Art and Artistic Thinking in Ancient China
Asian Art Museum and Art Media Resources, Inc., 2025. Two volumes, hardcovers, with dust jackets, in a slipcase. Item #45934 Now available for shipping. Ten years in the making, this study of the arts of ancient China examines the histories of jade, pottery, silk, lacquer, bronze, and display writing from the late Neolithic (fourth millennium BC) to the end of Warring States (third century BC). No text from this time bears on workshops and techniques, or on the thinking of artists; no text of any kind survives from the Neolithic. This dearth of written sources, though limiting in many ways, concentrates the mind on fundamentals: the historian must rely on archaeology and on what can be learned from the objects themselves. The works of a given time and place have features in common because of their common point of departure in what already exists. They differ from the works of the previous generation, and from one another, by choices and changes made by artists and their patrons. Many things condition the patron’s demands, and many more condition the artist’s response, but all external factors, from passing fashion to royal mandate to metal shortages, act through individuals, with consequences that are never wholly predictable. Constructing an explanatory history of works of art—making sense of them—thus depends on finding access to the thinking of individuals, whether their names are known or not. When plausible predecessors for a work can be found, they offer a way into the thinking behind it, for its departures from them reflect decisions, conscious or unconscious. The last half century of Chinese archaeology has vastly improved the prospects of such an investigation by bringing to light an undreamt-of wealth of material from datable and otherwise informative contexts. Most of the works illustrated in this book were still underground in 1970. No book written in that year could undertake what Bagley and Wang have attempted. No book written now could hope to be comprehensive or definitive, for excavation continues apace. But for scholars and amateurs alike, the works examined here, full of surprises, amount to a new world, one with the power to enlarge our conception of the possibilities of art. Note: This deluxe two-volume set is housed in a custom slipcase (total weight: approximately 20 lbs). Due to its size and weight, an additional handling fee is included at checkout. Please note that extra shipping charges may apply to international orders.
ISBN: 9780939117918
Table of Contents
(click to view)
Volume I (616 pages)
Director’s Foreword
Acknowledgements
Preface
Maps
Chapter 1. Prehistoric Preliminaries
Chapter 2. Early Jade in the Far Northeast
Chapter 3. Painted Pottery in the Northwest: Majiayao
Chapter 4. The Lower Yangzi Region: Liangzhu
Chapter 5. The Lower Yellow River Valley: Dawenkou and Longshan
Chapter 6. Circa 2000 BC
Chapter 7. The Middle Yellow River Valley, c.1800–1500 BC: Erlitou
Chapter 8. The Erligang Culture and Its Spread, c.1500–1300 BC
Chapter 9. Anyang, c.1300–1000 BC
Chapter 10. The Early Bronze Age in the Yangzi Region
Chapter 11. The Western Zhou Period, Late Eleventh Century to 771 BC
Chapter 12. Eastern Zhou Preliminaries and the Eighth Century
Chapter 13. The Seventh Century
Chapter 14. The Sixth Century
Chapter 15. The Sixth and Fifth Centuries at the Last Capital of Jin
Chapter 16. The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at Hubei Suizhou, 433 BC
Chapter 17. The Fourth and Third Centuries
Chapter 18. Parting Thoughts: the Western Han Period, 206 BC–AD 8
Notes and References
Character Glossary
Bibliography
Figure Credits
Index
Volume II (680 pages)
Figures (corresponding to Volume I)
Price: $200.00