Craig Clunas's Books

Elegant Debts

The Social Art of Wen Zhengming

By: Craig Clunas

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Elegant Debts

The Social Art of Wen Zhengming

By: Craig Clunas

This book takes an innovative approach to one of the great figures of Chinese culture, the writer and painter Wen Zhengming (1470–1559). Renowned as one of the great “scholar painters” of the Ming dynasty, Wen was enmeshed in a complex web of social obligations, his “elegant debts” as he called them, which led to many of his most celebrated works. Using an unprecedented quantity of primary sources for his life and work, Elegant Debts looks at the ways in which social obligation and gift exchange were central to personal and individual identity in the Ming period. The book also examines Wen’s family relationships, his friends, mentors, and pupils, his sense of a distinct local identity, and the interplay of national and regional politics with the achievements of his long life. It uses the insights of a range of scholarship—art history, social and literary history, and anthropology—to show how “self” was constructed in Ming China. In doing so, it makes a major contribution toward a more diverse art history that is less dependent on European conceptions of artists and their work. Craig Clunas has published extensively in the field, and is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars of Ming culture. Featuring many images of the work of one of China’s major painters, this book is accessible to all who are interested in China’s culture and history, as well as to students and scholars of art history and the history of culture.

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Page Count

234

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824827724

ISBN 13

9780824827724

Fruitful Sites

Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China

By: Craig Clunas

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Fruitful Sites

Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China

By: Craig Clunas

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.

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242

Publisher

Reaktion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

178023158X

ISBN 13

9781780231587

Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

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Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China is 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 appeared—not 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 China—the rapid expansion of trade routes and a growing class of consumers—are thus intricately bound up with the evolution of the image itself. Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China will be a touchstone for students of Chinese history, art, and culture.

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230

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Reaktion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1861894996

ISBN 13

9781861894991

Superfluous Things

Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

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Superfluous Things

Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

Now in paperback This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes “superfluous things”—the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China—and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.

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Page Count

252

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824828208

ISBN 13

9780824828202

Fruitful Sites

Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China

By: Craig Clunas

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Fruitful Sites

Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China

By: Craig Clunas

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242

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Reaktion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

178023158X

ISBN 13

9781780231587

Chinese Painting and Its Audiences

By: Craig Clunas

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Chinese Painting and Its Audiences

By: Craig Clunas

A history of the reception of Chinese painting from the sixteenth century to the present What is Chinese painting? When did it begin? And what are the different associations of this term in China and the West? In Chinese Painting and Its Audiences, which is based on the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts given at the National Gallery of Art, leading art historian Craig Clunas draws from a wealth of artistic masterpieces and lesser-known pictures, some of them discussed here in English for the first time, to show how Chinese painting has been understood by a range of audiences over five centuries, from the Ming Dynasty to today. Chinese Painting and Its Audiences demonstrates that viewers in China and beyond have irrevocably shaped this great artistic tradition. Arguing that audiences within China were crucially important to the evolution of Chinese painting, Clunas considers how Chinese artists have imagined the reception of their own work. By examining paintings that depict people looking at paintings, he introduces readers to ideal types of viewers: the scholar, the gentleman, the merchant, the nation, and the people. In discussing the changing audiences for Chinese art, Clunas emphasizes that the diversity and quantity of images in Chinese culture make it impossible to generalize definitively about what constitutes Chinese painting. Exploring the complex relationships between works of art and those who look at them, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences sheds new light on how the concept of Chinese painting has been formed and reformed over hundreds of years. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.

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304

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691253021

ISBN 13

9780691253022

Superfluous Things

Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

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Superfluous Things

Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

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Page Count

252

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University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824828208

ISBN 13

9780824828202

Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

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Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China

By: Craig Clunas

Pictures were a major source of consumable luxury at this period; pictures not only in the form of independently circulating images classifiable as 'art', but also in the form of wall decoration, in books, prints, maps, 'pictures' on ceramics and lacquer boxes, on textile furnishings, and even on the dress of the prosperous. Artefacts that had previously been decorated with formal patterns, or with plants and animals only, now bore landscape scenes, representations of historical characters and incidents, and scenes from literature, often closely related to the world of the illustrated book.

