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SKU:73056608
Exploring the history of art in China from its earliest incarnations to the present day, this comprehensive volume includes two dozen newly-commissioned essays spanning the theories, genres, and media central to Chinese art and theory throughout its history. Provides an exceptional collection of essays promoting a comparative understanding of China’s long record of cultural productionBrings together an international team of scholars from East and West, whose contributions range from an overview of pre-modern theory, to those exploring calligraphy, fine painting, sculpture, accessories, and moreArticulates the direction in which the field of Chinese art history is moving, as well as providing a roadmap for historians interested in comparative study or theoryProposes new and revisionist interpretations of the literati tradition, which has long been an important staple of Chinese art historyOffers a rich insight into China’s social and political institutions, religious and cultural practices, and intellectual traditions, alongside Chinese art history, theory, and criticism
Covering a deep array of topics, the essays are fascinating and informative. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the illustrations, and this is a book about visual art, after all, and a rather expensive one. The images are not so much black and white, as washed-out gray and even-more-washed-out gray, to the point where some of them are virtually indecipherable. Most of the chapters have about four such figures, although some have as few as two, including, for example, Peter Sturman’s chapter on landscape painting, which has extensive discussions on the significance of Fan Kuan’s Travelers among Mountains and Streams and Huang Gongwang’s Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains but illustrates neither. In both cases, the website for the National Palace Museum in Taiwan is cited, with the task of navigating the site in order to find the respective paintings left to the reader. Another painting mentioned by Sturman, Guo Xi’s Early Spring, is cited as being illustrated in another chapter, but the reader who turns to the cited figure in that chapter will find something else there, with the text noting that the painting in question is “unfortunately not available here,” which could have been said of most of the art discussed in the book. Buy it for the essays, if you can afford it, but keep your computer or library of books on Chinese art handy if you want to make better sense of what they’re talking about.
