The history of China― brilliantly told and brought vividly to life through more than 6,000 years of artifacts and treasures
This illustrated introduction to the history of China offers a fresh understanding of China’s progress from the Neolithic age to the present. Told in six chapters arranged chronologically, through art, artifacts, people, and places, and richly illustrated with expertly selected objects and artworks, it firmly connects today’s China with its internationally engaged past.
From the earliest archaeological relics and rituals, through the development of writing and state, to the advent of empire, the author charts China’s transformation from ancient civilization into the world’s most populous nation and influential economy, offering historical insights and cultural treasures along the way. This accessible book presents an eclectic mix of materials including Chinese theater, the decorative arts, costume, jewelry, and furniture-making, running through to the most recent diffusion of Chinese culture.
650 illustrations
Review
"A superb introduction to China's past. explaining and illustrating it through artifacts drawn mainly from the collections of the British Museum… The author incorporates a wide range of recent historical, archaeological and scientific research. China: A History in Objects is a tour de force, distilling complex historical phenomena into manageable chunks explored through material evidence. The clear and confident narratives accompanied by a wide range of compelling Chinese artifacts will delight beginners and specialists alike."
― The Art Newspaper
About the Author
Jessica Harrison-Hall is Head of the China Section, Curator of the Sir Percival David Collections, and Chinese Decorative Arts at the British Museum.
Author(s): Jessica Harrison-Hall
Series: British Museum: A History in Objects
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Language: English
Pages: 352
Tags: Chinese history, Chinese art, History in objects
Cover
Contents
Introduction
1. Early China, 5000-221 BC
1. Yangshao Neolithic pottery and stone tools
2. Majiayao and Qijia Neolithic pottery
3. Dawenkou and Longshan Neolithic pottery
4. Hongshan Neolithic jades
5. Liangzhu Neolithic ritual jades
6. Neolithic Shimao to Bronze Age Erlitou
7. Neolithic and later sculptures
Anyang: the last Shang capital
8. Shang ritual wine vessels
9. Shang ritual food vessels
10. Early writing
11. Zhou inscribed bronzes
12. Zhou horse and chariot fittings
Confucius: China’s greatest philosopher
13. Eastern Zhou weapons and ornaments
14. Making bronzes at Houma
15. Ornamenting bronze with contrasting inlays
16. Early glass-making
17. Northern nomads: Ordos and the steppe
18. Southern Chu and Yue states
2. Empires 221 BC-AD 960
Qin Shihuangdi: China’s first emperor
1. Han tombs
2. Glazed pottery models for burial
3. Han lacquer
4. The Admonitions Scroll
Mogao, near Dunhuang: caves of a thousand Buddhas
5. Buddhist stone carvings
6. Portable metalwork deities
7. Silk Road silks and embroidery
8. Buddhist paintings
9. Buddhist architecture
10. Tang tomb figures
11. Tang luxury goods
12. Tang mirrors
13. Ceramics for home and abroad
14. Tang glass
15. Liao luxury goods
3. Emperors, cholars and merchants, 960-1279
1. Tomb bricks
2. Luohan figures from Yixian
3. Devotional images of Guanyin
Kaifeng: northern capital
4. Ru and Zhanggongxiang wares
5. Early Jun wares
6. Ding food and wine vessels
7. Northern popular wares
Hangzhou: southern capital
8. Guan wares and their copies
9. Song narrative painting
10. Song mirrors
11. Perfume and cosmetics
12. Qingbai wine vessels
13. Tea drinking
14. Reinventing the past
15. Plum blossom motifs
Quanzhou: cosmopolitan port of Marco Polo
16. Export ceramics
4. Mongols and Ming, 1271-1644
1. Zaju opera and Cizhou ceramics
2. Porcelain from Jingdezhen
3. Yuan lacquer
4. Collecting antique paintings
5. Heavenly beings
6. Popular ceramics from Hebei and Shanxi
Zhu Di: the Yongle emperor
7. Ming money
8. Zhenwu, God of War
9. The Forbidden City
10. Gardening in the Forbidden City
11. Ming Buddhist temples
12. Gilt-bronze Buddhist sculpture
13. Buddhist ritual equipment
Ming tombs: mausoleum of the emperors
14. Ming cloisonné
15. Ming court porcelain
16. Gold, silver and gems for the Ming courts
17. Carved lacquer
18. Middle Eastern trade and court taste
19. Middle Eastern metalwork and Chinese porcelain
20. Trade in celadons with India
21. Chenghua ʻpalace bowls’
22. One Hundred Boys
Chinese gardens
23. Ming landscape paintings
24. The literate, illiterate and literary gods
25. Calligraphy
26. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
27. Ming inlaid lacquers with figures
28. Ming hardwood and lacquered furniture
29. Ming tomb furnishings
30. Ming architectural and temple ceramics
31. Archaistic Ming bronzes
32. Ming fashion for antique jades
33. Ming jade belts
34. Ivory carvings of immortals
35. Blue-and-white export porcelain
5. Qing: the last dynasty, 1644-1911
1. Orthodox Chinese paintings and the Four Wangs
2. Qing individualist painters
3. Romance of the Western Chamber
4. Painting with Daoist themes
Life in the Forbidden City
5. Qing imperial porcelain
6. Enamels on copper
7. Qing glass
8. Qing court lacquer
9. Qing cloisonné
10. Palace lighting
11. The Qing military
12. Qing women’s jewellery
13. Qianlong the collector
14. Qianlong seals and writing
15. Qing state ritual
16. Tibetan Buddhism and the Qing court
17. Flower symbolism and the four seasons
18. Coloured woodblock printing
Guangzhou: centre for direct trade with Europe
19. Trade with Europe
20. Tea trade
21. Armorial porcelains and individual clients
22. Copying European ceramics and prints
23. Clocks and watches made in Europe for China
24. Encounters
25. Plants and gardening
Dowager Empress Cixi
26. Wars and the end of an empire
6. Modern China, 1911-present
1. Ancestors and family life
2. New Year prints
Shanghai: China’s most fashionable city
3. Advertising and cartoons
4. Lu Xun
5. Art glorifying war
6. Images of hardship during the war years
Mao Zedong: founder of the People’s Republic of China
7. Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution
8. Chinese artists working outside mainland China
9. New ways of representing the natural world
10. Prints and paintings of changing China
11. Avant-garde language and landscape
12. New art, old forms
13. Modernist calligraphy
14. Modern embroidery
Selected bibliography
Index
