Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

China can boast a history of art lasting 5,000 years and embracing a huge diversity of images and objects - jade tablets, painted silk handscrolls and fans, ink and lacquer painting, porcelain-ware, sculptures, and calligraphy. They range in scale from the vast `terracotta army' with its 7,000 or so life-size figures, to the exquisitely delicate writing of fourth-century masters such as Wang Xizhin and his teacher, `Lady Wei'. But this rich tradition has not, until now, been fully appreciated in the West where scholars have focused their attention on sculpture, downplaying art more highly prized by the Chinese themselves such as calligraphy. Art in China marks a breakthrough in the study of the subject. Taking into account all the arts practised in China, and drawing on recent innovative scholarship, Craig Clunas examines the production and consumption of art in its appropriate contexts. He deals with art found in tombs, patronised by rulers, displayed in temples, created by the upper classes, and bought and sold in the marketplace. Full coverage is given of the twentieth-century, including the state-controlled art of the Mao Zedong era and the art of the 80s and 90s driven by the international art markets.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

These two current overviews of Chinese art take very different approaches. Keeper of the Department of Eastern Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Tregear offers a chronologically organized work that covers its topic in brief survey form, using representative examples of bronzes, painting, laquerware, ceramics, jade, and stone carving. The book is so brief and the sweep is so broad that a reader not already familiar with the general outline of Chinese history and common Chinese terms may have trouble forming a coherent picture, particularly in regard to the earliest centuries covered. Significantly, Tregear leaves out the important find of a cache of figures at Shanxingdui in 1986, which has been of enormous importance in broadening the known range of cultures in ancient China. On the other hand, she provides an excellent section on 20th-century Chinese art, an area neglected by many of the standard histories. Clunas's (history of art, Univ. of Sussex) approach, by contrast, involves a more critical, theoretical inquiry into Western notions of Chinese art. He eschews a chronological arrangement in favor of thematic chapters on art at court, in the tomb, in the temple, in the life of the elite, and in the marketplace. He makes a point of including objects that have been considered masterpieces intermixed with other less well-known works. He is concerned throughout his text with issues of the historical place of art in Chinese society and with how that society evaluated various objects. The finds at Shanxingdui are mentioned, and some attention is paid to 20th-century work, though not as much in Tregear's survey. Both of these titles have merits as overviews of Chinese art and both could be used by students as well as interested lay readers. If your library can afford only one work, Clunas's is the more up-to-date, both in approach to its material and in selection of works to discuss.‘Kathryn Wekselman, Univ. of Cincinnati Lib., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Measured against the heavy freight of hype employed in its marketing, this book does not fare very well. Taken at face value and considered on its own terms, however, it presents an engaging, if slight, survey of art in China up to and including the present era. The coverage is restricted to surviving artifacts, carefully selected, many of which are not normally illustrated in general books of this type. Five categories organize the discussion: funerary art; the art of the elite groups, courtly, religious and scholarly; and art as commodity. The chronologies run parallel and intermingle, and so do the historicocultural contexts, as they are lightly defined. The adapted encyclopedia format restricts analysis and detailed discussion of historical evidence, but it does not diminish the author's sparkling insights, sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Fine color illustrations extend the impact of the discourse, as do the "windows" of text that deal with highly specific information. Most useful is the bibliographical essay, with assessments and guidance by the author and an extensive comparative chronological chart, which reintegrates graphically what the discourse breaks down into categories. Not as substantial as Wen C. Fong and James C.Y. Watt's Possessing the Past (CH, Jan'97), nor as lively as Maxwell K. Hearn's Splendors of Imperial China (CH, Nov'96), nevertheless, a useful guide for general readers. D. K. Dohanian University of Rochester

Booklist Review

The Oxford University Press has long published works that combine scholarliness with accessibility. The Oxford History of Art series exemplifies their signature style with the added value of gorgeous reproductions. The series promises to be a grand and inclusive series of truly global dimensions. Each of the inaugural five volumes presents sumptuous reproductions and dynamic syntheses of artistic and historical themes. The authors offer fresh and stimulating theories of how art has defined and challenged national and regional identities and mirrored or questioned officially sanctioned gender roles and class divisions. In the three volumes about art in Europe and China, the authors, art historians with impeccable credentials and engaging prose styles, carefully resurrect neglected or forgotten artists; trace important artist-mentor relationships; reveal the nexus between art, religion, and politics; explore the connections between fine and decorative arts; and track the symbiotic evolution of art and technology, a theme found front and center stage in the series' excellent volumes on photography and twentieth-century design. With nearly 50 projected titles, the Oxford History of Art will become a mainstay in art history collections. --Donna Seaman

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Craig Clunas is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Sussex. His publications include Fruitful States: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China (Reaktion, 1996), Chinese Export Art and Design (V and A, 1987), and Chinese Export Watercolours (V and A, 1984).