A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. The "ghost" may appear of its own accord or be summoned by magic. Linked to the ghost is the idea of "hauntings", where a supernatural entity is tied to a place, object or person. Ghost stories are commonly examples of ghostlore.
Colloquially, the term "ghost story" can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has been developed as a short story format, within genre fiction. It is a form of supernatural fiction and specifically of weird fiction, and is often a horror story.
While ghost stories are often explicitly meant to be scary, they have been written to serve all sorts of purposes, from comedy to morality tales. Ghosts often appear in the narrative as sentinels or prophets of things to come. Belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form.
A widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists link this idea to early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. Belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form.
The campfire story, a form of oral storytelling, often involves recounting ghost stories, or other scary stories. Some of the stories are decades old, with varying versions across multiple cultures. Many schools and educational institutions encourage ghost storytelling as part of literature.
In 1929, five key features of the English ghost story were identified in "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories" by M. R. James. As summarized by Frank Coffman for a course in popular imaginative literature, they were:
- The pretense of truth
- "A pleasing terror"
- No gratuitous bloodshed or sex
- No "explanation of the machinery"
- Setting: "those of the writer's (and reader's) own day"
The introduction of pulp magazines in the early 1900s created new avenues for ghost stories to be published, and they also began to appear in publications such as Good Housekeeping and The New Yorker.
Ghosts in the classical world often appeared in the form of vapor or smoke, but at other times they were described as being substantial, appearing as they had been at the time of death, complete with the wounds that killed them. Spirits of the dead appear in literature as early as Homer's Odyssey, which features a journey to the underworld and the hero encountering the ghosts of the dead, as well as the Old Testament in which the Witch of Endor calls the spirit of the prophet Samuel.
The play Mostellaria, by the Roman playwright Plautus, is the earliest known work to feature a haunted dwelling, and is sometimes translated as The Haunted House. Another early account of a haunted place comes from an account by Pliny the Younger (c. 50 AD). Pliny describes the haunting of a house in Athens by a ghost bound in chains, an archetype that would become familiar in later literature.
The One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as Arabian Nights, contains a number of ghost stories, often involving jinn (also spelled as djinn), ghouls and corpses. In particular, the tale of "Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad" revolves around a house haunted by jinns. Other medieval Arabic literature, such as the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, also contain ghost stories.
English Renaissance TheatreEdit
In the mid-16th century, the works of Seneca were rediscovered by Italian humanists, and they became the models for the revival of tragedy. Seneca's influence is particularly evident in Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet, both of which share a revenge theme, a corpse-strewn climax, and ghosts among the cast. The ghosts in Richard III also resemble the Senecan model, while the ghost in Hamlet plays a more complex role. The shade of Hamlet's murdered father in Hamlet has become one of the more recognizable ghosts in English literature. In another of Shakespeare’s works, Macbeth, the murdered Banquo returns as a ghost to the dismay of the title character.
In English Renaissance theatre, ghosts were often depicted in the garb of the living and even in armour. Armour, being out-of-date by the time of the Renaissance, gave the stage ghost a sense of antiquity. The sheeted ghost began to gain ground on stage in the 1800s because an armoured ghost had to be moved about by complicated pulley systems or lifts, and eventually became clichéd stage elements and objects of ridicule. Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass, in Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, point out, "In fact, it is as laughter increasingly threatens the Ghost that he starts to be staged not in armor but in some form of 'spirit drapery'." An interesting observation by Jones and Stallybrass is that "at the historical point at which ghosts themselves become increasingly implausible, at least to an educated elite, to believe in them at all it seems to be necessary to assert their immateriality, their invisibility. [...] The drapery of ghosts must now, indeed, be as spiritual as the ghosts themselves. This is a striking departure both from the ghosts of the Renaissance stage and from the Greek and Roman theatrical ghosts upon which that stage drew. The most prominent feature of Renaissance ghosts is precisely their gross materiality. They appear to us conspicuously clothed."
Ghosts figured prominently in traditional British ballads of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the “Border Ballads” of the turbulent border country between England and Scotland. Ballads of this type include The Unquiet Grave, The Wife of Usher's Well, and Sweet William's Ghost, which feature the recurring theme of returning dead lovers or children. In the ballad King Henry, a particularly ravenous ghost devours the king’s horse and hounds before forcing the king into bed. The king then awakens to find the ghost transformed into a beautiful woman.
One of the key early appearances by ghosts was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole in 1764, considered to be the first gothic novel. However, although the ghost story shares the use of the supernatural with the Gothic novel, the two forms differ. Ghost stories, unlike Gothic fiction, usually take place in a time and location near to the audience of the story.
The modern short story emerged in Germany in the early decades of the 19th century. Kleist's The Beggar Woman of Locarno, published in 1810, and several other works from the period lay claim to being the first ghost short stories of a modern type. E. T. A. Hoffmann's ghost stories include "The Elementary Spirit" and "The Mines of Falun".
The Russian equivalent of the ghost story is the bylichka. Notables examples of the genre from the 1830s include Gogol's Viy and Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, although there were scores of other stories from lesser known writers, produced primarily as Christmas fiction. The Vosges mountain range is the setting for most ghost stories by the French writing team of Erckmann-Chatrian.
One of the earliest writers of ghost stories in English was Sir Walter Scott. His ghost stories, "Wandering Willie's Tale" (1824, first published as part of Redgauntlet) and The Tapestried Chamber (1828) eschewed the "Gothic" style of writing and helped set an example for later writers in the genre.
"Golden Age of the Ghost Story"Edit
Historian of the ghost story Jack Sullivan has noted that many literary critics argue a "Golden Age of the Ghost Story" existed between the decline of the Gothic novel in the 1830s and the start of the First World War. Sullivan argues that the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Sheridan Le Fanu inaugurated this "Golden Age".
Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu was one of the most influential writers of ghost stories.. Le Fanu's collections, such as In a Glass Darkly (1872) and The Purcell Papers (1880), helped popularise the short story as a medium for ghost fiction. Charlotte Riddell, who wrote fiction as Mrs. J. H. Riddell, created ghost stories which were noted for adept use of the haunted house theme.
The "classic" ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such as M. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Violet Hunt, and Henry James. Classic ghost stories were influenced by the gothic fiction tradition, and contain elements of folklore and psychology. M. R. James summed up the essential elements of a ghost story as, “Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, ‘the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded...”.
Famous literary apparitions from the Victorian period are the ghosts of A Christmas Carol, in which Ebenezer Scrooge is helped to see the error of his ways by the ghost of his former colleague Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. In a precursor to A Christmas Carol Dickens published "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton". Dickens also wrote "The Signal-Man", another work featuring a ghost.
David Langford has described British author M. R. James as writing "the 20th century's most influential canon of ghost stories". James perfected a method of story-telling which has since become known as Jamesian, which involved abandoning many of the traditional Gothic elements of his predecessors. The classic Jamesian tale usually includes the following elements:
- a characterful setting in an English village, seaside town or country estate; an ancient town in France, Denmark or Sweden; or a venerable abbey or university.
- a nondescript and rather naive gentleman-scholar as protagonist (often of a reserved nature).
- the discovery of an old book or other antiquarian object that somehow unlocks, calls down the wrath, or at least attracts the unwelcome attention of a supernatural menace, usually from beyond the grave.
According to James, the story must "put the reader into the position of saying to himself, 'If I'm not very careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'" He also perfected the technique of narrating supernatural events through implication and suggestion, letting his reader fill in the blanks, and focusing on the mundane details of his settings and characters in order to throw the horrific and bizarre elements into greater relief. He summed up his approach in his foreword to the anthology Ghosts and Marvels (Oxford, 1924): "Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo. ... Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage."
He also noted: "Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story."
Despite his suggestion (in the essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write") that writers employ reticence in their work, many of James's tales depict scenes and images of savage and often disturbing violence.
19th Century American writersEdit
Influenced by British and German examples, American writers began to produce their own ghost stories. Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), based on an earlier German folktale, features a Headless Horseman. It has been adapted for film and television many times, such as Sleepy Hollow, a successful 1999 feature film. Irving also wrote "The Adventure of the German Student" and Edgar Allan Poe wrote some stories which contain ghosts, such as "The Masque of the Red Death" and "Morella".
In the later 19th century, mainstream American writers such as Edith Wharton, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and F. Marion Crawford all wrote ghost fiction. Henry James also wrote ghost stories, including the famous The Turn of the Screw. The Turn of the Screw has also appeared in a number of adaptations, notably the film The Innocents and Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw.
The introduction of pulp magazines in the early 1900s created new avenues for ghost stories to be published, and they also began to appear in publications such as Good Housekeeping and The New Yorker.
Comedies and operasEdit
In the United States, prior to and during the First World War, folklorists Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp collected ballads from the people of the Appalachian Mountains, which included ghostly themes such as "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter", "The Suffolk Miracle", "The Unquiet Grave" and "The Wife of Usher's Well". The theme of these ballads was often the return of a dead lover. These songs were variants of traditional British ballads handed down by generations of mountaineers descended from the people of the Anglo-Scottish border region.
In the Edwardian era, Algernon Blackwood (who combined the ghost story with nature mysticism), Oliver Onions (whose ghost stories drew on psychological horror), and William Hope Hodgson (whose ghost tales also contained elements of the sea story and science fiction) helped move the ghost story in new directions.
Kaidan (怪談), which literally means “supernatural tale” or "weird tale", is a form of Japanese ghost story. Kaidan entered the vernacular when a game called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai became popular in the Edo period. The popularity of the game, as well as the acquisition of a printing press, led to the creation of a literary genre called Kaidanshu. Kaidan are not always horror stories, they can "be funny, or strange, or just telling about an odd thing that happened one time".
Lafcadio Hearn published Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things in 1904 as a collection of Japanese ghost stories collected by Lafcadio Hearn, and later made into a film. The book "is seen as the first introduction of Japanese superstition to European and American audiences."
Modern era (1920 onward)Edit
Ghost Stories magazine, which contained almost nothing but ghost stories, was published from 1926 to 1932.
Beginning in the 1940s, Fritz Leiber wrote ghost tales set in modern industrial settings, such as "Smoke Ghost" (1941) and "A Bit of the Dark World" (1962). Shirley Jackson made an important contribution to ghost fiction with her novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959).
During the late 1890s the depiction of ghost and supernatural events appear in films. With the advent of motion pictures and television, screen depictions of ghosts became common, and spanned a variety of genres. The works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Wilde have all been made into cinematic versions, as well as adaptations of other playwrights and novelists. One of the well known short films was Haunted Castle directed by Georges Méliès in 1896. It is also considered as the first silent short film depicting ghost and supernatural events.
After the second World War, sentimental depictions of ghosts were more popular in cinema than horror, and include the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which was later adapted to television with a successful 1968–70 TV series. Genuine psychological horror films from this period include 1944's The Uninvited, and 1945's Dead of Night. The film Blithe Spirit, based on a play by Noël Coward, was also produced in this period. 1963 saw one of the first major adaptations of a ghost novel, The Haunting, based on the well known novel The Haunting of Hill House.
The 1970s saw screen depictions of ghosts diverge into distinct genres of the romantic and horror. A common theme in the romantic genre from this period is the ghost as a benign guide or messenger, often with unfinished business, such as 1989's Field of Dreams, the 1990 film Ghost, and the 1993 comedy Heart and Souls. In the horror genre, 1980's The Fog, and the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of films from the 1980s and 1990s are notable examples of the trend for the merging of ghost stories with scenes of physical violence. The 1990s saw a return to classic "gothic" ghosts, whose dangers were more psychological than physical. Examples of films from this period include 1999's The Sixth Sense and The Others. The 1990s also saw a lighthearted adaptation of the children's character Casper the Friendly Ghost, originally popular in cartoon form in the 1950s and early 1960s, in the feature film Casper.
Asian cinema has also produced horror films about ghosts, such as the 1998 Japanese film Ringu (remade in the US as The Ring in 2002), and the Pang brothers' 2002 film The Eye. Indian ghost movies are popular not just in India, but in the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and other parts of the world. Some Indian ghost movies such as the comedy / horror film Chandramukhi have been commercial successes, dubbed into several languages. Generally the films are based on the experiences of modern people who are unexpectedly exposed to ghosts, and usually draw on traditional Indian literature or folklore. In some cases the Indian films are remakes of western films, such as Anjaane, based on Alejandro Amenábar's ghost story The Others.
In fictional television programming, ghosts have been explored in series such as Ghost Whisperer, Medium, Supernatural, the television series adaptation of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). In animated fictional television programming, ghosts have served as the central element in series such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, Danny Phantom, and Scooby-Doo, as well as minor roles in various other television shows.[which?]
Popularized in part by the 1984 comedy franchise Ghostbusters, ghost hunting has been popularized as a hobby wherein reportedly haunted places are explored. The ghost hunting theme has been featured in paranormal reality television series, such as A Haunting, Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Lab, and Most Haunted. It is also represented in children's television by such programs as The Ghost Hunter based on the book series of the same name and Ghost Trackers.
The Indian television series, Aahat, featured ghost and supernatural stories written by B. P. Singh. It was first aired on 5 October 1995 and ran for more than a decade, ending on 25 November 2010 with more than 450 episodes.
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Here is new research to challenge the notion that video games have to be mindless and sedentary.
A new study reveals how students can learn geometry through movement using the Kinect for Windows.
“Carmen Petrick Smith, assistant professor of mathematics education (second from left), works with undergraduate education majors on movements that are used to help elementary school children learn geometry (credit: Andy Duback)
University of Vermont assistant professor of mathematics education Carmen Petrick Smith has found in a study that elementary school students who interacted with a Kinect for Windows mathematics program while learning geometry showed significant gains in the understanding of angles and angle measurements…
Smith and her research team engaged 30 third- and fourth-grade students in a series of tasks that involved moving their arms to form angles projected on a large Kinect screen.
The screen changed colors when the students’ arms formed acute, right, obtuse and straight angles. A protractor helped students measure and refine their movements. Students were asked to figure out the hidden rules that made each of the four colors appear on the screen.”
