Synopses & Reviews
Gardens are sites that can be at one and the same time admired works of art and valuable pieces of real estate. As the first account in English to be wholly based on contemporary Chinese sources, this beautifully illustrated book grounds the practices of garden-making in Ming Dynasty China (1369-1644) firmly in the social and cultural history of the day.
Who owned gardens? Who visited them? How were they represented in words, in paintings and in visual culture generally, and what meanings did these representations hold at different levels of Chinese society? Drawing on a wide range of recent work in cultural theory, Craig Clunas provides for the first time a historical and materialist account of Chinese garden culture, and replaces broad generalizations and orientalist fantasy with a convincing picture of the garden's role in social life.
Synopsis
This innovative, beautifully illustrated book grounds the practices of garden-making in Ming Dynasty China (1368-1644) firmly in the social and cultural history of the day. Craig Clunas provides a rich picture of a complex cultural phenomenon, one that was of crucial importance to the self-fashioning of the Ming elite.
Craig Clunas is the Percival David chair of Chinese art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and the author of Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Reaktion, 1997).
About the Author
Craig Clunas is professor of History of Art at the University of Oxford. He is the author of many books, including Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China and Elegant Debts: The Social Art of Wen Zhengming, also published by Reaktion Books.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Fruitful Garden
2. The Aesthetic Garden
3. The Gardens of the Wen Family
4. The Represented Garden
5. The Landscape of Number
Conclusion
References
Bibliography
Index