processing of copper in Wisconsin, Copper was hammered until brittle then heated so it could be worked some more. This technology is dated to about 4000-5000 BCE, the oldest gold artifacts in the world come from the Bulgarian Varna Necropolis and date from 4450 BCE. Not all metal required fire to obtain it or work it, isaac Asimov speculated that gold was the first metal. His reasoning is that by its chemistry it is found in nature as nuggets of pure gold, in other words, gold, as rare as it is, is sometimes found in nature as the metal that it is. There are a few metals that sometimes occur natively. Almost all other metals are found in ores, a mineral-bearing rock, another feature of gold is that it is workable as it is found, meaning that no technology beyond a stone hammer and anvil to work the metal is needed. This is a result of properties of malleability and ductility. The earliest tools were stone, bone, wood, and sinew, at some unknown point the connection between heat and the liberation of metals from rock became clear, rocks rich in copper, tin, and lead came into demand. These ores were mined wherever they were recognized, remnants of such ancient mines have been found all over Southwestern Asia. Metalworking was being carried out by the South Asian inhabitants of Mehrgarh between 7000–3300 BCE, the end of the beginning of metalworking occurs sometime around 6000 BCE when copper smelting became common in Southwestern Asia. Ancient civilisations knew of seven metals. Here they are arranged in order of their potential, Iron +0.44 V
Metalworking
–
Turning a bar of metal on a
lathe
Metalworking
–
A turret lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas, USA in the 1940s
Metalworking
–
A
combination square used for transferring designs.
Metalworking
–
A caliper is used to precisely measure a short length.
29.
Pottery
–
Pottery is the craft of making ceramic material into pots or potterywares using mud. Major types of potterywares include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain, the place where such wares are made by a potter is also called a pottery. Early Neolithic pottery have found in places such as Jomon Japan. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing, however, prior to shaping processes. Kneading helps to ensure an even moisture content throughout the body, air trapped within the clay body needs to be removed. This is called de-airing and can be accomplished either by a called a vacuum pug or manually by wedging. Wedging can also produce an even moisture content. Once a clay body has been kneaded and de-aired or wedged, after shaping, it is dried and then fired. Clay ware takes on varying physical characteristics during the making of pottery, at sufficient moisture content, bodies at this stage are in their most plastic form. Leather-hard refers to a body that has been dried partially. At this stage the clay object has approximately 15% moisture content, clay bodies at this stage are very firm and only slightly pliable. Trimming and handle attachment often occurs at the leather-hard state, bone-dry refers to clay bodies when they reach a moisture content at or near 0%. It is now ready to be bisque fired, bisque refers to the clay after the object is shaped to the desired form and fired in the kiln for the first time, known as bisque fired or biscuit fired. This firing changes the body in several ways. Mineral components of the body will undergo chemical changes that will change the colour of the clay. Glaze fired is the stage of some pottery making. A glaze may be applied to the form and the object can be decorated in several ways. After this the object is glazed fired, which causes the material to melt
Pottery
–
A potter at work in
Bangalore,
India
Pottery
–
Unfired "green ware" pottery on a traditional drying rack at
Conner Prairie living history museum
Pottery
–
Pottery workshop reconstruction in the Museum of traditional crafts and applied arts,
Troyan,
Bulgaria
Pottery
–
A potter at work in Jaura,
Madhya Pradesh,
India.
30.
Japanning
–
Japanning is a type of finish that originated as a European imitation of Asian lacquerwork. It was first used on furniture, but was much used on small items in metal. The word originated in the 17th century, Japanning is most often a heavy black lacquer, almost like enamel paint. Black is common and japanning is often assumed to be synonymous with black japanning, the European technique uses varnishes that have a resin base, similar to shellac, applied in heat-dried layers which are then polished, to give a smooth glossy finish. It can also come in reds, greens and blues, originating in India, China and Japan as a decorative coating for pottery, it made its way into Europe by the 17th century. In the late 17th century, high European demand and rumors that higher quality pieces were not exported led to starting in Italy. Its traditional form used gold designs and pictorials to contrast with the base color. As the demand for all things japanned grew, the Italian technique for imitating Asian lacquerwork also spread, the art of japanning developed in seventeenth-century Britain, France, Italy, and the Low Countries. The technique was described in such as Stalker and Parkers Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing. Colonial Boston was a center of the japanning trade in America. In England, decoupage, the art of applying paper cutouts to other items, became very popular, Wolverhampton and Bilston were important centres for the manufacture of japanned ware. Trade directories for 1818 list 20 firms of japanners in Wolverhampton and 15 in Bilston, Japanning firms ranged in size from small family workshops, which often adjoined the proprietors home, to a few large factories employing over 250 people. At the height of its popularity, richly decorated japanned ware was to be seen in every home, but from the mid-19th century. By the 1880s, the japanning and tin-plate industries were in decline and this was due partly to changes in fashion and taste and partly due to the development of electroplating. In response, makers of japanned ware began to focus on more utilitarian items, many turned to other trades, including enamelling, electroplating and the manufacture of copper and brass coal scuttles, fire screens and kettles. By the 1920s, the West Midlands decorative japanned ware industry had died out. Many firms began to supply japanned metal to the newly established bicycle and motor vehicle industries, the most successful of these was John Marston, whose japanning factory began making bicycles in 1887. The bicycle manufacturing part of the quickly became more successful than the production of decorative japanned ware
Japanning
–
Victorian letter holder, c1850
Japanning
–
Victorian japanned ware blotter cover, Loveridge & Co
31.