- Carmen Petrick Smith, Barbara King, Jennifer Hoyte. Learning angles through movement: Critical actions for developing understanding in an embodied activity. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 2014; 36: 95 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmathb.2014.09.001
Learning angles through movement:
Critical actions for developing understanding in an embodied activity
Pre- and post-tests showed gains in understanding of angle and angle measurement.
Connections between physical and abstract representations can support learning.
Exploring a variety of physical representations is associated with learning.
Connections between movements and personal experiences can support learning.
Angle instruction often begins with familiar, real-world examples of angles, but the transition to more abstract ideas can be challenging. In this study, we examine 20 third and fourth grade students completing a body-based angle task in a motion-controlled learning environment using the Kinect for Windows. We present overall pre- and post-test results, showing that the task enhanced learners’ developing ideas about angles, and we describe two case studies of individual students, looking in detail at the role the body plays in the learning process. We found that the development of a strong connection between the body and the abstract representation of angle was instrumental to learning, as was exploring the space and making connections to personal experiences. The implications of these findings for developing body-based tasks are discussed.
- Embodied cognition;
- Motion-controlled technology”
Faculty Biography | Carmen Petrick Smith
Carmen Petrick Smith, Ph.D.
Carmen Petrick Smith is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Vermont. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied the effects of embodied actions on learning geometry. Her research interests center on embodied cognition, games for learning, and STEM education. She is also a former high school mathematics teacher, and in addition to her work in education, she can solve a Rubik’s cube, is a former Guinness World Record holder for dancing the Thriller, and won the 2008 O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships.
Paul Howard-Jones, of Bristol University, addresses the topic of Learning Games and “…using uncertain reward within computer games to make learning engaging. There is a clear theoretical basis and laboratory-based evidence for a classroom-based approach and so me exploratory research in classrooms that may be helpful in informing pedagogy, but evidence of impact on improved engagement and enhanced academic achievement is limited to young adults” (p.5).
He goes on to write that;
“Mental rotation skills are strong predictors of achievement in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects and results from a single study show that improving mental rotation does lead to improvement in attainment. However, this has only been tested with undergraduate students. Another way of improving these skills might be through video games” (p.6).
Howard-Jones adds that;
“Popular games provide rapid schedules of uncertain reward that stimulate the brain’s reward system. The brain’s reward response can positively influence the rate at which we learn. Beyond just the magnitude of the reward, a range of contextual factors influence this reward response” (p.11).
To read the full report by Paul Howard-Jones,
Neuroscience and Education: A Review of Educational Interventions and Approaches Informed by Neuroscience Full Report and Executive Summary,
Press Release from The Gates Foundation;
SEATTLE–The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a suite of investments, totaling more than $20 million, focused on identifying and expanding promising cutting-edge learning resources that support teachers and students and bring innovative new instructional approaches into America’s classrooms. These investments support the development of game-based learning applications; math, English language arts and science curricula built in to digital formats; learning through social networking platforms; and embedded assessments through a real-time and engaging environment of experiences and journeys. All these promising resources are aligned to the Common Core State Standards, which are college- and career-ready standards being implemented in more than 40 states.
The Pearson Foundation, one of the major partners in this work, today is also announcing the development of its complete digital curriculum to support the standards. The foundation is pleased to work with Pearson Foundation by providing research and $3 million in funding to help make these tools widely available. In addition to the Pearson Foundation, the foundation is also partnering with Educurious Partners, Florida Virtual School, Institute of Play, Reasoning Mind, Quest Atlantis, Digital Youth Network and EDUCAUSE to develop and promote new applications for learning and assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
“Teachers are telling us what they want, and we are listening,” said Vicki L. Phillips, Director of Education, College Ready, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We believe these exciting world-class tools have the potential to fundamentally change the way students and teachers interact in the classroom, and ultimately, how education works in America.”
A significant part of these investments announced today include supporting work to build a complete system of digital courses aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The Pearson Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Pearson, the leading learning company, is developing 24 online math and English language arts courses to help teachers and principals implement the standards. These courses will be delivered through a combination of technologies, including video, interactive software, games, social media, and print. Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the development of this robust system of courses, including four— two in math and two in English language arts—to be available at no cost on an open platform for schools.
In addition, a $2 million grant to Educurious Partners will help develop high school courses in biology, freshman literature and Algebra I using a project-based learning design and incorporating a social network Internet application. These include two literacy-based and two math-based courses that are contextualized within disciplines, such as engineering or writing in the natural sciences.
The foundation’s $742,996 investment in Reasoning Mind which offers teacher professional development and online elementary math curricula that build algebraic thinking, will pilot a program that makes a single effective math teacher available across multiple classrooms. If successful, one Reasoning Mind-trained teacher can affect the math scores and proficiency of 250 students using the program in different grades at several schools. A Reasoning Mind classroom is a hybrid of online and face-to-face instruction, where the teacher gives each child individual help and attention.
“Technology has advanced how we do so many things today,” added Phillips. “Yet, instead of transforming our schools, technology has generally been placed on top of antiquated models. These new cutting-edge applications have the potential to inspire students and engage them in the way they naturally learn, while giving teachers the flexibility to be creative in their craft and customize tools to their students’ needs.”
The foundation is also investing in several game-based learning tools:
- $2.6 million for iRemix, which is being developed by Digital Youth Network. It will be a set of 20 literacy-based trajectories that allow students to earn badges and move from novice to expert in areas like creative writing.
- $2.5 million to Institute of Play will build a set of game-based pedagogical tools and game-design curricula that can be used within both formal and informal learning contexts.
- $2.6 million to Quest Atlantis is creating video games that build proficiency in math, literacy and science.
All these applications will support the Common Core State Standards.
In addition, a $2 million grant to Educurious Partners will help develop high school courses in biology, freshman literature, and Algebra I through a social network Internet application. The application will allow students and teachers to collaborate with a variety of experts who are working in professional fields that are relevant to what the students are learning in the courses. These courses will also support the Common Core State Standards.
Finally, in June, Next Generation Learning Challenges will award up to $10 million in competitive grants to support promising technology-enabled programs built around embedded assessments that can help students master 7th, 8th, and 9th-grade content and competencies aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Embedded assessments are a way of testing a student’s knowledge in real-time through program such as online math courses that help students self-pace their learning, game-based learning environments, and literacy instruction delivered through mobile phones. While learning in a digital environment that uses embedded assessments, students demonstrate mastery of a subject in order to progress to the next level of a game, course, or application. Next Generation Learning Challenges is a grant competition and community aimed at identifying and expanding promising technologies that can help improve education across the K-12 and postsecondary spectrum. It is led by EDUCAUSE and community partners with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
For more information about the foundation’s investments to advance promising technologies in education, please visit www.gatesfoundation.org\education.
Allie Bidwell, of US News, writes that;
“It seems like kids do everything online these days – and school is no exception. More and more, educators are taking advantage of digital advances to supplement their teaching in the classroom, and are seeing encouraging results. This is especially the case for certain subgroups of students that typically struggle academically, such as English language learners and special education students.
“The classroom you went to school in is almost the exact same classroom you’d walk into today, but the level of engagement our kids get outside of the classroom has changed dramatically,” says Jessica Lindl, general manager of the digital gaming company GlassLab and a spokesperson for the game SimCityEDU. “Teachers are almost the entertainers trying to find whatever tool they can to try to engage their kids.”
