FAH262H1 Art and Visual Experience in Modern and Contemporary East Asia

How FAH262H1 is assessed

The six components in the Fall 2026 syllabus marking scheme total 100%, and the term calendar repeats each weight. Engagement is built from conceptual reading annotations (2.5%), primary reading annotations (3%) and exercises (4.5%). The final assignment appears under three names in course documents: Exhibition Proposal or Object Acquisition Report in the marking scheme, Exhibition Proposal or Object Report in the term calendar, and Exhibition Proposal OR Object Acquisition Proposal on Quercus. Each deadline has a two-day grace period, and the Final Exam date and location are announced later on Quercus.

Current FAH262H1 dates

Dates are as published in the Fall 2026 syllabus marking scheme, late work section and term calendar. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.

What FAH262H1 covers

Twelve chapters follow the Fall 2026 weeks: Japan from the World's Fairs to the Taisho avant-garde, then China and Korea from the Ming-Qing courts to colonial cities, war, the Cold War and experimental art.

The pivot is the nineteenth to early twentieth century, set inside a longer frame that begins in the seventeenth century and reaches the present. The syllabus gives particular weight to the European category of fine art, formulated in Japan as bijutsu for the World’s Fairs and separated from kogei, craft, then adopted into Chinese as meishu and Korean as misul.

Following those words as they travel is the thread that ties twelve weeks together.

The words moved alongside power. The course traces their spread with Japan’s rise as an imperial power and asks how they reshaped discourses, practices and institutions across the region.

Recurring themes include the social role of the artist, colonialism both European and East Asian, nation-building, social change, and the reformist visual frameworks that reshaped ideas of class, gender, ethnicity and respectability.

The final weeks reach postwar Anti-Art and Non-Art, contemporary artists and biennales, and East Asia’s entry into the global art market.

How the twelve weeks are arranged

Weeks 1 to 6 stay mostly in Japan: the World’s Fairs and the coining of fine art, Edo society and its painting schools, woodblock prints and Japonisme, the split between yoga and nihonga, the Taisho turn to self-expression, and the avant-garde of Mavo alongside the new field of commercial art.

The Midterm Review & Reflection in Week 7 closes that block. Weeks 7 to 9 widen the lens to Ming-Qing China and Choson Korea, the late Qing and early Republican art worlds, colonial Korea, and the interwar cities of Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul.

Weeks 10 to 12 follow painting under wartime states, the postwar and Cold War split of Japan, China and Korea, and the relation between modern and contemporary art up to 2001.

What the readings ask of you

Each week pairs historical scholarship with either a conceptual reading or a primary text in translation.

The conceptual readings, by Tony Bennett, John Clark, Roland Barthes, Lambros Malafouris and Takashi Murakami, are described in the syllabus as intentionally challenging.

The primary texts run from Shiba Kokan in 1799 to the Gutai Manifesto of 1956. Both kinds are annotated for credit, and the annotation guidance rewards honest engagement: highlight key terms, ask questions, note confusion and connect the reading to images and other weeks. Polished summaries that show little personal engagement can lose credit.

How this guide is built

Each chapter follows one week.

It sets out the week’s argument, defines the terms from the posted key-term list, and then works one object, text or exhibition the way an answer should: describe what is visible, place it in its period and venue, and say what it shows about the categories the course tracks.

The front matter reproduces the marking scheme and maps the sample final exam aid sheet against the chapters; the closing pages give mixed identification practice and an exam-morning checklist.

Where the sources disagree

A few dates differ between course documents.

The syllabus dates the formulation of bijutsu to 1872, while the Week 1 craft reading dates the coinage to 1871; the sample aid sheet places Mao’s Yan’an Talks in 1942, while the syllabus reading list dates the text 1943. This guide shows both readings with their source rather than choosing silently, and you should do the same in written work.

Worked example · free

Read an exhibition catalogue for its curatorial argument

Key terms

Bijutsu

The Japanese word for fine art, formulated for participation in the World's Fairs and later taken into Chinese as meishu and Korean as misul.

Kogei

The Japanese term for craft; in the early 1870s it covered making in general before exposition rules ranked it below fine art.

Japonisme

The French name for Western artists' and collectors' enthusiasm for Japanese art and design, fed by export wares shown at the international fairs.

Ukiyo-e

Pictures of the floating world: the Edo-period print genre whose subjects included actor pictures, pictures of beauties and famous place pictures.

Yoga

Western-style painting in Japan, chiefly oil on canvas, taught from the Meiji period onward.

Nihonga

Japanese-style painting: the Meiji-era name given to painting based on traditional materials and methods once yoga existed.

Sosaku Hanga

Creative prints: woodblock prints designed, carved and printed by the artist as a personal expression.

Shin Hanga

Revival prints, literally new prints: designs made through the draftsman, cutter and printer system under a controlling publisher for domestic and foreign buyers.

Chaekgeori

Korean painting of books and things in which the objects a patron chose signalled learning, wealth, rank and private wishes.

Guohua

National painting: the Chinese neologism in use from the 1920s for painting in traditional media, now usually translated as traditional Chinese painting.

Gutai

The postwar Japanese art group founded by Yoshihara Jiro, known for body-based action art and its 1956 manifesto.

Minjung Misul

People's art: the term, first used in 1983, for art made to serve the minjung movement for social and political change in South Korea.

FAH262H1 FAQ

Questions students ask in each FAH262H1 chapter

When was the word bijutsu first used for fine art?

The syllabus says 1872, in connection with the World's Fairs. Ajioka's reading, drawing on Kitazawa Noriaki, puts the coinage in 1871 during preparations for Vienna. Cite the source with the date. Chapter 01 · World's Fairs, Fine Art and Craft

What did Hiraga Gennai build with Dutch learning?

Static electricity machines copied from Dutch models. A 1787 woodblock book, A Miscellany of Dutch Studies, illustrated by Keisai Masayoshi, Shiba Kokan and others, shows one treating a patient; Guth notes the medical use failed. Chapter 02 · The Arts and Society of Edo Japan

Who first used the word Japonisme?

Floyd credits Philippe Burty, a French critic, collector and printmaker, writing in 1872. He meant a new artistic, historical and ethnographic field covering Japanese-style objects, paintings of Japanese scenes and Western work shaped by Japanese aesthetics. Chapter 03 · Japanese Prints and Japonisme

Why did Kuroda Seiki insist on drawing from the nude?

For the large history compositions he admired in Paris he wanted figures free of period dress, so they could stand for lasting values. In 1896 he added sketching from live nude models at the Tokyo school and in the Hakubakai. Chapter 04 · Yoga and Nihonga in Meiji Japan

Why did the Shirakaba group send ukiyo-e prints to Rodin?

In 1911 the members pooled savings to buy thirty prints, including works by Hokusai, Utamaro and Hiroshige. Schoneveld reads the choice as a shrewd appeal to Rodin's romantic image of old Japan, shaped by Japonisme; he replied with bronzes and asked for a Tokyo show of his drawings. Chapter 05 · Self-Expression from Meiji to Taisho

How did Mavo protest against the Nika exhibition?

When the jury rejected all of the group's entries, Mavo set up an open-air show of rejected works in Ueno Park outside the exhibition hall, alerted the press and planned a band-led procession to Shinbashi, which police stopped. Chapter 06 · Taisho Avant-Garde and Commercial Art

Why did Min Qiji draw a romance inside fans, bowls and lanterns?

Purtle argues the frames show how late-Ming viewers saw moving and projected images. Eighteen of the twenty prints use such objects, from a handscroll to a zoetropic lantern, at a time when telescopes had already reached the court. Chapter 07 · Jesuits in Beijing and Korean Chaekgeori

Who was the first Korean to paint in oils?

Ko Hui-dong is usually named, for self-portraits from his Tokyo years. Kee notes that some historians point to Chi Un-yong, who studied oil painting in Shanghai, and Yi Chong-ch'an, who trained in the United States. Chapter 08 · Late Qing China and Early Colonial Korea

Why was Takarazuka linked to the modern girl in 1930s Japan?

Robertson notes that moga were fans of the revue and that the press sometimes called its actors moga. Its 3,000-seat Tokyo theatre opened on New Year's Day 1934, the largest theatre in the city. Chapter 09 · Modern Girls and Interwar Cities

Why did the Japanese army attack abstract and Surrealist painting?

The officers linked abstraction with rootless cosmopolitanism and mental illness, echoing Nazi talk of degenerate art. They held up healthy nudes and narrative realism as models, and said art for the nation was no luxury in wartime. Chapter 10 · Painting, Politics and War

What is the difference between social realism and socialist realism in postwar Japan?

In Jesty's account, social realism names one Japanese camp, led by Hayashi Fumio and Nagai Kiyoshi, that judged art by its effect on ordinary viewers. The Communist Party's slogan of democratic realism was partly meant to separate its position from Soviet socialist realism. Chapter 11 · Postwar and Cold War Art

What were the Stars exhibitions in Beijing?

Wu Hung presents them as the start of unofficial art after the Cultural Revolution. Most members lacked formal training; the first show was closed by police, but the third, in 1980, was held inside the National Art Gallery itself. Chapter 12 · Modern and Contemporary Art after 1976

How to study for the exam

Each week, learn the posted key terms with dates and one image for each, annotate the reading in your own words, then write a short describe, place and argue paragraph on one work. Before the exam, rebuild the three country timelines from memory and attach every name on the aid sheet to a chapter.