Katana
–
Historically, katana were one of the traditionally made Japanese swords that were used by the samurai of ancient and feudal Japan. The katana is characterized by its appearance, a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard. These references to uchigatana and tsubagatana seem to indicate a different style of sword, the Mongol invasions of Japan faciliated a change in the designs of Japanese swords. Thin tachi and chokuto style blades were often unable to cut through the boiled leather armour of the Mongols, the evolution of the tachi into what would become the katana seems to have continued during the early Muromachi period. Starting around the year 1400, long swords signed with the signature were made. This was in response to samurai wearing their tachi in what is now called katana style, Japanese swords are traditionally worn with the signature facing away from the wearer. When a tachi was worn in the style of a katana, with the cutting edge up, the fact that swordsmiths started signing swords with a katana signature shows that some samurai of that time period had started wearing their swords in a different manner. The rise in popularity of katana amongst samurai came about due to the nature of close-combat warfare. The quicker draw of the sword was well suited to combat where victory depended heavily on short response times, the katana further facilitated this by being worn thrust through a belt-like sash with the sharpened edge facing up. Ideally, samurai could draw the sword and strike the enemy in a single motion, previously, the curved tachi had been worn with the edge of the blade facing down and suspended from a belt. The length of the katana blade varied considerably during the course of its history, in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, katana blades tended to have lengths between 70 and 73 centimetres. During the early 16th century, the average length dropped about 10 centimetres, by the late 16th century, the average length had increased again by about 13 centimetres, returning to approximately 73 centimetres. The katana was often paired with a smaller companion sword, such as a wakizashi, or it could also be worn with the tantō. The pairing of a katana with a sword is called the daishō. Only samurai could wear the daisho, it represented the social power, during the Meiji period, the samurai class was gradually disbanded, and the special privileges granted to them were taken away including the right to carry swords in public. The Haitōrei Edict in 1876 forbade the carrying of swords in public except for individuals, such as former samurai lords, the military. Skilled swordsmiths had trouble making a living during this period as Japan modernized its military, and many swordsmiths started making other items, such as equipment, tools. Military action by Japan in China and Russia during the Meiji period helped revive interest in swords, Japanese military swords produced between 1875 and 1945 are referred to as guntō
Katana
–
Katana signed by
Masamune with an inscription (城和泉守所持) in gold inlay, Kamakura period, 14th century, blade length: 70.6 cm
Katana
–
Japanese
Edo period wood block print of a samurai with a
tachi.
Katana
–
Japanese girl practicing
iaido with a modern training katana or
iaitō. This sword was custom made in Japan according to the weight and size of the student. The blade is made of aluminum alloy and it lacks a sharp edge for the student's safety.
Katana
–
Antique Japanese (samurai)
daishō, the traditional pairing of two Japanese swords which were the symbol of the samurai, showing the traditional Japanese sword cases (
koshirae) and the difference in size between the katana (top) and the smaller
wakizashi (bottom).
32.
Modern art
–
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with ideas about the nature of materials. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, more recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art. Matisses two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting, analytic cubism was jointly developed by Picasso and Georges Braque, exemplified by Violin and Candlestick, Paris, from about 1908 through 1912. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé, the notion of modern art is closely related to modernism. Although modern sculpture and architecture are reckoned to have emerged at the end of the 19th century, the beginnings of modern painting can be located earlier. The date perhaps most commonly identified as marking the birth of art is 1863. Earlier dates have also proposed, among them 1855 and 1784. In the words of art historian H, harvard Arnason, Each of these dates has significance for the development of modern art, but none categorically marks a completely new beginning. A gradual metamorphosis took place in the course of a hundred years, the strands of thought that eventually led to modern art can be traced back to the Enlightenment, and even to the 17th century. The important modern art critic Clement Greenberg, for instance, called Immanuel Kant the first real Modernist but also drew a distinction, The Enlightenment criticized from the outside. The French Revolution of 1789 uprooted assumptions and institutions that had for centuries been accepted with little question and this gave rise to what art historian Ernst Gombrich called a self-consciousness that made people select the style of their building as one selects the pattern of a wallpaper. The pioneers of art were Romantics, Realists and Impressionists. By the late 19th century, additional movements which were to be influential in art had begun to emerge. The advocates of realism stood against the idealism of the academic art that enjoyed public. The most successful painters of the day worked either through commissions or through public exhibitions of their own work. There were official, government-sponsored painters unions, while governments regularly held exhibitions of new fine
Modern art
–
Pablo Picasso, Dejeuner sur l'Herbe
Modern art
–
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing, 1892
Modern art
–
Vincent van Gogh, Country road in Provence by Night, 1889, May 1890,
Kröller-Müller Museum
Modern art
–
Paul Cézanne,
The Large Bathers, 1898–1905
33.
Kokin Wakashu
–
The Kokin Wakashū, commonly abbreviated as Kokinshū, is an early anthology of the waka form of Japanese poetry, dating from the Heian period. It is an Imperial anthology, conceived of by Emperor Uda and published by order of his son Emperor Daigo and its finished form dates to c. 920, though according to historical accounts the last poem was added to the collection in 914. The compilers of the anthology were four court poets, led by Ki no Tsurayuki and also including Ki no Tomonori, Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, the Kokinshū is the first of the Nijūichidaishū, the 21 collections of Japanese poetry compiled at Imperial request. The primacy of poems about the seasons pioneered by the Kokinshū continues even today in the haiku tradition, the Japanese preface by Ki no Tsurayuki is also the beginning of Japanese criticism as distinct from the far more prevalent Chinese poetics in the literary circles of its day. The idea of including old as well as new poems was another important innovation, one which was adopted in later works. This association of one poem to the next marks this anthology as the ancestor of the renga, the exact number of poems in the collection varies depending on the textual tradition. The online edition, which follows the Date Family text based on a prepared by Fujiwara no Teika. The collection is divided into twenty parts, reflecting older models such as the Manyōshū, the following divisions of the Kokinshū mention the Japanese names of the parts, their modern readings, and their English translations. The compilers included the name of the author of poem. Major poets of the Kokinshū include Ariwara no Narihira, Ono no Komachi, Henjō and Fujiwara no Okikaze, inclusion in any imperial collection, and particularly the Kokinshū, was a great honour. On October 20,2010, Kōnan Womens University announced the discovery of a manuscript dating to c. It is the oldest manuscript to contain both the kanji and kana prefaces and it is split into two volumes,15.9 cm tall by 14.6 cm wide, totaling 429 pages containing all 1111 poems. It is thought to be a copy of a made by Fujiwara no Teika. The manuscript was purchased from a book store in 1982 for 4,280,000 yen. List of National Treasures of Japan Shin Kokin Wakashū Heian literature Minamoto no Tōru Saeki, Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, Kokin Wakashū. Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, Kokin Wakashū, Miner, Earl, H. Odagiri, R. E. Morrell. The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature, Kokin Wakashū, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry
Kokin Wakashu
–
Section of the earliest extant complete manuscript of the Kokinshū (Gen'ei edition,
National Treasure); early twelfth century; at the
Tokyo National Museum
34.
