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The newspaper for collectors, dealers, museums and galleries • september 2011 • £5.00/US$10/€10

World Heritage List New Sites

IN JUNE THE World Heritage Committee inscribed a total of 25 sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, including three natural properties, 21 cultural and one mixed site. Two properties were added to the World Heritage List in Danger and one was removed from that list (Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, India). In total, the World Heritage List now numbers 936 properties: 183 natural sites; 725 cultural; and 28 mixed. The new Asian and Islamic-World sites added to the list this summer are the West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou (China); The Persian Garden (Iran); Hiraizumi - Temples, Gardens and Archaeological Sites Representing The Buddhist Pure Land ( Japan); Petroglyphs Complexes of the Mongolian Altai (Mongolia); and the Citadel of the Ho dynasty (Vietnam). The World Heritage Committee has inscribed the West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou, comprising the West Lake and the hills surrounding its three sides, on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The inscribed landscape has inspired famous poets, scholars and artists since the 9th century and comprises numerous temples, pagodas, pavilions,

gardens and ornamental trees, as well as causeways and artificial islands. 
These additions have been made to improve the landscape west of the city of Hangzhou to the south of the Yangtze river.
The West Lake has influenced garden design in the rest of China as well as Japan and Korea over the centuries and bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of improving landscapes to create a series of vistas reflecting an idealised fusion between humans and nature. The ‘Persian Garden’ is in fact nine gardens in as many provinces. They exemplify the diversity of Persian garden designs that evolved and adapted to different climate conditions while retaining principles that have their roots in the times of Cyrus the Great, 6th century BC. Always divided into four sectors, with water playing an important role for both irrigation and ornamentation, the Persian garden was conceived to symbolize Eden and the four Zoroastrian elements of sky, earth, water and plants. These gardens, dating back to different periods since the 6th century BC, also feature buildings, pavilions and walls, as well as sophisticated irrigation systems. They have influenced the art of garden design as far as India and Spain.

In Japan, the Hiraizumi complex in Iwate comprises five sites, including the sacred Mount Kinkeisan. It features vestiges of government offices dating from the 11th and 12th centuries when Hiraizumi was the administrative centre of the northern realm of Japan and rivalled Kyoto.The realm was based on the cosmology of Pure Land Buddhism, which spread to Japan in the 8th century. It represented the pure land of Buddha that people aspire to after death, as well as peace of mind in this life. In combination with indigenous Japanese nature worship and Shintoism, Pure Land Buddhism developed a concept of planning and garden design that was unique to Japan. The numerous rock carvings and funerary monuments found in the three sites in the Mongolian Altai illustrate the development of culture in Mongolia over a period of 12,000 years. The earliest images reflect a time (11,000-6,000 BC) when the area was partly forested and the valley provided a habitat for hunters of large game. Later images show the transition to herding as the dominant way of life. The most recent images

Chosonji, Hiraizumi, was added to the World Heritage List in June this year show the transition to a horsedependent nomadic lifestyle during the early 1st millennium BC, the Scythian period and the later Turkic period (7th and 8th centuries). The carvings contribute valuably to our understanding of prehistoric communities in northern Asia. The 14th-century Ho Dynasty citadel, built according to the feng shui principles, testifies to the news in brief flowering of neo-Confucianism in late 14th-century Vietnam and its spread to other parts of east Asia. According to these principles it was sited in a landscape of great scenic beauty on an axis joining the Tuong Son and Don Son mountains in a plain between the Ma and Buoi rivers. The citadel buildings represent an outstanding example of a new style of south-east Asian imperial city. Inside

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NEW DIRECTOR, V&A Professor Martin Roth has been appointed the new Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Roth’s former position was that of Director General of the Dresden State Art Collections. He takes up his new appointment on 1 September 2011. Professor Roth takes over from Sir Mark Jones who was director since 2001. Mark is moving to be Master of St Cross College, Oxford. TEMPLE hoard, KERALA Treasure, thought to be worth billions of rupees, has been unearthed from secret underground chambers in a temple in Kerala, India. Precious stones, gold and silver are among valuables found at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, which was built in the 16th century. The hoard has been languishing in the temple vaults for more than a century, most probably interred by the Maharajahs of Travancore over many years.

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Profile: the artist

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Xiao Fan Omi: Spiritual Home of

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Gods and Buddhas, in Japan Asian and Islamic art

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at the Venice Biennale what to see Burmese photography New York gallery shows Exhibitions in New York

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museums New York auction previews Museum exhibitions, in Paris Parcours des mondes,

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in Paris Forbidden City at the

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Since Independence, the temple has been controlled by a trust run by the descendants of the Travancore royal family. The current Maharajah of Travancore has been the managing trustee of the temple. After 1947, the kingdom of Travancore merged with the princely state of Cochin, which eventually became the present-day state of Kerala. The inspections at the temple began after India’s Supreme Court appointed a seven-member panel to enter and assess the value of the objects stored in its cellars, including two chambers last thought to have been opened about 130 years ago. SYMPOSIUM, LONDON Courts & Capitals 1815-1914: From Alexandria to Tokyo, is the fourth conference organised by The Society for Court Studies and The Victorian Society. In Asia as in Europe, the 19th century witnessed a renaissance of court culture and architecture.The challenges of revolution, nationalism and capitalism stimulated the creation of palaces, monuments and grand public spaces on an unprecedented scale, transforming the urban landscape and placing ruling dynasties at the heart of modern capital cities. Focusing on the Near and Far East, this conference explores the influence of court patronage in refashioning some of the world’s great cities.

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Louvre, Paris Hong Kong auction previews Tribal Perspectives in London and Fine Art Asia in Hong Kong Exhibitions in Virginia,

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London and New Orleans Listings Islamic Arts Diary

Next issue October 2011 Annual guide to Asian Art in London events

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