The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures

The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures PDF Author: Jeannette Shambaugh Elliot
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295801384
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures traces the three-thousand-year history of the emperor's imperial collection, from the Bronze Age to the present. The tortuous story of these treasures involves a succession of dynasties, invasion and conquest, and civil war, resulting in valiant attempts to rescue and preserve the collection. Throughout history, different Chinese regimes used the imperial collection to bolster their own political legitimacy, domestically and internationally. The narrative follows the gradual formation of the Peking Palace Museum in 1925, then its hasty fragmentation as large parts of the collection were moved perilously over long distances to escape wartime destruction, and finally its formal division into what are today two Palace Museums-one in Beijing, the other in Taipei. Enlivened by the personalities of those who cared for the collection, this textured account of the imperial treasures highlights magnificent artworks and their arduous transit through politics, war, and diplomatic reconciliations. Over the years, control of the collections has been fiercely contested, from early dynasties through Mongol and Japanese invaders to Nationalist and Communist rivals- a saga that continues today. This first book-length investigation of the imperial collections will be of great interest to China scholars, historians, and Chinese art specialists. Its tales of palace intrigue will fascinate a wide variety of readers.

The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures

The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures PDF Author: Jeannette Shambaugh Elliot
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295801384
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures traces the three-thousand-year history of the emperor's imperial collection, from the Bronze Age to the present. The tortuous story of these treasures involves a succession of dynasties, invasion and conquest, and civil war, resulting in valiant attempts to rescue and preserve the collection. Throughout history, different Chinese regimes used the imperial collection to bolster their own political legitimacy, domestically and internationally. The narrative follows the gradual formation of the Peking Palace Museum in 1925, then its hasty fragmentation as large parts of the collection were moved perilously over long distances to escape wartime destruction, and finally its formal division into what are today two Palace Museums-one in Beijing, the other in Taipei. Enlivened by the personalities of those who cared for the collection, this textured account of the imperial treasures highlights magnificent artworks and their arduous transit through politics, war, and diplomatic reconciliations. Over the years, control of the collections has been fiercely contested, from early dynasties through Mongol and Japanese invaders to Nationalist and Communist rivals- a saga that continues today. This first book-length investigation of the imperial collections will be of great interest to China scholars, historians, and Chinese art specialists. Its tales of palace intrigue will fascinate a wide variety of readers.

China in Australasia

China in Australasia PDF Author: James Beattie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351203452
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Drawing on expertise in art history, exhibition studies and cultural studies as well as politics and international relations, China in Australasia presents significant new perspectives on the role of art in the cultural diplomacy of the People’s Republic of China. The book tells the forgotten story of the loan, exchange, and gifting of Chinese art, museum exhibitions—and the use of Chinese arts more broadly—in growing diplomatic relations with Australia and New Zealand, from 1949 to the present day. Its scope includes pre-modern, modern and contemporary sculpture, painting and peasant art, as well as ancient artefacts, performance arts and gardens. In considering the geopolitical connections opened by the arts, this book presents new insights into some of the ways in which China, often in conjunction with local supporters, sought to present itself to the people of Australia and New Zealand. It also considers how, for their part, New Zealanders and Australians worked to expand understandings of their powerful northern neighbour within changing political contexts. The first of its kind, this book-length interdisciplinary study of Chinese soft diplomacy in Australasia will be invaluable to students and scholars of Chinese studies, cultural diplomacy, museum studies and art history.

Emperor Qianlong’s Hidden Treasures

Emperor Qianlong’s Hidden Treasures PDF Author: Nicole T. C. Chiang
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 988852805X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
In this stunning reassessment, Nicole T. C. Chiang argues that the famous Qianlong art collection is really ‘the collection of the imperial household in the Qianlong reign’. The distinction is significant because it strips away the modern, Eurocentric preconceptions that have led scholars to misconstrue the size of the collection, the role of nationalism in its formation, the distinction between art and artifact, and the actual involvement of the emperor in assembling the collection. No one interested in Chinese art will be able to ignore the ramifications of this important study. Emperor Qianlong’s Hidden Treasures: Reconsidering the Collection of the Qing Imperial Household argues that the size of the collection was actually smaller than previously stated. Moreover, the idea that the collection put the whole of the empire on display (and thereby promoted political unity) does not square with the reality that most of the collection was hidden away. Instead, the collection was primarily for the emperor’s gaze alone. Chiang further explains that the collection was largely the product of work done by many specialists working at the Qianlong court, noting that the emperor often assumed a more supervisory role. Preliminary drawings, patterns, models, and prototypes of the items made in the imperial workshops also formed an important part of the collection, as they served to establish standardized models used to run the imperial household. The collection was thus both broader and narrower than previously stated. ‘Chiang has identified many misguided assumptions about the Qing imperial collection. In their place, she proposes a new definition of an imperial collection that does not give primacy to art objects. This bold revisionist thesis may be controversial, but it is important and deserves to be read widely for this exact reason.’ —Dorothy Ko, Barnard College, Columbia University ‘Chiang makes a new argument which will contribute to the literature on Qing imperial art. She shows that a distinction should be made between the Qianlong emperor’s activities in commissioning objects from the palace workshop and his activities in accumulating, assessing, and cataloguing objects that went into what she calls the “imperial household collection.” This work will attract wide attention from scholars in art history.’ —Evelyn S. Rawski, University of Pittsburgh

