What is Chinese painting? When did it begin? And what are the different associations of this term in China and the West? In Chinese Painting and Its Audiences, which is based on the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts given at the National Gallery of Art, leading art historian Craig Clunas draws from a wealth of artistic masterpieces and lesser-known pictures, some of them discussed here in English for the first time, to show how Chinese painting has been understood by a range of audiences over five centuries, from the Ming Dynasty to today. Richly illustrated, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences demonstrates that viewers in China and beyond have irrevocably shaped this great artistic tradition. Arguing that audiences within China were crucially important to the evolution of Chinese painting, Clunas considers how Chinese artists have imagined the reception of their own work. By examining paintings that depict people looking at paintings, he introduces readers to ideal types of viewers: the scholar, the gentleman, the merchant, the nation, and the people. In discussing the changing audiences for Chinese art, Clunas emphasizes that the diversity and quantity of images in Chinese culture make it impossible to generalize definitively about what constitutes Chinese painting. Exploring the complex relationships between works of art and those who look at them, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences sheds new light on how the concept of Chinese painting has been formed and reformed over hundreds of years.

China boasts a history of art lasting over 5,000 years and embracing a huge diversity of forms - objects of jade, lacquer and porcelain, painted scrolls and fans, sculptures in stone, bronze and wood, and murals. But this rich tradition has not, until now been fully appreciated in the West where scholars have focused attention on the European high arts of painting and sculpture, downplaying arts more highly prized by the Chinese themselves, such as calligraphy. Art in China marks a breakthrough in the study of the subject. Drawing on recent innovative scholarship - and newly-accessible studies in China itself - Craig Clunas surveys the full spectrum of the visual arts in China. He ranges from the Neolithic period to the art scene of the early 21st century, examining Chinese art in a variety of contexts - as it has been designed for tombs, commissioned by rulers, displayed in temples, created by the men and women of the educated elite, and bought and sold in the marketplace. This updated edition contains expanded coverage of modern and contemporary art, from the fall of the empire in 1911 to the growing international interest in the art of an increasingly confident and booming China.

This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes ""superfluous things"" - the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China - and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.

Winner of the IBP 2017 Specialist Publication Accolade awarded by the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) This ground-breaking, beautifully illustrated publication is the outcome of the conference 'Ming: Courts and Contacts 1400-1450' that accompanied the British Museum's major exhibition Ming: 50 years that changed China (September 2014-January 2015). The scope of the exhibition and conference focused on Ming dynasty China in the years 1400 to 1450, a time when China was the largest (and one of the most prosperous) states in the world, ruled by a single family through a network of imperial and regional courts. During this period, many cultural, social and political themes that were to dominate China's history from this point onwards were either created or consolidated. These include the definitive decision to place the political capital in the north, while the south-central region evolved as an economically dominant entity, a dichotomy that still remains today. This is also a period when contacts of unprecedented scale took place between the Ming empire and the wider world, particularly between courts, through embassies, an aggressive military forward policy and court-sponsored maritime expeditions. The early Ming also remains a period that defines contemporary Chinese conceptions of their own history, and that history's relations to the rest of the world. Where previous scholarship may have focused on specific aspects of the period or dealt with a range of issues covering the whole of the Ming dynasty, this volume presents the first detailed examination of the crucial years from the Yongle to the Zhengtong era through a diverse range of approaches and materials. It integrates more fully material culture perspectives with the work of social, political, economic, intellectual and cultural historians and situates early Ming court culture within a wider global context.

This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes "superfluous things"-the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China-and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.

Screen of Kings is the first book in any language to examine the cultural role of the regional aristocracy - relatives of the emperors - in Ming dynasty China (1368-1644). Through an analysis of their patronage of architecture, calligraphy, painting and other art forms, and through a study of the contents of their splendid and recently excavated tombs, this innovative study puts the aristocracy back at the heart of accounts of China's culture, from which they have been excluded until very recently. Screen of Kings challenges much of the received wisdom about Ming China. Craig Clunas sheds new light on many familiar artworks, as well as works that have never before been reproduced. New archaeological discoveries have furnished the author with evidence of the lavish and spectacular lifestyles of these provincial princes and demonstrate how central the imperial family was to the high culture of the Ming era. Written by the leading specialist in the art and culture of the Ming period, this book illuminates a key aspect of China's past, and will significantly alter our understanding of the Ming. It will be enjoyed by anyone with a serious interest in the history and art of this great civilization.