Patterns Of Collecting And Changing Taste In Chinese Art

Nicholas Pearce, University of Glasgow

This course is intended to examine the position of art within traditional Chinese society, looking at its changing role and status and the mechanisms which fuelled these changes. The focus will be upon the arts produced by and for the elite within traditional China: namely the literati, members of the Imperial Court and those who aspired to literati status - the merchants. Some themes to be explored are: why did calligraphy and painting become the dominant arts in China? How significant was the Court in influencing changes in taste? How important were the merchant class and the literati in creating a market for art objects? Attention will also be made to Chinese art and the Chinese art market during the early part of the 20th century, when Chinese art collecting became dominated by the needs of European collectors and museums.

html version

pdf version

The Economy Of Images: Visual Culture In China 1400-1700

Prof. Craig Clunas, Sussex University

In China in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) many new arenas for picture-making were provided by a growing consumer culture, including book-making and printing, maps and topographical illustration, as well as luxury manufactures like ceramics, lacquer, textiles, metalwork and carving. These joined long established traditions of painting to form a rich visual culture. The course will examine the full range of types of picture making in China at this period, and study the validity of drawing parallels with the situation in other parts of the world at the same time.

html version

pdf version

Vision And Subjectivity In Chinese Art

MA in History of Art: Europe, Asia and America

Prof. Craig Clunas, University of Sussex

This course addresses issues of the relationship between 'vision as social fact' and the creation of forms of subjectivity, which have been of major interest to art and cultural historians of the European tradition in recent years. It looks at the specific case of China, testing the validity of the 'visuality' and 'visual culture' paradigms in a different cultural context, within an area of art with an extensive written tradition of its own, which is nevertheless separate in its development from European art.

html version

pdf version

Introduction to the Art and Archaeology of Africa BA Course

Art and Society MA Course

Professor John Picton, School of African and Asian Studies, London

The BA and MA courses treat 'African art' in the widest sense, to include artefacts made between the earliest times and the present, dealing with a great variety of art forms from stone tools and pottery to photography, textiles and masks. Geographically, the range is wide with attention to the artefacts of the diaspora, and scrutiny of the traffic in ideas and things across borders. These courses pay particular attention to the historiography and museology of art in Africa, and emphasise continuing debate concerning key terms and issues such as tradition and modernity. Throughout students are encouraged to work closely with objects and to attend to ways in which artists and viewers place themselves in relation to the works of art of their choice.

Introduction to the Art and Archaeology of Africa BA Course

html version

pdf version

Art and Society MA Course

html version

pdf version