18世纪清宫佛堂供龛的样式及其艺术特征

清宫所供奉的藏区各地进贡和造办处铸造的佛像甚多,但长期以来由于受保存条件所限,大量佛像与所装供之供龛被分置庋藏,学者们在研究佛教造像的同时并未对其供奉形式予以足够重视。浏览清宫造办处档案可以发现,18世纪有关宫中造龛的记载不胜枚举。本文拟从归纳清宫供龛的基本样式和龛、像关系出发,对供龛的艺术特征及其所体现的时代精神和宗教情感等进行尝试性分析,以期全面把握清代宫廷藏传佛教艺术的整体特征。     

佛韵——美的赏析(下)

<正>从清宫造办处造办佛像、法器的整个流程来看,宫中的造佛机构实际上是由两部分组成,即中正殿和造办处。作为佛像的尊像与法器的铸造和加工,其宗教意义是最为重要的,所以喇嘛的参与是十分重要,这就是中正殿的作用,其次才是由造办处各作完成的纯技术加工。清宫六品佛楼造像代表了这一时期     

马戛尔尼使团礼品中的图册

英国马戛尔尼使团送给乾隆帝的礼品中包含两箱图册。关于这些图册的数量、名称和内容一直比较模糊,进入清宫之后的流转也不甚明晰。本文依据英国东印度公司礼品购买清单、乾隆六十三年清宫造办处活计档、民国二十五年清宫造办处舆图房图目等材料,揭示这些图册的具体信息,并进一步探讨其所反映的英国18世纪的社会面貌及其被选作乾隆帝生日贺礼的原因。在此基础上,反观乾隆帝回赠给英王乔治三世礼品中的图册,也应是深思熟虑的选择。     

乾隆中期宫廷铜法铃制作的创新与变化

铜法铃是清宫佛堂中最常见的法器和供器之一。根据档案记载,乾隆时期清宫造办处曾制作过大量的铜法铃。为了使铜法铃的声音更加响亮、清纯,造型更加规范,造办处首先对制作铜法铃的材料配方进行了多种试验。随后,又对铜法铃的尺寸、款识、纹饰进行了改进和确定。本文以故宫博物院收藏的乾隆款铜法铃为例,结合清代档案和史料,就乾隆中期宫中铸铃的配方试验、尺寸、款识、纹饰变化以及铜法铃的使用情况进行探讨。     

笃慕永思 用昭世守 故宫收藏的御赐品

造办处档案是研究清代宫廷御用品的第一手资料。2005年《清宫内务府造办处档案总汇》出版,系统地公布了雍正至乾隆时期宫廷御用品制作、修复、收藏等方面的材料,为相关研究提供了很大便利。     

乾隆时期的钟表改造

乾隆时期是清宫钟表收藏、制造的鼎盛时期。在此基础上,乾隆帝以自己的审美观为准绳,依靠供职宫中的西方传教士中的钟表机械师,对部分钟表进行了不同程度的改造,从而使其能心愿符初。     

清宫旧藏佛衣考

乾隆时期清宫佛衣的制作曾盛极一时。本文以故宫博物院现藏实物和造办处档案为第一手资料,从分类、制作、工艺、样式及风格特征等方面对清宫佛衣加以梳理,力求呈现乾隆时期兼容传统佛衣披着规制和宫廷审美理念的清宫佛衣之全貌,以揭示清代宫廷佛衣的整体特征。     

诚铭国际 拍前预览

清代历朝帝王尊奉喇嘛教,宫中设有专门管理藏传佛教活动的机构“中正殿念经处”。在长达200多年的时间里,宫中佛事活动形成固定制度,并载入会典,成为清代典章制度中的重要一项。在宫中收藏的藏传佛教法器,分为宫中造办处制作和西藏地区进贡物两大类,他们在制作风格上存在一些区别。清王朝时西藏地区的宗教头领达赖喇嘛和班禅额尔德尼喇嘛,每两年轮流向朝廷进贡物品,每次供品中都有法器。西藏地区进贡的法器,就     

紫金琍玛无量寿佛

本文介绍了承德外八庙收藏的一尊清乾隆年间由宫廷造办处制作的紫金琍玛无量寿佛,并简要介绍了"紫金琍玛"合金工艺的引进及配比方法的演进。     

略说清乾隆朝的南玉匠

清代的南玉匠是一群因技艺高超而被选入内务府造办处应役的宫廷玉匠,他们主要来自苏州地区,是制玉匠中的精英。本文依据《清宫内务府造办处档案总汇》,从南玉匠的选拔、技艺和待遇三个方面,探讨了他们在宫廷玉匠中的特殊地位,及其在乾隆朝宫廷玉器制作中发挥的重要作用。     

Telling small stories: spaces of knowledge and the practice of geography

This article examines how the practice of learning geography, and the arenas in which knowledge-making takes place, can be usefully positioned within changing histories of the discipline. It contends that networks of action – understood through the intersection of social sites, subjects and sources – present a conceptual framework and narrative focus for the re-consideration of specific episodes from geography's past. The interventions made here are informed and illustrated by a 'small story' about the doing of geography. Based on different personal accounts, the story revives a series of events, encounters, dialogues and images dating back to the winter of 1951 at Glenmore Lodge, Scotland. This educational institution in the Cairngorm mountains offered children from urban areas the opportunity to learn field studies and the skills of 'outdoor citizenship'. Initially, the focus falls on Margaret Jack, a 14-year-old field-course participant. Her learning experiences are traced through personal letters, a diary and a field journal dating from that time, and her recent recollections of this event. Margaret's account dovetails with the story of her field studies instructor, Robin Murray. Robin's role is traced through his learning experiences as a geography undergraduate at Aberdeen University, and the recent recollections of Catriona Murray, his wife.     

Das Wissen der Schulden. Recht,Kulturtechnik und Alltagserfahrung im liberalen Kapitalismus

The Knowledge of Debt: Law, Media Technique, and Everyday Experience in Liberal Capitalism. Performing an object such as ‘the economy’ hinges on practices of formatting knowledge. The article proposes to look at such instituting moments in connection with social conflicts over the legitimate rules of exchange. This is exemplified by way of recounting the story of the codification of Swiss bankruptcy law in 1889. In order to homogenize the legal procedures of debt collection and bankruptcy, two subject categories were instituted: ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. These different categories were thought to account for the diverging temporalities and spaces of credit exchange in everyday economic life. The introduction of the commercial register, a media-technical apparatus, enabled a formal distinction between ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. However, this boundary was contested and proved to be porose.     

Two radiocarbon dates for freshwater shells from hierakonpolis: Archaeological and geological interpretations

Shells of two species of freshwater bivalve (Unio willcocksi Bullen Newton and Etheria elliptica Lamarck) from the predynastic Gerzean (Nagada II) Decorated Tomb at Hierakonpolis, Egypt have given dates of 5000±90 bp for the tomb, and 12,900±120 bp for an episode of Nile terrace accumulation (correlated here with the Sahaba-Darau aggradation event). The archaeological and geological significance of these results is discussed, together with an outline of problems associated with radiocarbon dating of shell. Comparisons are made with the few other radiocarbon dates available for the Predynastic period in Egypt and possible reasons for the presence of shells in the tomb are considered.     

Some chronological implications of a fossil molluscan assemblage from a neolithic site at Brook,Kent, England

The later post-glacial history of a valley in the chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent, is described, based on molluscan stratigraphy, archaeological evidence and radio-carbon dating. Differences in size and colour banding, respectively, of fossil and living representatives of two species of land snails, Pomatias elegans (Müller) and Cepaea nemoralis (L.), are correlated with climatic change during the post-glacial period. The problems of the use of fossil shells of these species as samples for radiocarbon dating are discussed.     

China's Dynamic Industrial Sector: The Internet Industry

A Singapore-based economic geographer explores and analyzes the spatially uneven evolution of the Internet industry in China, arguing that the country's immense regional disparity in the provision of Internet services is best explained by the interplay of place- and path-dependence. The author demonstrates how the highly uneven regional endowments in relevant industrial and entrepreneurial resources have led to the substantial and persistent regional imbalance within China's emerging "new economy." His initial survey of the country's 100 leading Internet content providers (firms), identified from a listing of ca. 11,700 commercial websites, is selectively augmented to reflect an increase of over 70 million Internet users in 2007, reaching a total of 253 million in June 2008, and thus overtaking the United States as the world's largest Internet market. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L10, L86, O30. 6 figures, 1 table, 53 references.     

The 1911 International Exposition in Rome: architecture, archaeology, and national identity

This paper discusses the 1911 International Exposition in Rome and illustrates how this patriotic celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Sate utilized symbolic landscapes of architecture and archaeology to promote nationalist sentiments of italianità and romanità centered on the young capital of Rome. Through modern art exhibitions at the Valle Giulia, scientific conferences at the Castel Sant’Angelo, archaeological exhibits on the Roman Empire in the Baths of Diocletian, and regional Italian pavilions in the Piazza d’Armi, exposition officials offered a complex representation of Italian national identity that was modern yet ancient, cosmopolitan yet bucolic, European yet regional, and imperial yet developing.     

The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great – The Need for Medical Analysis: Reply to Commentaries

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. By elucidating the nature of his death, we can better interpret various aspects of Alexandrian history. Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome. It would therefore be of significance to note that one of the greatest leaders in history who conquered much of the then known world may have been suffering from a physical disability.     

Hospital Drama: Visual Theatres of the Medical Rendezvous from Asylum to Hospital with Reference to Specific Works by Anna Furse

Abstract

This paper is informed by Furse’s practice as a theatre maker in two fields of output that are connected by two factors: first, the presence of the woman patient — hysteric/subfertile respectively — within the clinical gaze; second, the significance of the womb to each pathology. In the treatment of each (explored in Furse’s theatre), lens based technologies play their part, whilst the cultural and medical can be seen to have overlapped to produce specific meaning with regard to Her body and its spectacularity. The article presents an overview of some of the key issues in precisely how the woman’s body becomes spectacular within this prosthetic medical gaze and how the medical — and theatrically designed spaces to represent these — become meaningful and potent proxemics that in turn inform medical/ theatrical spectatorship. Overarching nineteenth-century protocols at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (where Furse’s Augustine (Big Hysteria) is set) to contemporary imaging technologies used in the treatment of subfertility with Assisted Reproduction Technologies (the topic of her Art of A.R.T. projects), it examines the way in which photography develops through cinema to X-Ray, ultrasound and then 3D/4D ultrasound to ‘capture’ the woman’s body in ways by which she becomes muted and exposed. These occular technologies that extend the gaze, first to an exterior subject and then, eventually, traversing the flesh without knife, lend specific performativity to the ‘patient’ women, within the context of hysterias and reproductive impairments respectively. Finally, issues of suspension of disbelief are addressed. The spectator’s faith in the screen-based image of Her spectacular body is interrupted in Furse’s work, which is also keenly interested in the effect of such imagery on the woman’s sense of Self. The historical and cultural leaps in this article argue that there is indeed a trajectory through the history of medical imaging since the first application of photography to anatomy to the more advanced scoping technologies of medical imaging today, and that in each era, the production of these images remain fraught with cultural implications.     

The Death of Alexander the Great – A Spinal Twist of Fate

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. Physical depictions of this historical figure reveal the likelihood of a cervical scoliotic deformity. This is substantiated with the medical history and is correlated with his untimely death. For the first time, it is concluded that Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome.