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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 709.04
EAN num: 9780520242081
ISBN number: 0520242084
Label: University of California Press
Manufacturer: University of California Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 310
Printing Date: September 14, 2005
Publishing house: University of California Press
Sale Popularity Level: 594359
Studio: University of California Press
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Product Description:
Smile of the Buddha explores the influences of Asian world-views and particularly Buddhism on the art of Europe and America in the modern era. In an informative and perceptive introduction and essays on twenty well-known artists, Jacquelynn Baas analyzes how the teachings of the Buddha offered alternatives to Western intellectual conceptions of art and traces the various ways this inspiration materialized in artworks. The influence of Buddhism on art from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the present has been greater than historians and critics generally recognize, Baas claims. Considering essential questions about the relationship of art and life, this timely and beautifully illustrated book expands our perspective on how spirituality and creativity inspire and inform one another. Baas's insights and the images she presents give the reader a new understanding and appreciation of a diverse array of Western artworks.
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Rated by buyers 
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I like modern art and I'm curious about Buddhism, and this book fit both bills. Buddhism has about a billion followers, and as a Christian, I should know understand something about it for talking purposes. Also, I was curious about getting some understanding of the bizarre but usually (for me) interesting modern art. Is there a connection?
I learned that, broadly, Buddhism an experiential religion, which strives at leaving the ego behind through meditation on the Void, and seeks awaking and transcendence while pondering the transience and sorrow of life. Some of this resonates in my religion too. I'm sure this is a vast simplification since there are many flavors of Buddhism (just like there are many flavors of Christianity), but I like to think it is at least a start.
What really surprised me was not what I learned about Buddhism itself but HOW it is expressed and sought after through the arts. John Cage, for example, randomly generated his art and music. His musical piece, 4'33'' (4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence) was the artistic equivalent of a blank canvas, and his other music is almost unlistenable (at least to me). Blank and mono-chrome colored canvases are also an expression of Buddhism; it is meant to invoke a response after staring long enough. The same applies to Yoko Ono and her `happenings'; at one of her events, members of the audience were invited onstage, one-by-one to cut a piece of her clothing off. A Japanese artist, June Paik, painted with his head. Another artist's work was an empty white room. Still another frightened his audience at his piano recital by his strange somewhat violent behavior including cutting off the tie of John Cage who just happened to be in attendance. In the same performance, he left the stage suddenly and actually phoned in that the show was over!
Believe it or not, I find all this weird stuff fascinating. If nothing else, there is a lot of imagination going on. And also I can see where changing the context of a situation can lead to a differing perspective and promote `enlightenment'. I really believed before reading this book, that the modern artists of this type were just were about purposely breaking artistic rules and convention. I had no idea that, at least some of the time, they were trying to shake the viewer into re-thinking things in general, giving them a shot at transcending the ordinary. Another example is the Christo `gate' exhibit in Central Park, which I, by the way, thoroughly enjoyed. The thousands of saffron sheets blowing in the wind made you look at the Park in a whole new way, and somehow created a festival atmosphere. I also visited the Tate Modern a few years ago and saw an exhibit of 14,000 cardboard boxes, each supposedly representing a person's belongings, stacked into giant piles in their air-hanger-sized main hall. It made me wonder what those boxes might contain, what pieces of people lives might be stored there. It made me think.
There is also time spent on Monet, Van Gogh and the Impressionists, but for me the book was about a singular insight into modern art.
Rated by buyers 
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The best books make us think, by showing relationships between realms we had not thought connected. Just so, Jacquelynn Baas breaks new ground in SMILE OF THE BUDDHA: EASTERN PHILOSOPHY AND WESTERN ART FROM MONET TO TODAY.
By exploring the influences of Asian thought in general and Buddhism in particular on European and American artists of the modern era, Baas takes her readers on a breathtaking leap across time and geography.
That she lands squarely on target is attested by art historians and scholars of Buddhism who have praised this book as "careful and intelligent," "thoughtful and richly detailed," "high spirited" and "a crucial contribution to modern art studies."
My own take, as a lay reader with no credentials in either art history or Asian thought, is that Baas, Director emeritus of the University of California Art Museum, has created a most unusual hybrid: a handsomely illustrated coffee table volume with a fascinating detective story woven among its colour plates.
Like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, historical magnifying glass in hand, she investigates a bevy of mysteries. How was it that Taoist and Buddhist emphasis on change infiltrated European culture through, of all things, the English Romantic Garden? How did Buddhist philosophy appeal to artists including Monet, van Gogh, Gauguin? How did Asian aesthetic theory open a path to abstract painting for Georgia O'Keeffe? How did Buddhism influence Marcel Duchamp to imagine new connections between artist, viewer and object, helping change the very definition of "art"?
Bringing her story into the present, Baas sheds light on the role of Zen in the music and performance art of John Cage, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono and Laurie Anderson.
Baas and her publisher, University of California Press, are to be congratulated on an important book that has something new to say, and says it well - in a manner sufficiently documented do pass muster with the experts, and approachable enough to keep the rest of us interested.
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