A Journey Through Asian Art

East and West (1x3)

Air date: Aug 08, 2014

We all know Gauguin travelled to the South Seas, but what is less well know is that it was seeing images of the temple at Borobudur that inspired him to leave France. The sway of the human form in the Indonesian temple carvings can be clearly seen in his woodcuts. Down the road from Borobudur lives the contemporary artist Lucia Hartini. An artist whose work is inspired partly by European surrealism. Alison Carroll questions conventional art-history view that a European artist inspired by other cultures is a genius, and an Asian artist who is inspired by other cultures is a copyist. Both artists have incorporated other cultures in their work. Both created unique art.