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With clear, readable explanations, this Chinese art history book provides a visual insight into the very rich history of Chinese sybbolism. Can decorative objects increase one's wealth, happiness, or longevity? Traditionally, many Chinese have believed that they could—provided they include the appropriate auspicious symbols. In Hidden meanings in Chinese Art Asian Art Museum Curator Terese Tse Bartholomew, culminating decades of research, has provided a thorough guide to such symbols. Auspicious symbols in Chinese art are often in the form of rebuses—visual puns. Because many words in Chinese share the same pronunciation, there is a wealth of opportunities for such punning, and over the ...
This beautifully illustrated volume introduces a little-known but outstanding collection of Asian textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art at teh University of Kansas.
Annotation Experts in the fields of Chinese art, religion, literature, and history introduce and illuminate many of the issues surrounding child imagery in China, including the frequent use of pictures of children to reinforce social values. Topics include a historical overview; images of children in song, painting, poetry, at play, as icons of good fortune, and in stories; the childhood of gods and sages; folk deities; and family pictures. The text is accompanied by 100-plus color and b&w illustrations. A glossary of Chinese characters is included. Edited by Wicks (art history, Miami U). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
"The Dragon's Gift offers a rare opportunity to introduce, to the wider international audience, some of the most sacred Buddhist images of Bhutan. From the wealth of material surveyed, the organizers of the exhibition have selected over one hundred objects of superior aesthetic achievement and deep religious significance, the vast majority of which have never before been seen in the West. Nearly all of the works of art presented in this catalogue are from active temples and monasteries and remain in ritual use. Most of the items are painted or textile thangkas or gilt bronze sculptures which date primarily from the 17th to the 19th centuries - a golden age in the Buddhist arts of Bhutan. Ran...
This is the definitive guide to Chinese jades from the Ming dynasty through the early twentieth century
Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.
In early nineteenth-century China, a remarkable transformation took place in the art world: artists among China’s educated elites began to use touch to forge a more authentic relationship to the past, to challenge stagnant artistic canons, and to foster deeper human connections. Networks of Touch is an engaging exploration of this sensory turn. In this book, Michael J. Hatch examines the artistic network of Ruan Yuan (1764–1849), a scholar-official whose patronage supported a generation of artists and learned people who prioritized epigraphic research as a means of truing the warped contours of Confucian heritage. Their work instigated an “epigraphic aesthetic”—an appropriation of ...
The Qing Dynasty was the last of the conquest dynasties to rule China. Its rulers, Manchus from the north, held power for three centuries despite major cultural and ideological differences with the Han majority. In this book, Evelyn Rawski re-interprets the remarkable success of this dynasty, arguing that it derived not from the assimilation of the dominant Chinese culture but rather from an artful synthesis of Manchu leadership styles with Han Chinese policies.
The imperial residence of Chengde was built by two powerful and ambitious Manchu emperors between 1703 and 1780 in the mountains of Jehol. This volume, the first scholarly publication in English on the Manchu summer capital, reveals how this unlikely architectural and landscape enterprise came to help forge a dynasty's multicultural identity and concretize its claims of political legitimacy. Using both visual and textual materials, the author explores the hidden dimensions of landscape, showing how geographical imagination shaped the aesthetics of Qing court culture while proposing a new interpretation of the mental universe that conceived one of the world's most remarkable examples of imperial architecture.
Depictions of children have had a prominent place in Chinese art since the Song period (960-1279). Yet one would be hard pressed to find any significant discussion of children in art in the historical documents of imperial China or contemporary scholarship on Chinese art. Children in Chinese Art brings to the forefront themes and motifs that have crossed social boundaries for centuries but have been overlooked in scholarly treatises. In this volume, experts in the fields of art, religion, literature, and history introduce and elucidate many of the issues surrounding child imagery in China, including its use for didactic reinforcement of social values as well as the amuletic function of these...