Heian period
–
The Heian period is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism, the Heian period is also considered the peak of the Japanese imperial court and noted for its art, especially poetry and literature. Although the Imperial House of Japan had power on the surface, the power was in the hands of the Fujiwara clan. Many emperors actually had mothers from the Fujiwara family, the Heian period was preceded by the Nara period and began in 794 A. D. after the movement of the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō, by the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu. Kanmu first tried to move the capital to Nagaoka-kyō, but a series of disasters befell the city, prompting the emperor to relocate the capital a second time, a rebellion occurred in China in the last years of the 9th century, making the political situation unstable. The Japanese missions to Tang China was suspended and the influx of Chinese exports halted, therefore the Heian Period is considered a high point in Japanese culture that later generations have always admired. The period is noted for the rise of the samurai class. Nominally, sovereignty lay in the emperor but in power was wielded by the Fujiwara nobility. However, to protect their interests in the provinces, the Fujiwara and other noble families required guards, police, the warrior class made steady political gains throughout the Heian period. Still, a military takeover of the Japanese government was centuries away. The entry of the class into court influence was a result of the Hōgen Rebellion. At this time Taira no Kiyomori revived the Fujiwara practices by placing his grandson on the throne to rule Japan by regency and their clan, the Taira, would not be overthrown until after the Genpei War, which marked the start of the shogunate. The Kamakura period began in 1185 when Minamoto no Yoritomo seized power from the emperors, Nara was abandoned after only 70 years in part due to the ascendancy of Dōkyō and the encroaching secular power of the Buddhist institutions there. Kyōto had good access to the sea and could be reached by land routes from the eastern provinces. The early Heian period continued Nara culture, the Heian capital was patterned on the Chinese Tang capital at Changan, as was Nara, Kanmu endeavoured to improve the Tang-style administrative system which was in use. Known as the ritsuryō, this attempted to recreate the Tang imperium in Japan. Despite the decline of the Taika–Taihō reforms, imperial government was vigorous during the early Heian period, Kanmus avoidance of drastic reform decreased the intensity of political struggles, and he became recognized as one of Japans most forceful emperors
Heian period
–
Kyōto, "Capital of 1000 Years".
Heian period
–
Byōdō-in Phoenix Hall, built in the 11th century during the Heian period of Japan.
Heian period
–
A handscroll painting dated circa 1130, illustrating a scene from the "Bamboo River" chapter of the
Tale of Genji.
Heian period
–
Drawing of
Fujiwara no Michinaga, by
Kikuchi Yōsai.
35.
Samantabhadra
–
Samantabhadra is a bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism associated with practice and meditation. Together with Gautama Buddha and his fellow bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, he forms the Shakyamuni trinity in Buddhism and he is the patron of the Lotus Sutra and, according to the Avatamsaka Sutra, made the ten great vows which are the basis of a bodhisattva. In China, Samantabhadra is associated with action, whereas Mañjuśrī is associated with prajñā, in Japan, this bodhisattva is often venerated by the Tendai and in Shingon Buddhism, and as the protector of the Lotus Sutra by Nichiren Buddhism. In the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Samantabhadra is also the name of the Adi-Buddha – in indivisible Yab-Yum with his consort, Samantabhadra is also a key figure in the Āvataṃsaka-sūtra, particularly the last chapter, the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. In the Āvataṃsaka-sūtra, the Buddha states that Samantabhadra Bodhisattva made ten great vows in his path to full Buddhahood, To pay homage, to praise the Thus Come One-Tathagata. To repent misdeeds and evil karmas, to rejoice in others merits and virtues. To request the Buddhas to continue teaching, to request the Buddhas to remain in the world. To follow the teachings of the Buddhas at all times, to accommodate and benefit all living beings. To transfer all merits and virtues to benefit all beings, unlike his more popular counterpart Manjusri, Samantabhadra is only rarely depicted alone and is usually found in a trinity on the right side of Shakyamuni, mounted on a white elephant. In those traditions that accept the Avatamsaka Sutra as its root instruction, Samantabhadra and Manjusri flank Vairocana Buddha and it is in this guise that Samantabhadra is revered as the patron bodhisattva of the monasteries associated with Mount Emei in western China. Some believe that the elephant mount of Samantabhadra was the same elephant that appeared to Queen Maya. Mahayana esoteric traditions treat Samantabhada as one of the Primordial Buddhas and this comes from the fact that both figures have the same name but their meaning within their respective traditions is quite different. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, particularly the Nyingma school, Dharmakaya Samantabhadra is considered the most primordial Buddha, akin in status to Vajradhara for the Sarma traditions. Samantabhadra appears in the Vajrayana tantric text the Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra, as the Primordial Buddha, therefore, in Tibetan Buddhism the Nyingma, or Old Translation school, the Sakya and the Bön schools view Samantabhadra as the Primordial Buddha. In the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana, Samantabhadra is considered a primordial Buddha in indivisible yab-yum union with his consort Samantabhadri, however, the Kagyu and Gelug schools use Vajradhara to represent the Primordial Buddha. Samantabhadra is not a colored being with two eyes, etc, the Mirror of the Mind of Samantabhadra is one of the Seventeen Tantras of Dzogchen Upadesha. Sri Lankan people venerates Samantabhadra Bodhisatva as Saman, the name Saman means the rising morning sun. God Saman is considered one of the deities of the island
Samantabhadra
–
Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra
–
Samantabhadra, pictured in Bodhisattva of Universal Virtue who Prolongs Life, 12th century painting on silk, late Heian period.
