- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press; New edition edition (July 2 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0691009570
- ISBN-13: 978-0691009575
- Product Dimensions: 28.1 x 21.8 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #401,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
A truly unique book to clarify the mind about what Chinese art is now and what it was. -- "Choice
[A] stimulating and provocative overview of the theme of creativity in Chinese art . . . This may be a book with a large and ambitious thesis, but it is also one very firmly grounded in specifics . . . illustrated with a richness and aptness which is rarely seen today . . . The clarity of exposition and the liveliness of the language makes each of the eight linked essays a pleasure to read on its own . . . The work deserves a wide readership, drawn from anyone who thinks that creativity matters. -- Craig Clunas, Burlington Magazine
While the idea that traditional China can be defined by its production processes is not entirely new, only with Lothar Ledderose's Ten Thousand Things has that argument been made comprehensively, and in terms that fully engage the social and art historian . . . [A]n excellent resource for the social and art history of China. -- James A. Flath, Pacific Affairs
Ledderose's book, although written to be accessible to a nonspecialist reader, should have an equally impressive impact on scholars. . . . After reading it, one cannot but be excited about the future direction and possibilities of Chinese art history. -- Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Journal of Asian Studies
[A] stimulating and provocative overview of the theme of creativity in Chinese art . . . This may be a book with a large and ambitious thesis, but it is also one very firmly grounded in specifics . . . illustrated with a richness and aptness which is rarely seen today . . . The clarity of exposition and the liveliness of the language makes each of the eight linked essays a pleasure to read on its own . . . The work deserves a wide readership, drawn from anyone who thinks that creativity matters. -- Craig Clunas, Burlington Magazine
While the idea that traditional China can be defined by its production processes is not entirely new, only with Lothar Ledderose's Ten Thousand Things has that argument been made comprehensively, and in terms that fully engage the social and art historian . . . [A]n excellent resource for the social and art history of China. -- James A. Flath, Pacific Affairs
Ledderose's book, although written to be accessible to a nonspecialist reader, should have an equally impressive impact on scholars. . . . After reading it, one cannot but be excited about the future direction and possibilities of Chinese art history. -- Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Journal of Asian Studies
Book Description
Chinese workers in the third century b.c. created seven thousand life-sized terracotta soldiers to guard the tomb of the First Emperor. In the eleventh century a.d., Chinese builders constructed a pagoda from as many as thirty thousand separately carved wooden pieces. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, China exported more than a hundred million pieces of porcelain to the West. As these examples show, the Chinese throughout history have produced works of art in astonishing quantities--and have done so without sacrificing quality, affordability, or speed of manufacture. How have they managed this? Lothar Ledderose takes us on a remarkable tour of Chinese art and culture to explain how artists used complex systems of mass production to assemble extraordinary objects from standardized parts or modules. As he reveals, these systems have deep roots in Chinese thought--in the idea that the universe consists of ten thousand categories of things, for example--and reflect characteristically Chinese modes of social organization.
Ledderose begins with the modular system par excellence: Chinese script, an ancient system of fifty thousand characters produced from a repertoire of only about two hundred components. He shows how Chinese artists used related modular systems to create ritual bronzes, to produce the First Emperor's terracotta army, and to develop the world's first printing systems. He explores the dazzling variety of lacquerware and porcelain that the West found so seductive, and examines how works as diverse as imperial palaces and paintings of hell relied on elegant variation of standardized components. Ledderose explains that Chinese artists, unlike their Western counterparts, did not seek to reproduce individual objects of nature faithfully, but sought instead to mimic nature's ability to produce limitless numbers of objects. He shows as well how modular patterns of thought run through Chinese ideas about personal freedom, China's culture of bureaucracy, Chinese religion, and even the organization of Chinese restaurants.
Originally presented as a series of Mellon lectures at the National Gallery of Art, Ten Thousand Things combines keen aesthetic and cultural insights with a rich variety of illustrations to make a profound new statement about Chinese art and society.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An indispensable insight into Chinese thought,
By
This review is from: Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Paperback)
This is one of the clearest and most insightful examinations of ancient Chinese aesthetics and related philosophical and philogical materials that has been produced in the English language. We owe Prof. Ledderose a great debt of gratitude for having taken the care to lay out in such a readable volume the gist of a pragmatic approach to the creation of art and artifact that came to predominate throughout thousands of years of Chinese culture. His examination of the modular construction of the Chinese written language is compelling. The book should be required reading for students of any and all disciplines that begin with the phrase "traditional Chinese", be they students of medicine, martial arts, meditation, music, painting, or any other of a long list of subjects that have been influenced by the approach to thought and logic that is revealed in its pages.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An indispensable insight into Chinese thought,
By K. P. Rose "K.P.Rose" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Paperback)
This is one of the clearest and most insightful examinations of ancient Chinese aesthetics and related philosophical and philogical materials that has been produced in the English language. We owe Prof. Ledderose a great debt of gratitude for having taken the care to lay out in such a readable volume the gist of a pragmatic approach to the creation of art and artifact that came to predominate throughout thousands of years of Chinese culture. His examination of the modular construction of the Chinese written language is compelling. The book should be required reading for students of any and all disciplines that begin with the phrase "traditional Chinese", be they students of medicine, martial arts, meditation, music, painting, or any other of a long list of subjects that have been influenced by the approach to thought and logic that is revealed in its pages.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
showcases millennia of Chinese art,
By W Boudville - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Paperback)
To a reader not from China, Ledderose gives an eloquent and graceful exposition of thousands of years of Chinese art. Within this, he considers Chinese script to be an intrinsic art form. Millennia ago, China made this decisive choice for the written form of their language. Whereas in the Middle East and thence in Europe, alphabets were the other preference. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage of the script is that each symbol must be memorised for its meaning and pronunciation. But by decoupling a symbol from its sound, Chinese scripts from centuries or millennia ago can still be mostly correctly read. Ledderose makes the point that as pronunciations change, or political boundaries change, alphabet-based writings tend to undergo changes. Hence the fracturing of Latin into the various European languages after the Roman empire fell. These are good points that Ledderose makes. Though he also acknowledges that alphabets are far easier for the user to learn.Most of the book describes other art forms in China. Accompanied by many photos, including several in colour, that illustrate examples of these forms. Examples shown date back to the Bronze Age, as in seals used by nobles. Even then, the artistry was intricate and meticulous. |
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