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230

Publisher

Reaktion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1861890087

ISBN 13

9781861890085

Art in China

By: Craig Clunas

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Art in China

By: Craig Clunas

China can boast a history of art lasting 5,000 years and embracing a huge diversity of images and objects - jade tablets, painted silk handscrolls and fans, ink and lacquer painting, porcelain-ware, sculptures, and calligraphy. They range in scale from the vast 'terracotta army' with its 7,000or so life-size figures, to the exquisitely delicate writing of fourth-century masters such as Wang Xizhin and his teacher, 'Lady Wei'. But this rich tradition has not, until now, been fully appreciated in the West where scholars have focused their attention on sculpture, downplaying art more highlyprized by the Chinese themselves such as calligraphy. Art in China marks a breakthrough in the study of the subject. Drawing on recent innovative scholarship and on newly-accessible studies in China itself Craig Clunas surveys the full spectrum of the visual arts in China. He ranges from the Neolithic period to the art scene of the 1980s and 1990s,examining art in a variety of contexts as it has been designed for tombs, commissioned by rulers, displayed in temples, created for the men and women of the educated ilite, and bought and sold in the marketplace. Many of the objects illustrated in this book have previously been known only to a fewspecialists, and will be totally new to a general audience.

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Page Count

260

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192842072

ISBN 13

9780192842077

Chinese Painting and Its Audiences

By: Craig Clunas

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Chinese Painting and Its Audiences

By: Craig Clunas

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304

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Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691253021

ISBN 13

9780691253022

Intending Scotland

Explorations in Scottish Culture since the Enlightenment

By: Cairns Craig

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Intending Scotland

Explorations in Scottish Culture since the Enlightenment

By: Cairns Craig

A major reconsideration of our understanding of the development of Scottish culture from the Enlightenment to the present day.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0748679332

ISBN 13

9780748679331

Empires of Ancient Eurasia

The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE

By: Craig Benjamin

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Empires of Ancient Eurasia

The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE

By: Craig Benjamin

Introduces a crucial period of world history when the vast exchange network of the Silk Roads connected most of Eurasia.

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Page Count

317

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1107114969

ISBN 13

9781107114968

Damn' Rebel Bitches

The Women of the '45

By: Maggie Craig

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Damn' Rebel Bitches

The Women of the '45

By: Maggie Craig

Damn' Rebel Bitches takes a totally fresh approach to the history of the Jacobite Rising by telling fascinating stories of the many women caught up in the turbulent events of 1745-46. Many historians have ignored female participation in the '45: this book aims to redress the balance. Drawn from many original documents and letters, the stories that emerge of the women - and their men - are often touching, occasionally light-hearted and always engrossing.

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Page Count

264

Publisher

Random House

Published Date

ISBN 10

1780572964

ISBN 13

9781780572963

Jewelry

The Body Transformed

By: Melanie Holcomb,Kim Benzel,James A. Doyle,Moira Gallagher,John Guy,Navina Najat Haidar,Hannah Korn,Soyoung Lee,Maia Nuku,Diana Craig Patch,Joanne Pillsbury,Courtney A. Stewart,Beth Carver Wees

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Jewelry

The Body Transformed

By: Melanie Holcomb,Kim Benzel,James A. Doyle,Moira Gallagher,John Guy,Navina Najat Haidar,Hannah Korn,Soyoung Lee,Maia Nuku,Diana Craig Patch,Joanne Pillsbury,Courtney A. Stewart,Beth Carver Wees

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana} As an art form, jewelry is defined primarily through its connection to and interaction with the body—extending it, amplifying it, accentuating it, distorting it, concealing it, or transforming it. Addressing six different modes of the body—Adorned, Divine, Regal, Transcendent, Alluring, and Resplendent—this artfully designed catalogue illustrates how these various definitions of the body give meaning to the jewelry that adorns and enhances it. Essays on topics spanning a wide range of times and cultures establish how jewelry was used as a symbol of power, status, and identity, from earflares of warrior heroes in Pre-Colombian Peru to bowknot earrings designed by Yves Saint-Laurent. These most intimate works of art provide insight into the wearers, but also into the cultures that produced them. More than 200 jewels and ornaments, alongside paintings and sculptures of bejeweled bodies, demonstrate the social, political, and aesthetic role of jewelry from ancient times to the present. Gorgeous new illustrations of Bronze Age spirals, Egyptian broad collars, Hellenistic gold armbands, Japanese courtesan hair adornments, jewels from Mughal India, and many, many more explore the various facets of jewelry and its relationship to the human body over 5,000 years of world history.

