The Stonewares of Yixing
The Stonewares of Yixing

Author: Kuei-hsiang Lo

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 1986-01-01

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9789622091122

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Despite its beauty, individuality and variety of design, the red or brown unglazed stoneware produced at Yixing in Jiangsu Province has received less attention than other branches of Chinese ceramic art. The Yixing potters have always specialized in the making of teapots, whose use became widespread during the Ming period as a result of the innovation of making tea from rolled leaves, rather than using it in the fine-ground, powdered from in which it had previously been supplied.

The Emperor's Private Paradise
The Emperor's Private Paradise

Author: Nancy Zeng Berliner

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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This exhibition catalogue offers a magnificent, thorough study of 90 objects from the Qianlong Garden in Beijing's Forbidden City. Objects include wall paintings, furniture, architectural fittings, ceramics, and stone. They have been on public view infrequently and only in the Qianlong Garden, which is now undergoing a 20-year restoration under the lead of the World Monuments Fund and Beijing's Palace Museum. The garden is a two-acre tract consisting of 27 buildings, their contents, and a mature landscape--the whole complex is characterized as a "multi-layered artwork." Following an introduction by Elliott (Harvard), Berliner (Peabody Essex Museum) presents the general characteristics of scholar and emperor gardens, and the early gardens of Emperor Qianlong, along with a minute analysis of the Qianlong Garden. Yuan Hongqi (Palace Museum), Liu Chang (Tsinghua Univ., Beijing), and Henry Tzu Ng (World Monuments Fund) treat the garden's subsequent history. Interlaced throughout are superb illustrations of the objects and the garden, followed by a catalogue with small illustrations of objects, and their curatorial data; a chronology; a comparative, annotated time line; maps; glossary; and Chinese pronunciation guide. This must-buy publication is a model of sensitive scholarship that places the garden and its objects in an understandable, universal context. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by D. K. Haworth.

The Troubled Empire
The Troubled Empire

Author: Timothy Brook

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-03-11

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0674072537

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The Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empireÑa millennium and a half in the makingÑwas suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions. If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders. Against this backgroundÑthe first coherent ecological history of China in this periodÑTimothy Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to ChinaÕs incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world.

Avatars and Antiheroes
Avatars and Antiheroes

Author: Claudia Albertini

Publisher: Kodansha Amer Incorporated

Published: 2008-02-29

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9784770030719

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Chinese contemporary art is currently enjoying a worldwide boom, fetching record-breaking prices at auction houses around the globe. The country's rapid transition from Communism to consumerism, and the dizzying changes brought about by urbanization, globalization and new technologies have created a fascinating explosion of art overwhelmingly concerned with the search for self-identity in a society that, from Confucius to Mao, has traditionally disregarded individualism for the collective good. Avatars and Antiheroesreflects the schizophrenic undercurrents of a nation in continuous fast-forward. From the Cynical Realism and Political Pop movements associated with the post-Tiananmen generation of artists such as Yue Minjun, whose grinning representations of himself as antihero seem to mock the revolutionary heroes of old, to the pop-culture generation spearheaded by Cao Fei, whose digital avatars live in a world without borders, this book showcases the work of the most important contemporary artists to emerge from China in recent years. Stunning full-color plates of the work of Chinas leading painters, photographers, sculptors, performance artists, video artists, and even a fireworks artist are complemented by insightful commentary from Beijing-based art specialist Claudia Albertini, who personally interviewed many of the artists featured.

China between Empires
China between Empires

Author: Mark Edward LEWIS

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0674040155

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After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the third century CE, China divided along a north-south line. This book traces the changes that both underlay and resulted from this split in a period that saw the geographic redefinition of China, more engagement with the outside world, significant changes to family life, developments in the literary and social arenas, and the introduction of new religions.

Techniques of Chinese Lacquer
Techniques of Chinese Lacquer

Author: Filippo Buonanni

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 0892369531

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Published on the occasion of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum focusing on the conservation of the Victoria and Albert Museum's Mazarin Chest, from March 3 to May 24, 2009, this is the first English translation of Jesuit Filippo Bonanni's eighteenth-century treatise, considered the most important and comprehensive early study of Chinese lacquer in Europe. Bonanni relates various authors' attempts to understand and analyze the composition of the newly imported Chinese lacquer. He lists a variety of recipes of the time as well as their effectiveness--including various European recipes developed as an affordable alternative to the Chinese import--and offers what he considers the most reliable recipe, as well as his own appraisal of the best uses and applications of the lacquer. An invaluable primary source for scholars and conservators.

Possessing the Past
Possessing the Past

Author: 國立故宮博物院

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 666

ISBN-13: 0810964945

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A major scholarly work, published in conjunction with the exhibition titled "Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei" (on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during 1996, and scheduled for several other American cities during 1996-1997). Written by scholars of both Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds and conceived as a cultural history, the book synthesizes scholarship of the past three decades to present the historical and cultural significance of individual works of art and analyses of their aesthetic content, as well as reevaluation of the cultural dynamics of Chinese history. Includes some 600 illustrations, 436 in color. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR