This 104-page volume celebrates and explores the artistic exchange between Tibet and China from the 13th to the 19th century, taking the theme of Buddhist arhat painting as a concise lens through which to view the wider ramifications of artistic and cultural interaction. Examining the exchange of motifs, compositions, and modes of representation, Paradise and Plumage reveals the creative reassignment of meaning when Tibetan artists appropriate aspects that may derive from older Chinese traditions and vice versa.

The catalog features a rich selection of objects and paintings, ranging from a fine 17th-century Kesi textile from the Newark Museum to a delicate mid-14th-century hanging scroll from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Also included are traditional arhat objects, such as furniture, pottery, pieces of coral and turquoise, and scholars' rocks.

By Rob Linrothe

Published: Rubin Museum of Art, New York, and Serindia Publications, Chicago (April 2004)