ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the latter relates to 'overcoming modernity' in terms of an 'East Asian art history' and its significance and potential. For East Asia to overcome its own modernity within this divide between history and reality, and establish an 'East Asian art history' based upon actuality, the question of whether this legacy of modernity can be overcome becomes an important criterion for this narrative. Underpinning the establishment of 'art history' in East Asia that does not reflect the actual history of art is the post-19th-century collapse of a Sinocentric Asia; in its wake the East Asian nations constructed their own histories anchored around nationalism. In other words, for East Asia to overcome its own modernity within this divide between history and reality, and establish an 'East Asian art history' based upon actuality, the question of whether this legacy of modernity can be overcome becomes an important criterion for this narrative.
