Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Reaktion Books - Picturing History)

Annotation Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China is not simply a survey of sixteenth-century images, but rather, a thorough and thoughtful examination of visual culture in China's Ming Dynasty, one that considers images wherever they appeared--not only paintings, but also illustrated books, maps, ceramic bowls, lacquered boxes, painted fans, and even clothing and tomb pictures. Clunas's theory of visuality incorporates not only the image and the object upon which it is placed but also the culture which produced and purchased it. Economic changes in sixteenth-century China--the rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumers--are thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture The sixteenth century in China was a period of rapid and unprecedented economic expansion. The period also saw a parallel expansion in the sphere of cultural production, as a growing class of consumers of luxury goods benefited from the formation of one of the classic early modern consumer societies. Pictures were a major source of consumable luxury at this period; pictures not only in the form of independently circulating images classifiable as 'art', but also in the form of wall decoration, in books, prints, maps, 'pictures' on ceramics and lacquer boxes, on textile furnishings, and even on the dress of the prosperous. Artefacts that had previously been decorated with formal patterns, or with plants and animals only, now bore landscape scenes, representations of historical characters and incidents, and scenes from literature, often closely related to the world of the illustrated book. This impressively illustrated and accessibly written book is the first attempt to survey this vast array of images in all its aspects, providing a stimulating and innovative point of entry to Chinese history. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be of interest to students of China's history and culture and to all readers interested in theories of visuality. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 1 Introduction......Page 10 2 Positions of the Pictorial......Page 26 3 Representing the Triad......Page 78 4 Practices of Vision......Page 103 5 The Work of Art in the Age of Woodblock Reproduction......Page 135 6 Fears of the Image......Page 150 7 Conclusion......Page 173 References......Page 190 Bibliography......Page 207 Picture Acknowledgements......Page 216 Index......Page 217