Lindl says the SimCityEDU game helps engage kids by helping them improve basic cognitive functions and critical thinking. In the game, students serve as the mayor of a city and are immediately faced with challenges – they must address environmental impacts on the city while maintaining employment needs and other relationships.
Although Lindl says it’s important to use games as a supplement to classroom-based learning, such digital outlets have added benefits.
“There is continuous positive feedback,” Lindl says. “Learners are way more likely to feel comfortable with a video game than taking a standardized test and that’s really powerful.”
Additionally, video games in the classroom provide teachers, administrators and parents with a plethora of data to give assessments on students’ performances that Lindl says is invaluable, not just because of the granularity of the data, but also because it shows student achievements in real time. Other times, parents and students may have to wait weeks or months, depending on the test, to see their results.
“When you think of learning games, engagement and game mechanics is exciting, but there’s a critical value proposition around game-based assessments that we’re seeing,” Lindl says. “Teachers, students and parents can have in the moment understanding of what the child is learning, how they arrived at that learning and accelerate what the learning is, as opposed to waiting weeks down the road.”
Another valuable aspect of using games in the classroom is the competition (and hence reward) mechanisms built into some games.
At Mario Umana Academy in Boston, students from kindergarten through eighth grade have been using a program called First in Math since 2010.”
To read the full article by Allie Bidwell, of US News, click here;
Jonathan Wai wrote a very compelling article on “Why We Need To Value Students’ Spatial Creativity”. He reminds us of the spatially creative inventors and geniuses who have contributed so much to to science and industry. Then he reveals how schools neglects the development of spacial creativity. He makes clear connections between the video games, the development of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills and spacial creativity;
“The research is clear that spatial skill is important for STEM careers, and perhaps we can even enhance spatial skill to help more people join the STEM fields. What we need is research directed at understanding the best ways to develop the talent of students who are high spatial, but relatively lower math/verbal. Perhaps spatial video games and online learning coupled with hands on interventions might help these students.”
Wai also writes that;
“Spatial thinking “finds meaning in the shape, size, orientation, location, direction or trajectory, of objects,” and their relative positions, and “uses the properties of space as a vehicle for structuring problems, for finding answers, and for expressing solutions.” Spatial skill can be measured through reliable and valid paper-and-pencil tests—primarily ones that assess three dimensional mental visualization and rotation. Read more about examples of items that measure spatial skill here.
But despite the value of these kinds of skills, spatially talented students are, by and large, neglected. Nearly a century ago, a talent search conducted by Lewis Terman used the highly verbal Stanford-Binet in an attempt to discover the brightest kids in California. This test identified a boy named Richard Nixon who would eventually become the U.S. president, but two others would miss the cut likely because the Stanford-Binet did not include a spatial test: William Shockley and Luis Alvarez, who would go on to become famous physicists and win the Nobel Prize.
Today talent searches often use the SAT and ACT which include math, verbal, and writing sections, but do not include a spatial measure. All of the physicists described above (and Tesla who could do integral calculus in his head) would likely qualify today at least on the math section, and Edison would likely have qualified on the verbal section due to his early love of reading. However, there are many students who have high spatial talent but relatively lower math and verbal talent who are likely missed by modern talent searches and therefore fail to have their talent developed to the extent it could. Also, because colleges use the SAT and ACT for selecting students, many high spatial students likely do not make it onto college campuses.
Nearly every standardized test given to students today is heavily verbal and mathematical. Students who have the high spatial and lower math/verbal profile are therefore missed in nearly every school test and their talent likely goes missed, and thus under-developed. What’s more, spatially talented people are often less verbally fluent, and unlikely to be very vocal. Finally, teachers are unlikely to have a high spatial profile themselves (and typically have the inverted profile of high verbal and lower math/spatial), and although they probably do not intend to, they’re more likely to miss seeing talent in students who are not very much like themselves.”
One topic that Wai did not address is the effect of the gender imbalance, in teaching, on the neglect of spacial creativity in US. Schools. When one gender so dominates the teaching profession, we should expect that certain aspects of creativity will necessarily be neglected. Gender diversity is better for all professions. Gender diversity in the teaching profession would go a long way toward fostering the development of spacial creativity in students.
To read the full article by Jonathan Wai on Mind/Shift click here;
NDTV notes that;
Moreover, students’ interest and enjoyment in playing the math video game increased when they played with another student.
The findings point to new ways in which computer, console, or mobile educational games may yield learning benefits.
“We found support for claims that well-designed games can motivate students to learn less popular subjects, such as math, and that game-based learning can actually get students interested in the subject matter?and can broaden their focus beyond just collecting stars or points,” said Jan Plass, a professor in New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and one of the study’s lead authors.
“Educational games may be able to help circumvent major problems plaguing classrooms by placing students in a frame of mind that is conducive to learning rather than worrying about how smart they look,” added co-lead author Paul O’Keefe, an NYU postdoctoral fellow at the time of the study.
The researchers focused on how students’ motivation to learn, as well as their interest and performance in math, was affected by playing a math video game either individually, competitively, or collaboratively.
Researchers had middle-school students play the video game FactorReactor, which is designed to build math skills through problem solving and therefore serves as diagnostic for learning.”
To read the full article click here,
- Playing educational video games can boost kids’ motivation to learn (indiavision.com)
- Educational Video Games Help Students with Math Skills (scienceworldreport.com)
- Educational video games can boost motivation to learn, NYU, CUNY study shows (hispanicbusiness.com)
- Co-op gaming is a smart way to teach, says new research (polygon.com)
- Breaking Barriers: Video Games as Tools for Learning and Recovery (thetechscoop.net)
“Games have long been used to engage students. But as game-based learning becomes more prevalent in schools, researchers are interested in how game structure mirrors the learning process. In many games, students explore ideas and try out solutions. When they learn the skills required at one level, they move up. Failure to complete tasks is reframed as part of the path towards learning how to conquer a level.
Universities like Harvard, MIT and the University of Wisconsin’s Game and Learning Society are studying how game-playing helps student engagement and achievement, and well-known researchers in the field like James Paul Gee and University of Wisconsin professor Kurt Squire show are using their own studies to show that games help students learn.
Once the terrain of experimental classrooms, digital games are now becoming more common in classrooms. In a recent survey by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, half of 505 K-8 teachers said they use digital games with their students two or more days a week, and 18 percent use them daily. Educators are using commercial games like Minecraft, World of Warcraft and SimCity for education. The Institute of Play continues to study game-based learning and helps support two Quest to Learn schools, which are based around the idea of games and learning.”
To read the full article click here;
Neil Peirce finds that;
“Although there is a limited amount of academic research in this area, there is evidence of the benefits of specifically designed games, notably in the areas of phonological awareness, differentiating relationships, memory enhancement, coordinated motor skills, and mathematical development. However, these benefits have only been evaluated over several months in a structured preschool environment. The impact of such games being played intermittently in an informal setting is an area of
Download a copy of the report here [PDF].
