Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China

Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern Chinais not simply a survey of sixteenth-century images, but rather, a thorough and thoughtful examination of visual culture in China's Ming Dynasty, one that considers images wherever they appearednot only paintings, but also illustrated books, maps, ceramic bowls, lacquered boxes, painted fans, and even clothing and tomb pictures. Clunas's theory of visuality incorporates not only the image and the object upon which it is placed but also the culture which produced and purchased it. Economic changes in sixteenth-century Chinathe rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumersare thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern Chinawill be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture.