Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China Gansu and Ningxia Provinces, 4th-7th Century

Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China is a saga of cultural exchange on a grand scale during the lawless period between the Han and Sui dynasties. Accompanying a traveling exhibition organized by the Asia Society in New York, this book reproduces more than 200 objects in clay, metal, and glass from the fourth through seventh centuries. They document new concepts of Chinese identity, including Buddhism (imported by Indian monks), horseback riding (from nomadic tribesmen, patrons of the Buddhists), and non-native stylistic motifs and materials (introduced by Sogdian merchants, émigrés from present-day Iran). The big payoff came in the Tang dynasty, famed for its artistic use of foreign imagery and techniques. But a number of noteworthy pieces date from this period of disunity, including a clay statue of Kasyapa, Buddha's oldest disciple, who sports a hawklike "foreigner's" nose. Scholarly yet gracefully written, this groundbreaking volume is itself a treasure. --Cathy Curtis