Alexander Soper

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Alexander Soper (left) receiving the Charles Lang Freer Medal from Milo C. Beach, Director of the Freer Gallery of Art, 1990. Milo Cleveland Beach presenting Freer Medal to Alexander C. Soper.jpg
Alexander Soper (left) receiving the Charles Lang Freer Medal from Milo C. Beach, Director of the Freer Gallery of Art, 1990.

Alexander Coburn Soper III (February 18, 1904 – January 13, 1993) was an American art historian who specialized in Asian art. He was a longtime editor of the journal Artibus Asiae and professor at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. He won the Charles Lang Freer Medal in 1990.

<i>Artibus Asiae</i> journal

Artibus Asiae is a biannual academic journal specialising in the arts and archaeology of Asia. Along with the Ostasiatische Zeitschrift it was one of the most successful journals in its field in the German-speaking part of Europe. The first number of Artibus Asiae appeared in 1925. While earlier issues contained articles in German, French and English, today's contributions are mainly in English. Artibus Asiae is owned and published by the Museum Rietberg in Zurich. Artibus Asiae also published occasional monographs since 1937.

New York University private research university in New York, NY, United States

New York University (NYU) is a private research university spread throughout the world. Founded in 1831, NYU's historical campus is in Greenwich Village, New York City. As a global university, students can graduate from its degree-granting campuses in NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai, as well as study at its 12 academic centers in Accra, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and Washington, D.C.

Charles Lang Freer Medal

The Charles Lang Feer medal was established in 1956 by the Smithsonian Institution in honor of Charles Lang Freer, the founder of the Freer collection. The medal is conferred intermittently, honoring distinguished career contributions made by scholars in the history of art.

Contents

Life and career

Alexander Soper was born in Chicago on February 18, 1904. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1925 with a bachelor's degree, and from Princeton University in 1929 with a master's degree in architecture. He lived in Japan for some time, before returning to Princeton and earning a Ph.D. in art history in 1944. He taught at Bryn Mawr College, and then at the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) for more than 30 years from 1960. After retiring from full-time teaching in the 1980s, he remained a doctoral adviser at IFA. [1]

Chicago City in Illinois, United States

Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,716,450 (2017), it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States, and the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often referred to as "Chicagoland." The Chicago metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States; the fourth largest in North America ; and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area.

Princeton University University in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, and renamed itself Princeton University in 1896.

Architecture both the process and product of planning, designing and construction

Architecture is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings or any other structures. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements.

Soper served as editor of the academic journal Artibus Asiae from 1958 until his death in 1993. His scholarship covered the breath of Asian art, ranging from Chinese and Japanese architecture to Indian Buddhist sculpture. [1]

Chinese architecture style of architecture

Chinese architecture demonstrates an architectural style that developed over millennia in China, before spreading out to influence architecture all throughout East Asia. Since the solidification of the style in the early imperial period, the structural principles of Chinese architecture have remained largely unchanged, the main changes being only the decorative details. Starting with the Tang Dynasty, Chinese architecture has had a major influence on the architectural styles of Japan, Korea, and Mongolia, and a varying amount of influence on the architectural styles of Southeast and South Asia including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Chinese architecture is typified by various features; such as, bilateral symmetry, use of enclosed open spaces, the incorporation of ideas related to feng shui such as directional hierarchies, a horizontal emphasis, and the allusion to various cosmological, mythological, or other symbolism. Chinese architecture traditionally classifies structures according to type, ranging from pagodas to palaces. In part because of an emphasis on the use of wood, a relatively perishable material, and due to a de-emphasis on major monumental structures built of less-organic but more durable materials, much of the historical knowledge of Chinese architecture derives from surviving miniature models in ceramic and published planning diagrams and specifications. Some of the architecture of China shows the influence of other types or styles from outside of China, such as the influences on mosque structures originating in the Middle East. Although displaying certain unifying aspects, rather than being completely homogeneous, Chinese architecture has many types of variation based on status or affiliation, such as dependence on whether the structures were constructed for emperors, commoners, or used for religious purposes. Other variations in Chinese architecture are shown in the varying styles associated with different geographic regions and in ethnic architectural design.

The architecture of China is as old as Chinese civilization. From every source of information—literary, graphic, exemplary—there is strong evidence testifying to the fact that the Chinese have always enjoyed an indigenous system of construction that has retained its principal characteristics from prehistoric times to the present day. Over the vast area from Chinese Turkistan to Japan, from Manchuria to the northern half of French Indochina, the same system of construction is prevalent; and this was the area of Chinese cultural influence. That this system of construction could perpetuate itself for more than four thousand years over such a vast territory and still remain a living architecture, retaining its principal characteristics in spite of repeated foreign invasions—military, intellectual, and spiritual—is a phenomenon comparable only to the continuity of the civilization of which it is an integral part.

Japanese architecture

Japanese architecture has traditionally been typified by wooden structures, elevated slightly off the ground, with tiled or thatched roofs. Sliding doors (fusuma) were used in place of walls, allowing the internal configuration of a space to be customized for different occasions. People usually sat on cushions or otherwise on the floor, traditionally; chairs and high tables were not widely used until the 20th century. Since the 19th century, however, Japan has incorporated much of Western, modern, and post-modern architecture into construction and design, and is today a leader in cutting-edge architectural design and technology.

In 1990, he became the ninth person to be awarded the Charles Lang Freer Medal by the Smithsonian Institution. [2]

Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers administered by the United States government

The Smithsonian Institution, founded on August 10, 1846 "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge," is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. Originally organized as the "United States National Museum," that name ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967.

Personal

Soper had a son, John, who lived in New Hampshire, and four grandchildren. He died at his home in Rosemont, Pennsylvania on January 13, 1993, at the age of 88. [1]

New Hampshire State of the United States of America

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. New Hampshire is the 5th smallest by area and the 10th least populous of the 50 states. Concord is the state capital, while Manchester is the largest city in the state. It has no general sales tax, nor is personal income taxed at either the state or local level. The New Hampshire primary is the first primary in the U.S. presidential election cycle. Its license plates carry the state motto, "Live Free or Die". The state's nickname, "The Granite State", refers to its extensive granite formations and quarries.

Rosemont, Pennsylvania Place in Pennsylvania, United States

Rosemont is an unincorporated community in Pennsylvania on the Philadelphia Main Line between Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and Villanova, Pennsylvania, lying partly in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania, and partly in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.

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The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country and contain art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of American art. The gallery is located on the south side of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., contiguous with the Sackler Gallery. The museum is open 364 days a year, and is administered by a single staff with the Sackler Gallery. The galleries are among the most visited art museums in the world.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Alexander Soper, 88; Historian of Asian Art". New York Times. January 14, 1993. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  2. ↑ Soper, Alexander. (1990). A Case of Meaningful Magic.
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