Art from Dong Son, Southeast Asia, in the Barbier-Mueller collections.
Barbier-Mueller Museum| N° d'inventaire | 26814 |
| Format | 21 x 27.5 |
| Détails | 144 p., numerous color illustrations, paperback. |
| Publication | Geneva, 2022 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782382030592 |
Exhibited today for the first time at the Barbier-Mueller Museum in its entirety, this collection of Ðông Sơn art is the most important known, outside of the Vietnamese national collections. It consists of prestige or sacred objects, combat instruments and ornaments testifying to a culture that takes its name from the village of Ðông Sơn located in the province of Thanh Hoa, in the north of present-day Vietnam, where numerous archaeological remains have been unearthed. These and those from many other sites attest to intense artistic activity responding to the demands of the aristocracy of kingdoms established in the valleys of the Red, Ma and Black rivers, which provided them with wealth and means of communication.
Flourishing between the 4th century BC and the 4th century AD over fairly extensive territories, the Ðông Sơn culture is at the origin of an art and a style which are unique to it, while very often being imbued with the traditions of neighboring South China. Pieces of Ðông Sơn or similar to those of Ðông Sơn have been found in continental and insular Southeast Asia, notably in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia, the result of the commercial and technical exchanges which took place in this geographical area and which suggest the existence in these regions of "Ðông Sơn traditions".
The texts and notes by Dr Van Viet Nguyen (Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Prehistory, Hanoi) offer a contextual reading and a stylistic description of the objects on display, while the contribution by Pierre Baptiste (General Curator at the Guimet Museum, Paris) offers a study of the relationships that the Ðông Sơn culture had with China.
May the visitors to the exhibition and readers of this catalogue experience, upon seeing these pieces with their delicate lines and refined decoration, created with remarkable technical mastery, a delight similar to that felt by the collector Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller who devoted a sustained interest to them.
Exhibited today for the first time at the Barbier-Mueller Museum in its entirety, this collection of Ðông Sơn art is the most important known, outside of the Vietnamese national collections. It consists of prestige or sacred objects, combat instruments and ornaments testifying to a culture that takes its name from the village of Ðông Sơn located in the province of Thanh Hoa, in the north of present-day Vietnam, where numerous archaeological remains have been unearthed. These and those from many other sites attest to intense artistic activity responding to the demands of the aristocracy of kingdoms established in the valleys of the Red, Ma and Black rivers, which provided them with wealth and means of communication.
Flourishing between the 4th century BC and the 4th century AD over fairly extensive territories, the Ðông Sơn culture is at the origin of an art and a style which are unique to it, while very often being imbued with the traditions of neighboring South China. Pieces of Ðông Sơn or similar to those of Ðông Sơn have been found in continental and insular Southeast Asia, notably in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia, the result of the commercial and technical exchanges which took place in this geographical area and which suggest the existence in these regions of "Ðông Sơn traditions".
The texts and notes by Dr Van Viet Nguyen (Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Prehistory, Hanoi) offer a contextual reading and a stylistic description of the objects on display, while the contribution by Pierre Baptiste (General Curator at the Guimet Museum, Paris) offers a study of the relationships that the Ðông Sơn culture had with China.
May the visitors to the exhibition and readers of this catalogue experience, upon seeing these pieces with their delicate lines and refined decoration, created with remarkable technical mastery, a delight similar to that felt by the collector Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller who devoted a sustained interest to them.