In the wake of an intense period of foreign domination and Western influence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many artists throughout East Asia struggled to reconcile the mounting tension between time honored historical art traditions and newer, more modern, even foreign concepts and techniques.
Drawn primarily from paintings, prints, and ceramics in the Smart Museum of Art East Asian Collection, this exhibition explored the quiet revolution within the region: one that sought to reshape traditional arts as part of a larger effort to form an East Asian modernity.