Samantabhadra
–
Fugen Enmei (普賢延命菩薩
?), the life Preserver.
Samantabhadra
–
Buddhas
36.
Cintamani
–
Cintāmaṇi also spelled as Chintamani is a wish-fulfilling jewel within both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, said by some to be the equivalent of the philosophers stone in Western alchemy. It is one of several Mani Jewel images found in Buddhist scripture, in Buddhism it is held by the Bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara and Ksitigarbha. It is also seen carried upon the back of the Lung Ta which is depicted on Tibetan prayer flags. By reciting the Dharani of Cintamani, Buddhist tradition maintains that one attains the Wisdom of Buddha, able to understand the truth of the Buddha and it is said to allow one to see the Holy Retinue of Amitabha and assembly upon ones deathbed. In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the Chintamani is sometimes depicted as a pearl and is in the possession of several of different forms of the Buddha. Within Hinduism it is connected with the gods, Vishnu and Ganesha, in Hindu tradition it is often depicted as a fabulous jewel in the possession of the Naga king or as on the forehead of the Makara. The Yoga Vasistha, originally written in the 10th century AD, the Hindu Vishnu Purana speaks of the Syamanta jewel, bestowing prosperity upon its owner, ecapsulates the Yadu clan system. The Vishnu Purana is attributed to the mid-first millennium AD and it draws on earlier religion or folklore. Cintāmaṇi, Wish-Fulfilling Gem The mani is translated in Chinese ruyi or ruyizhu 如意珠 as-one-wishes jewel or ruyibaozhu 如意寶珠 as-one-wishes precious jewel, ruyibaozhu is pronounced in Japanese nyoi-hōju or nyoi-hōshu 如意宝珠. Ruyizhu is pronounced in Korean yeouiju 여의주, in Buddhism the Chintamani is said to be one of four relics that came in a chest that fell from the sky during the reign of king Lha Thothori Nyantsen of Tibet. Though the king did not understand the purpose of the objects and these few objects were the bringers of the Dharma to Tibet. The Digital Dictionary of Buddhisms ruyizhu entry says, A maṇi-jewel, magical jewel, according to ones desires, treasures, clothing and food can be manifested, while sickness and suffering can be removed, water can be purified, etc. It is a metaphor for the teachings and virtues of the Buddha, said to be obtained from the dragon-king of the sea, or the head of the great fish, Makara, or the relics of a Buddha. The Kintamani mountainous region in Bali was named after the Cintamani, kaustubha Gem Kisshoutennyo Philosophers stone Sendai Daikannon statue Syamantaka Gem Beer, Robert. The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, ISBN 1-57062-416-X, ISBN 978-1-57062-416-2 Buswell, Robert Jr, Lopez, Donald S. Jr. eds. Cintamani, in Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Cintamani
–
14-th century
Goryeo painting of
Ksitigarbha holding a cintamani
Cintamani
–
Mani stone
37.
Twelve Heavenly Generals
–
In some Buddhist denominations, the Twelve Heavenly Generals or Twelve Divine Generals are the protective deities, or yaksha, of Bhaisajyaguru, the buddha of healing. They are introduced in the Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabharāja Sūtra, statues of the Twelve Heavenly Generals stand in Ngong Ping, Hong Kong. The Glossary of Japanese Buddhism for an explanation of terms concerning Japanese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhist art, album of 12Heavenly Generals at Ngong Ping
Twelve Heavenly Generals
–
Bhaisajyaguru Buddha (center) accompanied by one of the Twelve Heavenly Generals
Twelve Heavenly Generals
–
General Catura at Ngong Ping
38.
Kamakura period
–
The Kamakura period is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo. The period is known for the emergence of the samurai, the warrior caste, the Kamakura period marks the transition to land-based economies and a concentration of advanced military technologies in the hands of a specialized fighting class. Lords required the services of vassals, who were rewarded with fiefs of their own. The fief holders exercised local military rule, once Minamoto Yoritomo had consolidated his power, he established a new government at his family home in Kamakura. He called his government a bakufu, but because he was given the ancient high military title Seii Tai-shōgun by the Emperor, Yoritomo followed the Fujiwara form of house government and had an administrative board Mandokoro, a board of retainers, and a board of inquiry. After confiscating estates in central and western Japan, he appointed stewards for the estates and constables for the provinces, as shogun, Yoritomo was both the steward and the constable general. The Kamakura shogunate was not a regime, however, and although it controlled large tracts of land. The regime continued warfare against the Northern Fujiwara, but never brought either the north or the west under complete military control, however, the 4th leader of the Northern Fujiwara Fujiwara no Yasuhira was defeated by Yoritomo in 1189, and the 100-year-long prosperity of the north disappeared. The old court resided in Kyoto, continuing to hold the land over which it had jurisdiction, despite a strong beginning, Yoritomo failed to consolidate the leadership of his family on a lasting basis. Intrafamily contention had long existed within the Minamoto, although Yoritomo had eliminated most serious challengers to his authority. When he died suddenly in 1199, his son Minamoto no Yoriie became shogun and nominal head of the Minamoto, but Yoriie was unable to control the other eastern warrior families. By the early century, a regency had been established for the shogun by Hōjō Tokimasa—a member of the Hōjō clan. Often the Shikken was also the Tokuso and Rensho, under the Hōjō, the shogun became a powerless figurehead. The Hōjō forces easily won the war, and the court was brought under the direct control of the shogunate. The shoguns constables gained greater powers, and the court was obliged to seek Kamakuras approval for all of its actions. Although deprived of power, the court retained extensive estates. Several significant administrative achievements were made during the Hōjō regency, in 1225 the third regent Hōjō Yasutoki established the Council of State, providing opportunities for other military lords to exercise judicial and legislative authority at Kamakura. The Hōjō regent presided over the council, which was a form of collective leadership
Kamakura period
–
Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba by Takesaki Eurema,
c. 1293.
Kamakura period
–
A famous Japanese wooden
kongorikishi statue of
Tōdai-ji,
Nara. It was made by
Busshi Unkei in 1203.
Kamakura period
Kamakura period
–
Japanese
samurai boarding Mongol ships in 1281.
39.
Edo period
–
The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the countrys 300 regional daimyō. The period was characterized by growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies. The shogunate was established in Edo on March 24,1603. The period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration on May 3,1868, instrumental in the rise of the new bakufu was Tokugawa Ieyasu, the main beneficiary of the achievements of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Already powerful, Ieyasu profited by his transfer to the rich Kantō area, after Hideyoshis death, Ieyasu moved quickly to seize control from the Toyotomi family. Ieyasus victory over the western daimyōs at the Battle of Sekigahara gave him control of all Japan. He rapidly abolished numerous enemy daimyō houses, reduced others, such as that of the Toyotomi, Ieyasu still failed to achieve complete control of the western daimyōs, but his assumption of the title of shogun helped consolidate the alliance system. After further strengthening his base, Ieyasu installed his son Hidetada as shogun. The Toyotomi were still a significant threat, and Ieyasu devoted the next decade to their eradication, in 1615, the Tokugawa army destroyed the Toyotomi stronghold at Osaka. The Tokugawa period brought 250 years of stability to Japan, the political system evolved into what historians call bakuhan, a combination of the terms bakufu and han to describe the government and society of the period. In the bakuhan, the shogun had national authority and the daimyōs had regional authority and this represented a new unity in the feudal structure, which featured an increasingly large bureaucracy to administer the mixture of centralized and decentralized authorities. The feudal hierarchy was completed by the classes of daimyō. Closest to the Tokugawa house were the shinpan, or related houses and they were twenty-three daimyōs on the borders of Tokugawa lands, all directly related to Ieyasu. The shinpan held mostly honorary titles and advisory posts in the bakufu, the second class of the hierarchy were the fudai, or house daimyōs, rewarded with lands close to the Tokugawa holdings for their faithful service. By the 18th century,145 fudai controlled such smaller han, members of the fudai class staffed most of the major bakufu offices. Ninety-seven han formed the group, the tozama, former opponents or new allies. The tozama were located mostly on the peripheries of the archipelago, because the tozama were least trusted of the daimyō, they were the most cautiously managed and generously treated, although they were excluded from central government positions. The Tokugawa not only consolidated their control over a reunified Japan, they also had unprecedented power over the emperor, the court, all daimyōs and the religious orders
Edo period
–
Nikkō Tōshō-gū
Edo period
–
Tokugawa Ieyasu, first
shogun of the
Tokugawa shogunate
Edo period
–
The
San Juan Bautista is represented in
Claude Deruet 's painting of
Hasekura Tsunenaga in Rome in 1617, as a galleon with Hasekura's flag (red swastika on orange background) on the top mast.
Edo period
–
Itinerary and dates of the travels of Hasekura Tsunenaga
40.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
41.
Korea
–
Korea is a historical state in East Asia, since 1945 divided into two distinct sovereign states, North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest and it is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan. Korea emerged as a political entity after centuries of conflict among the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Later Silla divided into three states during the Later Three Kingdoms period. Goryeo, which had succeeded Goguryeo, defeated the two states and united the Korean Peninsula. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo, Goryeo, whose name developed into the modern exonym Korea, was a highly cultured state that created the worlds first metal movable type in 1234. However, multiple invasions by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, following the Yuan Dynastys collapse, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 1388. The first 200 years of Joseon were marked by peace and saw the creation of the Korean alphabet by Sejong the Great in the 14th century. During the later part of the dynasty, however, Koreas isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the Hermit Kingdom, by the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan. Despite attempts at modernization by the Korean Empire, in 1910 Korea was annexed by Japan and these circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their incapability to agree on the terms of Korean independence. To date, both continue to compete with each other as the sole legitimate government of all of Korea. Korea is the spelling of Corea, a name attested in English as early as 1614. It is a derived from Cauli, Marco Polos transcription of the Chinese 高麗. This was the Hanja for the Korean kingdom of Goryeo or Koryŏ, Goryeos name was a continuation of the earlier Goguryeo or Koguryŏ, the northernmost of the Samguk, which was officially known by the shortened form Goryeo after the 5th-century reign of King Jangsu. The original name was a combination of the go with the name of a local Yemaek tribe. The name Korea is now used in English contexts by both North and South Korea. In South Korea, Korea as a whole is referred to as Hanguk, the name references the Samhan—Ma, Jin, and Byeon—who preceded the Three Kingdoms in the southern and central end of the peninsula during the 1st centuries BC and AD. It has been linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Manchuria
Korea
Korea
–
Anapji (Anap Pond) in
Gyeongju Historic Areas.
Korea
–
The
Gyeongbokgung Palace
42.
Southeast Asia
–
Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with seismic and volcanic activity. Southeast Asia consists of two regions, Mainland Southeast Asia, also known historically as Indochina, comprising Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar. Maritime Southeast Asia, comprising Indonesia, East Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, East Timor, Brunei, Cocos Islands, definitions of Southeast Asia vary, but most definitions include the area represented by the countries listed below. All of the states are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the area, together with part of South Asia, was widely known as the East Indies or simply the Indies until the 20th century. Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, Papua New Guinea has stated that it might join ASEAN, and is currently an observer. Southeast Asia is geographically divided into two subregions, namely Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia includes, Maritime Southeast Asia includes, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India are geographically considered part of Southeast Asia. Eastern Bangladesh and the Seven Sister States of India are culturally part of Southeast Asia, the eastern half of Indonesia and East Timor are considered to be biogeographically part of Oceania. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, homo floresiensis also lived in the area up until 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct. Austronesian people, who form the majority of the population in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor. Solheim and others have shown evidence for a Nusantao maritime trading network ranging from Vietnam to the rest of the archipelago as early as 5000 BC to 1 AD. The peoples of Southeast Asia, especially those of Austronesian descent, have been seafarers for thousands of years and their vessels, such as the vinta, were ocean-worthy. Magellans voyage records how much more manoeuvrable their vessels were, as compared to the European ships, Passage through the Indian Ocean aided the colonisation of Madagascar by the Austronesian people, as well as commerce between West Asia and Southeast Asia. Gold from Sumatra is thought to have reached as far west as Rome and this was later replaced by Hinduism. Theravada Buddhism soon followed in 525, in the 15th century, Islamic influences began to enter. This forced the last Hindu court in Indonesia to retreat to Bali, in Mainland Southeast Asia, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand retained the Theravada form of Buddhism, brought to them from Sri Lanka. This type of Buddhism was fused with the Hindu-influenced Khmer culture, very little is known about Southeast Asian religious beliefs and practices before the advent of Indian merchants and religious influences from the 2nd century BCE onwards. Prior to the 13th century CE, Hinduism and Buddhism were the religions in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
–
A golden vestment similar to those worn by the Hindu
Brahmin Caste, found in Butuan (
Philippines) Archeological Digs. This artefact shows the influence of Indian culture in Southeast Asia, also through trade.