In her article “Teachers, Students, Digital Games: What’s the Right Mix?” Holly Korbey interviewed a few educators who had some bad ideas about computer games;
“And learning is hard work. The tools children use to manipulate and
change the world and their own neural pathways should reflect the
profundity of that phenomenon; we should have some blisters, form
calluses, break a sweat. Computer games don’t demand that from
The better games are demanding. That is why they are the best games. There are educational games that are very challenging but they are challenging in the way that good play is challenging. It is counter productive to remind children that they learning not playing. The best learning happens when we are playing.
Practicing a skill leads to success, but if the practice is boring then students will be less motivated to engage in the requisite practice (James Gee, 2007). The best digital games provide practice that is very compelling, engaging, and challenging, but never boring. Gamers play not because games are easy but because they are hard. But, they are hard in the right way, to the right degree, and most importantly – they are hard in a fun way. The best games provide the balance of challenge and support. To describe learning as “hard work and not play” is one of the worst possible ways to describe it.
Gee, J.P. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (Rev. ed.). New York: Palgrave McMillian.
To read the full article by Holly Korbey click here;
This could be a great tool for teachers and others who are interested in making learning games.


Japanese Art Before 1392
First Things First...
This lesson plan will cover Japanese Art before 1392, from the Prehistoric to the Kamakura period. A recurring theme in the history of Japanese art and culture is the constant flow of influence from China and its transformation into a unique Japanese form. Thus, often following the lessons on South Asian, Chinese, and Korean art, this lecture can provide great opportunities for students to develop skills in comparative analysis, through which they gain critical assessment of pan-Asian internationalism vs. Japanese local/national style. While Buddhism, spread through the Silk Road, is the most important vehicle for cross-cultural exchanges at this stage in history, comparison to Chinese artifacts, such as ancient pottery and medieval scroll painting, can also be effective.
Nobuo Tsuji, the art historian who authored the most recent survey of Japanese art history (Nihon bijutsu no rekishi, 2005; no English trans.), identifies the tendencies towards “decorativeness,” “playfulness,” and “animism” (including a secular interest in “animating” inanimate things) as three crucial features of Japanese aesthetics. Perhaps, instead of lecturing on such a preset of ideas, ask students to contemplate on what they detect as distinctive qualities of Japanese art for themselves.
Another theme in this lecture is the urge for imagination, animation, and storytelling in visual art. These concepts can perhaps relate to many of your students’ prior knowledge on Japanese art and culture, predominantly derived form manga comics, animé, and video games. Since these Japanese pop-cultural products frequently draw visual and narrative motifs from art and literature of the past, ranging from ancient to modern times, one possible opening exercise could be a formal analysis of Goggle-Eyed Dogū—a motif often adapted to monster/alien/enemy characters in recent Japanese visual culture.
Once students conclude that it is a representation of a woman, comparable to, but with very different emphasis from, the Woman of Willendorf, you can then ask students why they think contemporary creators almost unanimously focus on the “monstrous” quality of this figure, disregarding its feminine identity, and why this prehistoric design, highly stylized and full of creativity, seems to perfectly fit visual fictions of our time. The tendency towards stylization/abstraction and imagination can be related to the interest in simplified or humorous forms and the various storytelling techniques explored in this lecture.
- Goggle-Eyed Dogū, c. 1000–400 BCE
- Storage Jar, c. 300–100 BCE
- Haniwa Warrior, sixth century CE
- Main Hall at Ise Shrine, Mie prefecture
- Hōryū-ji temple, Nara prefecture, c. 711 CE (lost original 607 CE)
- Tori Busshi, Shaka Triad, Golden Hall, Hōryū-ji, 623 CE
- Hungry Tigress, from Tamamushi Shrine, Golden Hall, Hōryū-ji
- Yakushi Triad, Yakushi-ji temple, Nara
- A scene from Kashiwagi Chapter, the Tale of Genji Scrolls, 12th century CE
- The Frolicking of Animals, twelfth century CE
- Night Attack on Sanjō Palace from The Tale of Heiji Scrolls, second half of the thirteenth century CE
Dogū (“clay icon”): an earthenware figurine possibly created for ritual purposes during the Jōmon period.
Emaki or emakimono: illustrated narrative scroll that developed from handscroll painting imported from China into a unique pictorial narrative during the Heian and Kamakura period.
Haniwa (“clay circle”): clay sculpture representing human figures, animals and buildings that were used to adorn the kofun.
Heian-kyō (Kyoto): Japan’s second capital, built in 794 CE.
Heijō-kyō (Nara): Japan’s oldest capital, established in 710 CE.
Jōmon (“cord marking”): the decorative pattern found on prehistoric ceramic objects, created by pressing a cord or rope against unfired clay; the term also refers to the historical period when this style of pottery was produced.
Kana or hiragana: the phonographic writing system, developed from abstracted Chinese characters; initially recognized as on’na-de (feminine style/women’s hand writing) as opposed to otoko-de (masculine style/men’s hand writing) of Chinese characters.
Kofun (“old mound tomb”): large scale burial mounds, erected as the tombs of rulers and community leaders during the Kofun period.
Mahāyāna Buddhism: the school of Buddhism that became spread to Japan and other regions of East Asia. Literary meaning “great vehicles,” Mahāyāna aims for the salvation of a communal whole, in contrast to Theravāda Buddhism, practiced in Sri Lanka and most of Southeast Asia, that focuses on one’s individual path to enlightenment.
Mudra: the hand gesture of Buddhist figures that have symbolic meanings.
On’na-e: feminine style/women’s hand painting characterized by sumptuous rich colors.
Otoko-e: masculine style/men’s hand painting, initially typified by ink monochrome style informed by Chinese painting but later associated with the depiction of dynamic movement or military subject.
Pagoda: a Buddhist reliquary in the form of a tower-like structure; the tall, slender design originated in Han dynasty China, replacing the dome-shaped stupa reliquary developed in India.
Shintō (“the way of gods”): indigenous religion of Japan that worships yaoyorozu no kami (Eight Million Gods), various gods and spirits of nature and inanimate objects. Japanese emperors are believed to be the descendants of the one of the supreme deities, the sun goddess Amaterasu. After the arrival of Buddhism to Japan, the elements of the two belief systems were often fused and simultaneously venerated by many Japanese.
Torii gate: a gateway to Shintō shrine.
Yamato: ancient name of Japan.
Yamato-e: literary “Japanese painting,” but used to refer to a painting that depicts local landscape or a domestic subject, in contrast to Chinese-influenced kara-e (“Chinese paining”).
The Jōmon period (c. 11,000–c. 300 BCE) covers a wide range of time when semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers developed Meso/Neolithic culture on the Japanese archipelago. As Jōmon (“cord marking”) refers to the characteristic surface patterns found on numerous clay shards, the invention of pottery making was the hallmark of this culture. Recent scientific research dates some Jōmon clay pots prior to 10,000 BCE, making them the oldest known ceramic objects in history. In the Middle to Late Jōmon phase, clay vessels were profusely decorated with coiled motifs, the most elaborate ones possibly used in rituals.
