China: A History in Objects (British Museum: A History in Objects)

I wish there were a little more explanatory text, but the pictures are wonderful! You can get a high level overview of Chinese history and art history in one gorgeous volume.

Lavishly illustrated in full color, interesting text. Wonderful book, and the photos of paintings, porcelain, ceramics, bronze work, statues, and more are great. Highly recommend

China: a History in ObjectsThis is a scholarly and endlessly fascinating history. I am very impressed with it.Here is a book that sets out to do something many have tried but, I suggest, few have succeeded: embody a single yet unintimidating and accessible volume with the ambitious scope of China's vast history. I have read several China histories before and while always interesting none have proved to have the stimulating, page-turning quality of this offering from the British Museum's Harrison-Hall.Presenting objects from the British Museum's own collection as well as Beijing's National museum and elsewhere, China: A History in Objects, imho successfully, guides the reader from the Neolithic to the modern age, fascinating and enlightening as it goes. You'll learn about ceramic and porcelain, bronze and metallurgy, jade, furniture, architecture, paintings, calligraphy, cloisonné and much more.The book blends the latest research and superb photographs to present archaeological finds and cultural treasures - the narrative underpinning - as you follow the chronology of the various states which in turn dominated the territories of the Middle Kingdom. You'll find brief biographies on key figures such as Qin Shi huangdi, Confucius, Zhu Di - Yongle emperor, and significant emperors right up to the last Qing ruler. Then modern China is covered through Mao to modernist artists like Wu Guan Zhong. I found the format utterly compelling: a blend of quality images and brief but informative notes giving you the context for, and insights into, the countless treasures within.Neolithic pots, Ming period Jingdezhen porcelain, the Admonitions Scroll, intricately carved lacquer vessels, and my favourites (so far!) include the Eastern Zhou gold sword hilt, the Tang tomb figures and Song period narrative paintings. Helpfully correcting perhaps a too persistent misconception, Harrison-Hall from the off, points out that China, rather than developing as an insular series of states, actually absorbed influences from outside continually. I expect to come across more scholarly insights as I continue to read it.As a primer for those intending to study the country and culture, it cannot fail. I wish I'd had something like this years ago! As background reading for those embarking on a tour, or as a compendium and gift for someone with a curiosity about China, the book will surely tick a lot of boxes. For its accessibility and potential for hours of exploration and not least for its undoubted ability to whet the appetite for further reading, it is a remarkable achievement and I thoroughly recommend it.

The history of China is too long to be narrated in a book like this, but this book is an important, if not indispensable, companion to books on the history of China because it places objects from each significant period of China's civilisation from 5000 years BCE. This book begins with a picture of a red earthenware from Xi'an and a head of a green stone axe from Henan.Each period has its distinct style. The reader will be endlessly fascinated just comparing the ceramics of the Tang Dynasty (800-850 CE) and the porcelain of the Ming Dynasty a thousand years later (1,500 CE). The simple but evocative paintings of the Qing Dynasty are, perhaps, the most well-known and best loved among modern artists who love to emulate that style. When the Occidental world discovered what China had to offer, the tea trade saw many Western products making their way to China. teapots and crockery recovered from the sunken Dutch ship 'Geldermalsen' reveals the history of both worlds.The chapter on modern China (from 1911 onwards) include vinyl records and paintings by artists outside China as well as artefacts from the Cultural Revolution of Mao Tze Tung. The book ends with modernist calligraphy, and modern Chinese embroidery.

Not really a history, more an illustrated catalogue of the China highlights of the British Museum, with some significant objects from elsewhere thrown in. The historical information is rather perfunctory and disconnected, and given the many geographical references, the complete absence of maps is frustrating. A number of the larger objects are shown without enlargements of detail, and in many cases without even taking up the full width or height of the page; as a result they can't be appreciated. This is a particular problem with the painted scrolls. Where this book would be useful is as a prelude to studing the objects in the museum.

Very good comprehensive book about the Chinese art objects

Dla każdego miłośnika Chin pozycja obowiązkowa. Świetny dobór fotografii i merytoryczne opisy oraz eseje. Edytorsko jest to majstersztyk.