Pictures for use and pleasure

University of California Press

2010

ix, 265 p.

9780520258570

Recognizing vernacular painting -- Studio artists in cities and court -- Adoptions from the West -- The artists' repertories -- Beautiful women and the courtesan culture -- Conclusion -- Appendix. Poem by Zhou Qi -- Glossary -- List of Chinese names and terms.

This is an outstanding piece of work: timely, essential, authoritative, and original. Cahill throws light on obscure artists, emerging styles and regional traditions, unexplored aspects of cultural life, enigmatic iconographies, and questions of authorship and authenticity, leaving the reader richly informed and full of new ideas." Susan Nelson, Indiana University. "Cahill brings the vast body of ̀vernacular' painting into the legitimate venue of art historical criticism, giving connoisseurs, viewers, and readers a more capacious and accurate grasp of the world of Chinese pictorial art." Susan Mann, author of The Talented Women of the Zhang Family. In this groundbreaking book. James Cahill significantly expands the field of Chinese pictorial art history with the first scholarly account of paintings for "use and pleasure" during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from the end of the Ming through the Qianlong period. These functional, so-called vernacular works were produced by professional urban artists for affluent patrons. Traditional Chinese collectors disparaged these works, which were intended as decoration or produced to mark a special occasion, and favored the "literati" paintings of upper-class amateurs. But today the often stunning vernacular images strengthen our understanding of High Qing culture. They bring to light the Qing or Manchu emperors' fascination with erotic culture in the thriving cities of the Yangtze Delta and revise our understanding of gender roles. They also demonstrate the growth of figure painting within and around Beijing's imperial court and show that Chinese artists made important use of European styles. Pictures for Use and Pleasure introduces a rich corpus of work, long ignored in studies of the period's art, and opens new windows on later Chinese life and society.

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