China’s Heritage through History

China’s Heritage through History PDF Author: Yujie Zhu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040101348
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
China’s Heritage through History employs a longue durée approach to examine China’s heritage through history. From Imperial to contemporary China, it explores the role of practices and material forms of the past in shaping social transformation through knowledge production and transmission. The art of collecting, reproducing, and reinterpreting the past has been an enduring force shaping cultural identity and political legitimacy in China. Offering a unique, non-Western perspective on the history of heritage in China, Zhu considers who the key players have been in these ongoing processes of reconfigured pasts, what methods they have employed, and how these practices have shaped society at large. The book tackles these questions by delving into the transformation of practices related to heritage through examples such as the book collection at Tianyi Private Library, the reproduction of the Orchid Pavilion Preface calligraphy and its associated sites, and the dynamics of exchange within the Liulichang antique market. Zhu reveals how these practices, once reserved for elites, have become accessible to the broader public. These processes of transformation, embodied in various forms of reconfigured pasts, have given rise to modern approaches to preservation, digitisation, museums, and the burgeoning heritage tourism industry. China’s Heritage through History will be an invaluable resource for academics, students, and practitioners working in the fields of heritage, museum studies, and art history.

The Great Chinese Art Transfer

The Great Chinese Art Transfer PDF Author: Michael St. Clair
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611479118
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
This book tells the story of how and why millions of Chinese works of art got exported to collectors and institutions in the West, in particular to the United States. As China’s last dynasty was weakening and collapsing from 1860 into the early years of the twentieth century, China’s internal chaos allowed imperial and private Chinese collections to be scattered, looted and sold. A remarkable and varied group of Westerners entered the country, had their eyes opened to centuries of Chinese creativity and gathered up paintings, bronzes and ceramics, as well as sculptures, jades and bronzes. The migration to America and Europe of China’s art is one of the greatest outflows of a culture’s artistic heritage in human history. A good deal of the art procured by collectors and dealers, some famous and others little known but all remarkable in individual ways, eventually wound up in American and European museums. Today some of the art still in private hands is returning to China via international auctions and aggressive purchases by Chinese millionaires.

The China Collectors

The China Collectors PDF Author: Karl E. Meyer
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1137279761
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
The untold and fascinating history of the unlikely artistic encounters between the US and China, the youngest and oldest of major powers

The Reception of Chinese Art Across Cultures

The Reception of Chinese Art Across Cultures PDF Author: Michelle Ying Ling Huang
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443868558
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
The Reception of Chinese Art Across Cultures is a collection of essays examining the ways in which Chinese art has been circulated, collected, exhibited and perceived in Japan, Europe and America from the fourteenth century to the twenty-first. Scholars and curators from East Asia, Europe and North America jointly present cutting-edge research on cultural integration and aesthetic hybridisation in relation to the collecting, display, making and interpretation of Chinese art and material culture. Stimulating examples within this volume emphasise the Western understanding of Chinese pictorial art, while addressing issues concerning the consumption of Chinese art and Chinese-inspired artistic productions from early times to the contemporary period; the roles of collector, curator, museum and auction house in shaping the taste, meaning and conception of art; and the art and cultural identity of the Chinese diaspora in a global context. This book espouses a multiplicity of aesthetic, philosophical, socio-cultural, economic and political perspectives, and encourages academics, students, art and museum practitioners to re-think their encounters with the objects, practices, people and institutions surrounding the study of Chinese art and culture in the past and the present.

Chinese Painting and Its Audiences

Chinese Painting and Its Audiences PDF Author: Craig Clunas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691253021
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A history of the reception of Chinese painting from the sixteenth century to the present 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. 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. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.

Chinese Politics

Chinese Politics PDF Author: Peter Gries
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135149992
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Written by a team of leading China scholars this text interrogates the dynamics of state power and legitimation in 21st Century China. Despite the continuing economic successes and rising international prestige of China there has been increasing social protests over corruption, land seizures, environmental concerns, and homeowner movements. Such political contestation presents an opportunity to explore the changes occurring in China today – what are the goals of political contestation, how are Chinese Communist Party leaders legitimizing their rule, who are the specific actors involved in contesting state legitimacy today and what are the implications of changing state-society relations for the future viability of the People’s Republic? Key subjects covered include: the legitimacy of the Communist Party internet censorship ethnic resistance rural and urban contention nationalism youth culture labour relations. Chinese Politics is an essential read for all students and scholars of contemporary China as well as those interested in the dynamics of political and social change.

Appearance Politics

Appearance Politics PDF Author: Lex Lu
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501777866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Lex Lu argues in Appearance Politics that crafting an appealing and powerful outward image has long been an essential political instrument in China. Its traces may be found in historical records, imperial portraits, physiognomic prognostications, photographs, posters, statues, and digital images. Employing rare archival materials from Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing, Lu tells the story of these political maneuverings. We learn the ways in which political actors and their agents designed their images, and we observe the shifting standards of male beauty that guided their decisions. Appearance Politics examines five case studies: the usurpation of Ming Prince Zhu Di; the rise of Manchu masculinity and its mixed standards of Han Chinese and Manchu beauty at the Yongzheng court; the use of modern photography and Western male beauty standards at the turn of the twentieth century; the making of the Republican founding father Sun Yat-sen; and the creation of visual templates of Mao Zedong. Lu's rich empirical study counters systematic stereotypical descriptions of Chinese male leadership embedded in Western media and scholarship.