TEAPOT TRAVELLING

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada

Abstract

Traditionally art historians teach art educators the canons of euro-American art history, such as da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Duchamp’s the large glass. However, I have discussed the decorative folk arts, yixing teapots from china, in order to understand their Chinese historic and cultural context. Since retirement and the gift of my 350 teapot collection to the art gallery of greater Victoria. I have travelled the world and still I think about and analyse my teapots on my travels in and around china. This visual presentation on PowerPoint will contemporize my analysis of my yixing teapots to show how those same teapots can also reveal how they can be recontextualized illuminating changes in contemporary Chinese culture in themes of the rising middle class, the revival of new religious thought, the belt and road initiative, agricultural capitalism and a sexual revolution? This methodology will encourage art educators to teach art history traditionally but also encourage them to apply their personal travel and experience and possibly their students as well.

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