Quiet Revolutions: Modernizing Traditional Art in East Asia

May 10 – November 6, 2005

The twentieth century was a period of extraordinary social and political transformation throughout East Asia.

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 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.