Asian Arts

East Asian arts, the visual arts, performing arts, and music of China, Korea (North Korea and South Korea), and Japan. (The literature of this region is treated in separate articles on Chinese literature, Korean literature, and Japanese literature.) Some studies of East Asia also include the cultures of the Indochinese peninsula and adjoining islands, as well as Mongolia to the north. The logic of this occasional inclusion is based on a strict geographic definition as well as a recognition of common bonds forged through the acceptance of Buddhism by many of these cultures. China, Korea, and Japan, however, have been uniquely linked for several millennia by a common written language and by broad cultural and political connections that have ranged in spirit from the uncritically adorational to the contentious...