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Page Count

283

Publisher

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published Date

ISBN 10

1588396509

ISBN 13

9781588396501

Screen of Kings

Royal Art and Power in Ming China

By: Craig Clunas

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Screen of Kings

Royal Art and Power in Ming China

By: Craig Clunas

Screen of Kings is the first book in any language to examine the cultural role of the regional aristocracy – relatives of the emperors – in Ming dynasty China (1368–1644). Through an analysis of their patronage of architecture, calligraphy, painting and other art forms, and through a study of the contents of their splendid and recently-excavated tombs, this innovative study puts the aristocracy back at the heart of accounts of China’s culture, from which they have been excluded until very recently. Screen of Kings challenges much of the received wisdom about Ming China. Craig Clunas sheds new light on many familiar artworks, as well as work that have never before been reproduced. New archaeological discoveries have furnished the author with evidence of the lavish and spectacular lifestyles of these provincial princes and demonstrate how central the imperial family was to the high culture of the Ming era. Written by the leading specialist in the art and culture of the Ming period, this book will illuminate a key aspect of China’s past, and will significantly alter our understanding of the Ming. It will be enjoyed by anyone with a serious interest in the history and art of this great civilization.

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Page Count

250

Publisher

Reaktion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1780231407

ISBN 13

9781780231402

Chinese Art and Design

The T. T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese Art

By: Rose Kerr,Verity Wilson,Craig Clunas

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Chinese Art and Design

The T. T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese Art

By: Rose Kerr,Verity Wilson,Craig Clunas

Taking the V & A's Chinese collection as its starting point, this book shows how art objects were used by the Chinese in sumptuous burials, in temples, in the elegant mansions of the rich and the splendid setting of the Imperial Court. It contains sections on the uses of porcelain, laquer, jade, silk and precious metals.

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255

Published Date

ISBN 10

1851770399

ISBN 13

9781851770397

Interlopers

The Difficult People and Life Experience that Prepare us for Greater

By: Kenny D. Craig

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Interlopers

The Difficult People and Life Experience that Prepare us for Greater

By: Kenny D. Craig

Dream killers, ditch diggers, backstabbers...we’ve all had them in our lives. And even though we’d rather avoid them at all costs, God has plans for them—and for us. Joseph (of the coat of many colors) had a life full of these interlopers, from the brothers who wanted to murder him and sold him into slavery, to the conniving wife of his master, Potiphar. Though some might think God abandoned Joseph to these betrayers, Interlopers: The Difficult People and Life Experiences That Prepare Us for Greater helps us understand that God uses such interlopers to transform us and prepare us for greater destinies, just as he did for Joseph, leading us from the pit to the palace while changing us in ways we could never imagine. This book balances nicely the hard truths, suggesting what we need to do to be better and to keep ourselves in the best shape for the paths God has set out for us, along with encouragement for how to do so. It will be an enjoyable addition to the libraries of those looking for encouragement through their struggles and for ways they can actively improve their lives by “simply” changing their views about their struggles.

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Dog Ear Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1457557762

ISBN 13

9781457557767

The Second Season of Growth

By: Craig Childress Johnson

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The Second Season of Growth

By: Craig Childress Johnson

Advice given when buying plants or trees is "Don't expect any blooms the first year. Fruit trees may require three years." I planted a slim brown stick in my yard and got nothing the first year except a thin brown stick with a few leaves on it. During its second season of growth and beyond, that brown stick grew to 7 inches in diameter and now produces wondrous 20 foot pink clouds each spring. In an ideal world we learn lessons the first time around. So often, as with daffodils and cherry trees, we need more time to get it. Winter, incendiary summer, a few storms, and unexpected late frost toughen us, giving us confidence to face whatever life has for us. We can then bloom where we are planted. We often don't have choices about challenges life gives us, but we have free-will in deciding how to respond to them. We can embrace the One who gives Wisdom to live life abundantly. May these vignettes inspire you to find pearls of learning and wisdom to be harvested from the depths of your own life.

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Page Count

200

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1365777820

ISBN 13

9781365777820

Return to Innocence

By: Craig a Huber

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Return to Innocence

By: Craig a Huber

Genesis I believe you make the world a better place from within for reality starts with thought. Thought without guidance of a pure heart creates sadness. So many people are sad. Rich people, poor people, people who lost their dreams blaming the world they created in their minds. I came into this world with a smile and a passion, but too stubborn to realize what the real battle is. I am beginning to understand some things after all these years. And I have suffered for giving up on my dreams and betraying my moral fabric. Nevermore. I believe I have some insights through my poems from personal tragedy, indiscretions, refocus, and newfound faith. There is something intrinsic to the American Dream, to doing what is right in your heart despite the harsh words permeating our world. Everyone wants to pursue their dreams within the quiet embrace of innocence. This is what Return to Innocence is all about and a hopeful inspiration for you.

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ISBN 10

1641149906

ISBN 13

9781641149907

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