Art in China (review)

© 1999 by University ofHawaii Press Reviews 79 Craig Clunas. Art in China. Oxford History ofArt. Oxford and NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1997. 256 pp. 125 Illustrations. Hardcover, isbn 0-19-284244-7. Paperback, isbn 0-19-284207-2. Art in Chinaby Craig Clunas is a macro view ofthe cultural history of China from the Neolithic era to today. The author singles out key art historical monuments that reveal important aspects ofChinese civilization. Whenever possible he utilizes the archaeological discoveries that have either radically changed or confirmed our perceptions about China. These excavated works of assured date and provenance as well as historic objects with clear identities are points ofdeparture for a narrative account stressing their function and meaning. These revelations arise from their discerned usage and their perceived significance to the society of their time. Clunas adds a new dimension to the comprehensive histories of Chinese art that have traditionally been organized sequentially according to broad dynastic horizons. With different priorities, the compositional analysis and stylistic development—the focus of traditional art historical texts—are de-emphasized here. In addition, the materials and techniques of artistic production—keys for understanding a work ofart—are insufficiently treated. Instead, this book tells us what art history and archaeology can contribute to our understanding ofChinese civilization. It is subdivided into five topics: "Art in the Tomb," "Art in the Court," "Art in the Temple," "Art in the Life of the Elite," and "Art in the Market Place." Art in China is an art history emphasizing function, meaning, and patronage in Chinese art. Clunas was a member of the curatorial team that installed the huge Chinese art collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in its new T. T. Tsui Galleries. The curators provided new solutions to the problem of how to give intelligibility and coherence to the display. The thought processes initiated by that project bear fruit in the organization ofthis book. The author rightly observes in his introduction that the term "Chinese art" as understood in the West is an invention of the modern academic discipline of art history a century ago. This sobriquet is overly simplistic and ignores the multiple complexities ofa country of continental proportions that has a continued existence over many millennia, governed by changing elites who ruled a land of enormous diversity. Any historical treatise should instead define art in China in terms of artistic production for which constituencies and at what time. Moreover, in China itself there is a long history of art and criticism with its own unique focus that reflects the myriad evolving aspects of that civilization. Recent Western notions about art and aesthetic quality have negated many traditional definitions. Questions ofaesthetic quality are rarely broached in this book but are tacitly considered in the selection of objects and in the ensuing comments about them. 8o China Review International: Vol. 6, No. i, Spring 1999 The first section is fittingly tided "Art in the Tomb" since most of the material evidence ofthe Chinese Neolithic, bronze age, and early imperial periods is derived from funerary sites. Clunas begins with a discussion ofa jade tablet of the Neolithic Longshan culture ascribable to the late third millennium b.c. that was once in the collection ofthe Qianlong emperor (Gaozong, 1736-1795) and is now in the custody of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. The accompanying exposition reveals his methodology: the selection of a work that typifies its era and culture, with extended illuminating explanation. The revered status ofjade in Neolithic society, the importance attached to this tablet by the Qianlong emperor, and the speculative interpretations by Chinese scholars over many centuries are noted. This coverage of the Neolithic era is confined to jade and omits any mention ofpottery, the quintessential medium ofNeolithic cultures. This decision was perhaps prompted by the realization that in our present state ofknowledge declarations as to function and meaning are better withheld, a stance made more cogent by the contemporary propagandists exploitation of "the past to serve the present." The discussion ofthe bronze age duly notes the seminal importance ofthe Anyang discoveries and the challenge to the epicenter theory by the recent excavations at Guanghan, Sichuan. The use ofbronze vessels in sacrificial ancestral...