TREASURE SHIPS: ART IN THE AGE OF SPICES AT AGSA James Bennett – TAASA Review March 2015
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This article was originally found in the March 2015 edition of TAASA Review (Volume 24, Issue 1, Page 4).
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T reasure ships at the Art Gallery of South Australia presents the extraordinary story of east-west artistic exchange in the era between c.1500-1800, known as the ‘age of spices’.
The exhibition includes a diverse selection of more than 300 objects, ranging from paintings and decorative arts to manuscripts and shipwreck artefacts, from public and private collections in Portugal, India, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States and around Australia.
They reveal how the international trade in spices and other exotic commodities inspired dialogue between Asian and European artists, a centuries old conversation whose heritage is the aesthetic globalism we know today. Europe’s infatuation with pepper, nutmeg and cloves has often been explained as the ingredients necessary to preserve cooked foods in the days before the invention of refrigeration...