Product Description

This book takes a look at Chinese art within a variety of contexts—archeological, cultural, historical, social, and ritual/religious. Organized both chronologically and thematically, it covers a full historical span and includes a wide range of media settings for art—from elite to popular. An emphasis on the dynamic processes that effect the history of Chinese art: social, economic, political competition, urbanization, markets and tastes, and quests for cultural authority, allows specific works of art to be discussed in extensive detail, while setting them within larger explanatory stories. A guide to Chinese art for individuals interested in one of the most abundantly artistic cultures in the history of the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #394130 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Boasting a history of 7,000 years and counting from Neolithic jade carving to contemporary video installation China may be the world's most "abundantly productive, staggeringly artistic continuous culture," according to the authors of Chinese Art & Culture. In presenting 230 b&w and 128 color illustrations, Robert L. Thorp, Washington University professor of art history and archeology, and Richard Ellis Vinograd (Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits 1600-1900) devote admirable attention to social, political and economic contexts for Chinese work, examining, for example, the imperial ethos detected in an earthenware figure. The book's release coincides with an exhibit of 19th- and 20th-century Chinese painting at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which should help call attention to it.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Telling the story of Chinese art in the context of Chinese history and culture, Thorp (history and archaeology, Washington Univ.) and Vinograd (art history, Stanford Univ.) give this handsomely illustrated book a graceful, unpretentious ease that will be rare and refreshing to readers of art history. The book draws on the insights and approaches of recent scholarship and discoveries to explore the essence of Chinese art, examining the reasons for its creation, its relationship to political and social development, its economic functions, and its connection to personal rituals. Taking in over 7000 years, from late Neolithic cultures to the 20th century, this book provides a fine introduction to Chinese art for students, historians, and art lovers. It is especially poignant in its examination of contemporary Chinese art from the vantage points of identity and community, two fundamental bases of life for the Chinese people. Highly recommended to all public and academic libraries. Lucia S. Chen, NYPL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Robert L. Thorp is professor of art history and archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. Richard Ellis Vinograd chairs the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University He Lives in California.