Flower Power: The Meaning of Flowers in Asian Art

by Dany Chan, Jay Xu (Contribution by)

Overview

In 1967, the phrase "flower power" transformed the commonplace flower into a Buddhist-inspired symbol of peace. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of San Francisco's "Summer of Love," this art and design book showcases the expressive powers of flowers in Asian arts and cultures. Beginning in ancient times, a language of flowers, where certain blooms suggest specific themes, was communicated in art throughout Asia. Here forty artworks, all drawn from the Asian Art Museum's renowned collection, focus on six celebrated flowers—lotus, plum blossom, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum, tulip, and rose—and the messages they convey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780939117796
Publisher:	Asian Art Museum
Publication date:	06/30/2017
Edition description:	Paperback with Flaps
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Dany Chan is Assistant Curator for Exhibition Projects at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. She is a co-author of Shanghai: Art of the City. The Asian Art Museum—Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture is a public institution whose mission is to lead a diverse global audience in discovering the unique material, aesthetic, and intellectual achievements of Asian art and culture.

Editorial Reviews

"A quick and engaging read, filled with full-page images worthy of framing, this exhibition catalog will be of interest to students and general readers of symbolism in religion, flowers, and the graphic arts." —Library Journal

From the Publisher

07/01/2017
What does a person think when hearing the term flower power? The Summer of Love and San Francisco may come to mind, but probably not poetry, nor the arts of Japan and Iran. Published to honor the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love in the Asian Art Museum's hometown of San Francisco, this catalog's intent is to build cultural connections and empathy and encourage all to work "together toward a more tolerant and peaceful world." Just as flowers are ephemeral, so, too, is the installation art of Lee Mingwei—freshly cut flowers in a water channel set into the museum's floor. Visitors are invited to take a flower, then go out of their way to give it to a stranger, a metaphor for art as gift and not commodity. From the transformation of Buddha's enemies into lotus blossoms to Takashi Murakami's Andy Warhol-esque, neosurrealist smiling daisies, the iconography of flowers has been used to send messages for millennia. VERDICT A quick and engaging read, filled with full-page images worthy of framing, this exhibition catalog will be of interest to students and general readers of symbolism in religion, flowers, and the graphic arts.—Nancy J. Mactague, formerly Aurora Univ. Lib., IL

Library Journal