Distributed for Reaktion Books
The Art of the Chinese Picture-Scroll
The first extended history of the Chinese picture-scroll.
The Chinese picture-scroll, a long, horizontal painting or calligraphic work, has been China’s pre-eminent aesthetic form throughout the last two millennia. This first history of the picture-scroll explores its extraordinary longevity and adaptability to social, political, and technological change. The book describes what the picture-scroll demands of a viewer, how China’s artists grappled with its cultural power, and how collectors and connoisseurs left their marks on scrolls for later generations to judge.
The Chinese picture-scroll, a long, horizontal painting or calligraphic work, has been China’s pre-eminent aesthetic form throughout the last two millennia. This first history of the picture-scroll explores its extraordinary longevity and adaptability to social, political, and technological change. The book describes what the picture-scroll demands of a viewer, how China’s artists grappled with its cultural power, and how collectors and connoisseurs left their marks on scrolls for later generations to judge.
368 pages | 130 color plates, 20 halftones | 7 1/2 x 9 3/4
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One On Origins and Uses over the First Millennium
Chapter Two Inscribing the Artist and the Collector: The Picture-Scroll in the Song–Liao–Jin Period
Chapter Three Handscrolls in Mongol Palaces
Chapter Four Musing on Shadows: Reading the Ming Picture-Scroll
Chapter Five Qing: Reading the ‘Baroque’ Handscroll
Chapter Six Modernist Uses of the Chinese Picture-Scroll
Chapter Seven The Medium of Silent Poetry in the Late Modern World
References
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Index
Chapter One On Origins and Uses over the First Millennium
Chapter Two Inscribing the Artist and the Collector: The Picture-Scroll in the Song–Liao–Jin Period
Chapter Three Handscrolls in Mongol Palaces
Chapter Four Musing on Shadows: Reading the Ming Picture-Scroll
Chapter Five Qing: Reading the ‘Baroque’ Handscroll
Chapter Six Modernist Uses of the Chinese Picture-Scroll
Chapter Seven The Medium of Silent Poetry in the Late Modern World
References
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Index