Also widely produced in this period are clay figurines known as dogū (“clay icon”), mysterious humanoids that exhibit high degree of creativity. Goggle-Eyed Dogū represents the type of dogū frequently excavated in the northeast region, characterized by the exaggerated, coffee bean shaped eyes (“goggle-eyed” because they resemble the snow goggles traditionally worn by the Intuits, but there is no actual cultural/historical connection). While highly stylized and disproportionate, the figure’s pointed breasts, small waist and wide hips unmistakably point to her female identity. The incised lines, cord marking patterns, and series of dots that cover her torso may represent tattoos, and the protrusion on her head could be a headdress or intricate hairstyle. Although the true meaning and function of dogūs remain unknown to us, the goggle-eyed type possibly personified fertility, and since several examples have been discovered with one leg broken, some archaeologists suggest their usage in healing rituals.
Around 300 BCE, a group of emigrants from the Asian continent, possibly war refugees of the Warring States under Zhou dynasty China, arrived in southern Japan via a maritime route or the Korean peninsula, bringing with them Chinese technologies such as bronze and iron casting, and wet rice agriculture. These newcomers to the Japanese islands formed farming communities that grew larger and more permanent, referred to as Yayoi culture (c. 300 BCE–c. 250 CE), which eventually absorbed the indigenous Jōmon population. (While opinions vary, there could be a period when the two cultures coexisted; there is no sign of military conflicts between them.)
The distinctive artistic aesthetic of the Yayoi people is most obvious in their earthenware vessels such as Storage Jar, which displays a striking contrast to the dynamic decoration and imagination of Jōmon potteries. In contrast to the open fired and thickly coiled Jōmon vessels, Yayoi potteries are thinner, more durable, and symmetric in shape thanks to the introduction of kilns and potter’s wheels. Their pottery also completely lacks or only contains simple, minimal decorations.
In the subsequent Kofun period (c. 250–538/552 CE), the Jōmon tendency towards bold creativity and the Yayoi taste for simple elegance seem to have been fused in the production of haniwa (“clay circle”) figurines, a kind of funerary object that adorned the exterior of kofun (“old mound tomb”) tumuli. Between the mid-third and early sixth century, about 160,000 kofun tombs of various shapes and sizes were built as burial mounds for community leaders, the most enormous of which is the key-hole shaped Tomb of Emperor Nintoku in Sakai city, Osaka.
A variety of haniwa—representing men, women, animals, houses and boats—were placed on the top of kofun along the edges, supposedly in order to define the boundary between the worlds of life and death or to guard the deceased in the burial chamber below. Consisting of hollow coiled cylinders with incised holes and lines indicating eyes and mouths, human and animal haniwa are simple in construction, but bluntly communicate unpretentious emotion through their facial expressions and humorous gestures. Haniwa Warrior is one of the most intricate designs created in the late Kofun period, providing detailed visual information of ancient Japan’s arms and armor. A comparison with the terracotta soldiers from the tomb of Qin Shihuandi could be a good topic for class discussion, highlighting the contrast between the Chinese interest in realism as the expression of military power, and the Japanese emphasis on emotional and spiritual quality in simple forms, even in the figure of a warrior.
Kofun tumuli’s spread from the Kinki region, then the political center of Japan, to outer areas throughout the country indicates the establishment of the Yamato (ancient name of Japan) government and the lineage of the Imperial House that still continues today. Shintō, the other major religions of Japan, was closely tied to the empowerment of Japanese Emperors, believed to be the descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu. Literally meaning “the Way of Gods,” Shintō is a polytheistic faith with a wide array of spirits that embody natural objects and phenomena, as well as inanimate things. Such an animistic world view still strongly preoccupies the cultural life of Japan today: one example is the unique tradition of harikuyō (“memorial for broken needles”), born out of the Shintōist respect for mundane everyday objects. One may also recognize similar sensitivity behind Sony’s invention and exploration of the robot dog, Aibo, as a companion animal.
Of over 80,000 Shintō shrines that currently exist in Japan, the most important is the Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture, the foundation of which can be dated as early as 4 BCE in the Yayoi period. Ise Shrine collectively refers to numerous Shintō structures in the area, bilaterally grouped as naikū (the Inner Shrine) consecrated to the sun goddess Amaterasu, and gekū (the Outer Shrine) devoted to the grain god who prepares food for her. A visitor to the Inner Shrine passes under the torii gate and crosses the bridge, both of which mark the transition into a sacred domain, and then proceeds to worship Amaterasu at the Main Hall (honden), protected in the innermost sanctuary and only partially visible behind wood fences.
In a unique ritual known as shikinen sengū (“ceremonial year shrine transfer,” or “the moving of the goddess”), the Main Hall is rebuilt anew every twenty years at an adjacent identical rectangular lot within the sanctuary. This practice is believed to have begun in 690 CE, and except for occasional delays and the 120-year-long disruption due to civil wars in the late fifteenth to sixteenth century, has been continued to this day with the most recent occurrence in October 2013. The architectural style and technique of ancient Japan, including the selection and preparation of materials, thus has been preserved through rituals, not in the physical originality of the building. The Main Hall’s unchanged style, specifically known as shinmei zukuri, is characterized by a gabled roof supported by main pillars on its short sides, an entrance on one of the long sides, and a raised floor and veranda surrounding the building, believed to have evolved from raised-floor granaries.
The end of the Kofun period is marked by the official introduction of Mahāyāna Buddhism to Japan in 538 or 552 CE (recently the former date is more supported in Japan, but most art history surveys in English list the latter date), made through gifts of the Buddhist scriptures and a gilt bronze statue from King Seong-wang of Baekje (one of the Korean Three Kingdoms) to Emperor Kinmei. The subsequent Asuka, Hakuhō, and Nara periods (538/552-645-710-794 CE) are separated by major political incidents, but are related by the centralization of Buddhism in Japan’s politics and society. The assimilation of Buddhism also promoted direct exchanges with China and further absorption of continental art, culture, and philosophies. The Buddhist artifacts and monuments created in this phase, still extant in Japan, are important records of early Buddhist art and architecture of all of East Asia. Most Chinese and Korean artifacts and monuments did not survive due to the major Buddhist persecutions in China between the fifth and the tenth centuries, and the predominance of Confucianism in Korea under the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910).
The introduction of a new foreign religion brought confusion to the Yamato court in the mid-sixth century. The civil conflicts between two powerful aristocratic clans, the pro-Buddhist Sogas and the anti-Buddhist Mononobes, ended with the latter’s defeat, and the proclamation of the reconciliation and amalgamation of Shintōism and Buddhism (shinbutsu shūgō) by Prince Shōtoku (572–622 CE). The son of Emperor Yōmei, and later a regent of his aunt Empress Suiko, Prince Shōtoku was a semi-legendary politician and Buddhist scholar, who had become himself the object of worship as the founder of Japan’s first Buddhist monasteries, derived from his research on Chinese and Korean precedents through treatises and illustrations.
One of his achievements, the Hōryū-ji temple complex, located outside Nara is the world oldest extant wood architecture, originally constructed in 607 CE. The present structures are reconstructions completed in c. 711 CE after a fire in 670 CE. The current plan (garan) of Hōryū-ji is asymmetric, as the Middle Gate (chūmon), Five-Story Pagoda, and the Golden Hall (kondō) are arranged slightly off the north-south axis, while the lost original plan is believed to have followed the more orthodox Chinese and Korean style, strictly symmetrical and centered around the Pagoda. This change in layout suggests 1. the increasing significance of the Golden Hall (the main worship hall housing the statue of Buddha), rivaling the previously most important pagoda (the reliquary, or the container for Buddha’s ashes, developed from Indian stupas into vertical structures in China; considered to be the embodiment of the Buddhist doctrine); 2. the Japanese preference for asymmetry, also echoing the asymmetric balance of the pagoda and the Golden Hall.