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
–
Angkor Wat in
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Southeast Asia
–
Kampung Laut Mosque in
Tumpat is one of the oldest mosques in Malaysia, dating to the early 18th century.
43.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
India
–
Flag
India
–
The granite
tower of
Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by
Raja Raja Chola I.
India
–
Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595
44.
Middle east
–
The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
Middle east
–
The
Temple Mount in
Jerusalem
Middle east
–
Map of the Middle East (green).
Middle east
–
The
Kaaba, located in
Mecca,
Saudi Arabia
Middle east
–
Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East. Here, Muslim men are
prostrating during prayer in a mosque.
45.
Egypt
–
Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
Egypt
–
The
Giza Necropolis is the oldest of the
ancient Wonders and the only one still in existence.
Egypt
–
Flag
Egypt
–
The Greek Ptolemaic queen
Cleopatra VII and her son by Julius Caesar,
Caesarion at the
Temple of Dendera.
Egypt
–
The 1803
Cedid Atlas, showing
Ottoman Egypt.
46.
Gandhara
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Gandhara is also an ancient name for Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gandhāra was an ancient Indic kingdom situated in the region of Pakistan. It encompassed the Peshawar valley and later extended to both Jalalabad district of modern-day Afghanistan as well as Taxila, in Pakistan. During the Achaemenid period and Hellenistic period, its city was Charsadda. It is mentioned in the Zend Avesta as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth and it was known as the crown jewel of Bactria and also held sway over Takṣaśilā. Gandhara existed since the time of the Rigveda and formed part of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, after it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul, during Mughal times, it was an independent district which included the Kabul province. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics and it is recorded in Avestan as Vaēkərəta. The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, one proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word gandha, meaning perfume and referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they traded and with which they anointed themselves. Some authors have connected the modern name Kandahar to Gandhara, Herodotus records that those Iranic tribes, which were adjacent to the city of Caspatyrus and the district of Pactyïce, had customs similar to the Bactrians, and are the most warlike amongst them. These are also the people who obtain gold from the ant-hills of the adjoining desert, on the identity of Caspatyrus, there have been two opinions, one equating it with Kabul, the other with the name of Kashmir. The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history, sometimes the Peshawar Valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara, sometimes the Swat Valley was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was always the Peshawar Valley, the kingdom was ruled from capitals at Kapisa, Pushkalavati, Taxila, Puruṣapura and in its final days from Udabhandapura on the River Indus. Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools, the artifacts are approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present, the region shows an influx of southern Central Asian culture in the Bronze Age with the Gandhara grave culture, and the nucleus of Vedic civilisation. This culture flourished from 1500 to 500 BC and its evidence has been discovered in the hilly regions of Swat and Dir, and even at Taxila. The name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda and in ancient inscriptions dating back to Achaemenid Persia, the Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of King Darius I includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Sattagydia. In the book Histories by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King Darius, the Gandhāris, along with the Balhika, Mūjavants, Angas, and the Magadhas, are also mentioned in the Atharvaveda, as distant people
Gandhara
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Female spouted figure, terracotta, Charsadda, Gandhara, 3rd to 1st century BC
Victoria and Albert Museum
Gandhara
Gandhara
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Mother Goddess (fertility divinity), possibly derived from the
Indus Valley Civilization,
terracotta, Sar Dheri, Gandhara, 1st century BC,
Victoria and Albert Museum
Gandhara
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Genealogy and family tree of Malak Afghana, grandson of King Saul.
47.
Gautama Buddha
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Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the part of ancient India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region and he later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the figure in Buddhism. He is recognized by Buddhists as a teacher who attained full Buddhahood. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death, various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the facts of the Buddhas life. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddhas lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought, thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. The times of Gautamas birth and death are uncertain, most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet accepted by all historians. It was either a republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, no written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, another one of his edicts mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon and they are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different and these include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, a poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE, the Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE
Gautama Buddha
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A statue of the Buddha from
Sarnath, 4th century CE
Gautama Buddha
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Buddha by
Otgonbayar Ershuu
Gautama Buddha
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Māyā miraculously giving birth to Siddhārtha.
Sanskrit,
palm-leaf manuscript.
Nālandā,
Bihar, India.
Pāla period
Gautama Buddha
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Maya dream of the Birth of Gautama Siddharta
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