The Painter's Practice : How Artists Lived and Worked in Traditional China / James Cahill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cahill, James, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art patronage--China--History.

Art patronage.

Painters--China--Economic conditions.

Painters.

Painters--China--Social conditions.

Painting, Chinese--Ming-Qing dynasties, 1368-1912.

Painting, Chinese.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : 117 illus

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [1995]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In The Painter's Practice, James Cahill reveals the intricacies of the painter's life with respect to payment and patronage--an approach that is still largely absent from the study of East Asian art. Drawing upon such unofficial archival sources as diaries and letters, Cahill challenges the traditional image of the disinterested amateur scholar-artist, unconcerned with material rewards, that has been developed by China's literati, perpetuated in conventional biographies, and abetted by the artists themselves. His work fills in the hitherto unexplored social and economic contexts in which painters worked, revealing the details of how painters in China actually made their living from the sixteenth century onward. Considering the marketplace as well as the studio, Cahill reviews the practices and working conditions of artists outside the Imperial Court such as the employment of assistants and the use of sketchbooks and prints by earlier artists for sources of motifs. As loose, flamboyant brushwork came into vogue, Cahill argues, these highly imitable styles ironically facilitated the forger's task, flooding the market with copies, sometimes commissioned and signed by the artists themselves. In tracing the great shift from seeing the painting as a picture to a concentration on the painter's hand, Cahill challenges the archetype of the scholar-artist and provides an enlightened perspective that profoundly changes the way we interpret familiar paintings.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

One. Adjusting Our Image of the Chinese Artist

Two. The Painter's Livelihood

THREE The Painter's Studio

Four. The Painter's Hand

Notes

Bibliography (Works in English)

Illustrations

Inedx

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

0-231-52200-2

OCLC:

1032679358