Comparing the Chinese-influenced Hōryū-ji Golden Hall to the domestic architectural style of the Ise Shrine Main Hall can be a good exercise for detecting the foreign elements newly introduced to Japan: the raised-floor is replaced by a stone platform, and the reed-covered gabled roof is taken over by the double-roofed hip-and-gable style fortified with clay tiles. Although the Golden Hall appears to be a two-story building from the outside, its interior consists only of one story, unlike its Chinese model. The Golden Hall’s interior is presided by a gilt bronze Shaka Triad, a Shakyamuni (historical) Buddha flanked by two attendant bodhisattvas, created by Tori Busshi, a master craftsman of Korean decent.
This Buddha figural group, shown with the “fearlessness” mudra (hand gesture) to symbolize their benevolence, was commissioned in 623 CE as an offering to Prince Shōtoku who had died in the previous year. This object is believed to have survived the 670 fire. The style shows Tori’s familiarity with the continental style of Buddhist sculpture: the frontal pose, flat bodies, slightly enlarged heads with archaic smile, and flowing linear drapery bear a strong resemblance to the Buddhist sculptures created in Northern Wei China or contemporary Korea.
The wall paintings that originally adorned the interior of the Golden Hall were destroyed in a fire in 1949, but photographic evidence suggests that their style was influenced by early Indian paintings, such as the ones at the Ajanta cave temples. Hōryū-ji has other examples of early Japanese Buddhist painting that possibly show the similar international style of the lost Golden Hall wall painting. The base of Tamamushi Shrine, a miniature replica of the destroyed original Golden Hall, is decorated with panel paintings. Two of these paintings illustrate episodes from the Jātaka Tales, a body of literature on the former lives of Shakyamuni Buddha (Gautama Siddhartha), largely derived from folklore and established in India around the fourth century BCE.
Hungry Tigress illustrates Buddha’s encounter in one such reincarnation with a starving tigress, who was on the verge of killing her two cubs out of despair. Even though Buddha compassionately offers his own body to feed the animals, they were too weak to kill him, so he jumps off a cliff to wrench his flesh. The anonymous artist of Hungry Tigress depicted the scene in a continuous narrative, by repeating the slim, elegant figure of Buddha three times in the single pictorial space: he first appears on the cliff top as he takes off his cloth, then is vertically diving in the air, and lastly lies horizontally as his body is devoured by the tigers. Following the sequence of Buddha’s movements from top to bottom, the viewer’s eye traces a large inverted C-shaped curve, which echoes multiple decorative C shapes in the stylized depiction of rugged cliffs on the left edge of the painting. The graceful rhythm created by abstract forms and flowing lines contrasts to the staggering brutality in the story, but paradoxically sublimates Buddha’s deed as the ultimate form of self-sacrifice.
On the continent, the Silk Road trade route reached its height in the eighth century, and the flourishing of international trade from Asia to Europe also impacted various aspects of Japanese society in the Hakuhō-Nara period. As the newly built capital of Heijō-kyō (today’s Nara) was entirely modeled after the Chinese grid urban plan, Tang dynasty China remained the most direct and all-encompassing influence on the political, economic, and cultural system of Japan. However, the wider cultural influence well beyond the border of East Asia also reached Japan at this time, as evidenced by the objects diversely originated from India, Persia, Egypt and Rome still in the imperial collection of the Shōsō-in treasure house at the Tōdai-ji temple.
Yakushi Triad, a Medicine Buddha flanked by Nikkō (Sun Light) and Gakkō (Moon light) bodhisattvas, a sculpture in the Golden Hall of the Yakushi-ji temple, is one embodiment of the rich internationalism of the time. Students can recognize the Greek origin of contrapposto in the figures of the two bodhisattvas, and are also able to trace the transmission of this pose via the Silk Road through the Greco-Indian Gandhara Buddha image, and the Tang dynasty Buddha group at the Longmen cave that they must have studied in the lectures on South Asian and Chinese art.
The body of the Medicine Buddha, cross-legged on falling drapery, is full and robust, revealing the Japanese’s quick departure from the Chinese/Korean-influenced frontal and linear style found in the Shaka Triad just a few decades ago. This new tendency towards a fully rounded body with greater anatomical definition certainly paralleled the Tang dynasty style, most visible in the Longmen Vairocana Buddha, which in turn had been influenced by fleshy Indian Buddhas of the Gupta or Mathura period.
Another sign of internationalism can be found in the relief decorations of the Buddha’s rectangular throne, which contains various designs distinctly derived from four different cultures:
- Greece (the grape vines in the uppermost horizontal band; grapes did not grow in Asia back then);
- Persia (the gem shaped motifs in other horizontal and vertical strips);
- China (the four mythological animals, dragon, phoenix, tiger and turtle/snake, associated with the four directions);
- India (the chubby demon figures behind bell-shaped arches at the bottom of the throne, resembling the indigenous ancient deity of yakusha.)
By the end of the eighth century, the capital of Heijō-kyō was packed with numerous Buddhist temples that were problematically gaining political leverage. In 794 CE, Emperor Kanmu finally moved the capital to Heian-kyō (today’s Kyoto) in order to break free from this corruption, marking the beginning of the Heian period (794–1185/1192 CE). This was a time when actual political control was transferred from emperors to the powerful aristocratic Fujiwara family, who also established refined elegance and sumptuousness as the dominant style of Heian art and culture. The Heian period also saw changes in Japan’s relationship with China.
In the early Heian period, China, still under the prosperous Tang dynasty, continued serving as Japan’s model, but after the fall of the Tang empire (907 CE), the Japanese stopped sending official emissaries to the continent and the Chinese influence quickly diminished. This distance from China in the middle to late Heian phase propelled the burgeoning of unique, national style in art and literature for the first time in Japanese history, such as the development of the new pictorial genre of emaki narrative scrolls. Also of particular interest here is the Japanese self-identification as “feminine,” as opposed to the “masculine” Chinese models: we repeatedly encounter with such binary distinction of “masculine” vs. “feminine” in Heian art, the implication of which would shift in the late Heian/Kamakura period.
In visual art, in addition to the inherently foreign-influenced Buddhist subjects, Heian painters increasingly favored the depictions of the local landscape in four seasons and subjects derived from domestic literature. This type of painting came to be recognized as yamato-e (Japanese painting), as the counterpart to the Chinese-inspired kara-e (Tang painting). In literature, Japanese developed new phonographic letters known as kana, abstracted from a set of kanji (Chinese characters) that had been introduced to the country by the end of the Yayoi period. While official documents and Buddhist texts were still strictly written in kanji, gendered as otoko-de (masculine writing), the usage of kana, or on’na-de (feminine writing), became prominent in personal and intimate literature such as journals, letters, and the 31-syllable verse known as waka (Japanese poems).
The rise of female writers in medieval Japan’s literary scene is a unique phenomenon in human history, and may not have been unrelated to the “feminine” identification (regardless of the author’s actual gender) of the national writing style. The Tale of Genji, arguably the oldest novel in the world, was written by Lady Murasaki, a lady-in-waiting possibly related to the Fujiwara family, and completed by c. 1008 CE. Intended for female readers at the court, the Tale of Genji narrates the fictive lives of Prince Genji and his descendants on an epic scale, equivalent to a 2000-page long modern novel. Its narrative focuses on romantic encounters of Genji, but also communicates existential ebbs and flows with great attention to subtle emotions of characters, addressing the newly emerged unique Japanese aesthetics that embraces evanescence and transience.
The long-standing popularity of the Tale made it one of the most illustrated narratives in the history of Japanese painting. One of the most celebrated examples, the national-treasured Tale of Genji Scrolls come from Heian period, originally a complete set of all 54 chapters rendered on handscrolls, only a handful of which have survived to this day. The production of this lavish set is believed to have been a collective work, involving a calligrapher, a main painter who determined compositions and painted the initial contours, colorists who finished the images outlined by the main painter, and others who were in charge of the paper decorations and mounting of the scrolls. While the set’s provenance is unclear, the sheer scale of the work suggests that it was completed at a national scale, intended for a royal or aristocratic audience. Each scroll typically consists of two or three pairs of a text alternating with illustrations. Thus, when looking at an image, the viewer is already familiar with the event going on in the scene.
A Scene from the Kashiwagi Chapter, the thirty-sixth in the entire tale depicting Genji in his late forties, narrates an episode in which the Third Princess, one of Genji’s consorts, confesses her adultery and her decision to become a nun due to her guilt. The image shows Genji delicately holding the Third Princess’s baby and her lover Kashiwagi. Kashiwagi was the best friend of Genji’s oldest son, but recently died due to his sinful agony, thus the scene tangibly depicts Genji’s sorrow over Kashiwagi’s death and Princess’s departure as well as his benevolence in accepting the now fatherless baby as his own son.
Yet another theme that runs through this episode is that of the poetic justice, or the Buddhist concept of the “retribution of Karma”: as the reader is introduced in earlier chapters, Genji himself has an illegitimate son who goes by as his half-brother, born out of his dangerous liaison with his late stepmother, the youngest concubine of his late emperor-father. In the painting, the face of Genji is rendered in the simplified generic hikime kagihana (“a line for the eye, a hook for the nose”) style, and the dramatic emotions are instead conveyed through the multi-layered rich colors, known as tsukuri-e (“constructed painting”). The rich colors are also a distinctive feature of on’na-e, the “feminine painting.” In order to make the indoor scenes visible to the viewer, the artist devised the hikinuki yatai (“blown-off roofs”) technique, in which the ceilings and roofs of buildings are omitted from the bird’s eye view. While grasping the elegance of the Heian court life in the intricate details of garments, screens and fabrics, the artist also explored the destabilizing effects of the diagonal, asymmetric composition that pushes the figures to one corner.
As opposed to the “feminine painting,” distinguished by rich colors and epitomized in The Tale of Genji Scrolls, otoko-e or “masculine painting” was characterized by the emphasis on brushwork, largely indebted to the ink monochrome tradition of Chinese painting. One of the masterpieces of this masculine style is Frolicking of Animals, a set of four handscrolls belonging to the Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto, and once attributed to the hand of a monk Toba Sōjō (this attribution is now in question due to the various styles recognizable in different volumes). Unlike most other emaki scrolls, Frolicking of Animals is not accompanied by texts but only consists of black-and-white paintings. Even though there seems to be certain narrative themes ask your students to take a look at the first volume before class and to interpret what they see for homework.
The most celebrated first volume depicts anthropomorphized rabbits, frogs, and monkeys engaging in amusing activities that can be interpreted as caricatures of human life and society. The artist’s mastery of brush technique, unmistakable in the brisk and confident brushstrokes, simultaneously captures the essence of animal forms and transforms them into humorous humanized actions. This volume is often considered the origin of Japanese manga due to the use of abstract lines to indicate movement and sounds, a technique commonly used in modern manga. Students can also see that the artist worked directly on the paper without any under-drawings nor mistakes, as typical of East Asian painting tradition.
In the last phase of the Heian period, Japan entered a chapter of political turmoil when the emerging military clans known as samurai overtook the weakening aristocratic. The transition to the Kamakura period (1185/1192–1333 CE) was marked by the Genpei Civil Wars (1180–5 CE), a series of battles fought between the two powerful samurai clans, the Minamotos and the Tairas, which ended with the triumph of the former and the complete destruction of the latter. Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–99 CE) became the first shōgun in Japanese history, the de facto governor of the country. The political influence of the Emperors was reduced to the appointment of shōguns as their regents until the end of the Edo period.
The capital was also for the first time moved to eastern Japan in the city of Kamakura about a hundred miles to the south of today’s Tokyo, where the new artistic taste, reflecting the samurai aesthetics and lifestyle, emerged. Rejecting the graceful and sumptuous Heian court style, Kamukura warriors favored simple and pragmatic, virile and robust qualities This shift in artistic orientation can be recognized in the emaki handscrolls of this period as well.
The Tale of Heiji Scrolls (second half of the thirteenth century CE), created about a hundred years after the Genpei Civil Wars, chronicles the major events of the legendary military conflicts with a vigorous sense of realism, combining the vivid colors of “feminine” (Tale of Genji Scrolls), and the dynamic actions and brushwork of “masculine” (Frolicking of Animals). Although the Tale of Heiji Scrolls themselves are considered “masculine painting,” this categorization did not result from their visual reliance on the Chinese style, but rather stemmed from the “masculine” military subject, giving rise to the “battle painting” narrative sub-genre. Unlike the Tale of Genji Scrolls that break up one chapter into multiple scenes, each volume of the Tale of Heiji Scrolls begins and ends with substantial text parts, and emphasizes an uninterrupted visual representation in the central portion of the scroll.
Night Attack on Sanjō Palace depicts the kidnapping of the ex-Emperor Shirakawa by the Minamoto warriors and their noble ally Fujiwara no Nobuyori, opening with the chaotic procession of the nobles on ox carts, surrounded by warriors on horseback. While deploying conventional bird’s eye perspective, the anonymous painter of the Heiji Scrolls introduced a new technique to divide the foreground and the background of one pictorial space into different scenes, enabling a seamless visual narrative clearly indicative of spatial and temporal progress.
This is most obvious in the middle in which one sees Fujiwara no Nobuyori holding a bow and arrows, ordering the Minamoto troop in the background to attack the palace. In the foreground, court ladies can be seen mourning. The contrast between masculine power and female passivity continues as one witnesses further violence to the left side of this scene, culminating in the dramatic depiction of the burning palace behind the fighting warriors. Because of the meticulously rendered details, the Night Attack volume is also an important visual record of the weapons and armors worn by the samurais of the Kamakura period.
At the End of Class...
Smarthistory on Korea and Japan
Conserving the Gan Ku Tiger scroll painting at the British Museum: © Trustees of the British Museum