The Art of the Chinese Picture-Scroll

(Hardback)

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Description

The Chinese picture-scroll, a long painting or calligraphic work held within a horizontal scrolling mount, has been China's pre-eminent aesthetic format for the last two millennia. This first extended history of the picture-scroll explores its extraordinary longevity, and its adaptability to social, political and technological change. The book describes what the picture-scroll demands of a viewer, how China's artists grappled with its cultural power, and how collectors and connoisseurs have left their marks on scrolls for later generations to judge. The return to mass appeal of scrolling - a media technology that seemed long outdated yet persists in our digital age - provides urgent and fascinating context to this book.

Reviews

'Eruditely written . . . a welcome addition to the corpus of studies on Chinese painting, written by a scholar deeply immersed in the subject and well able to share his knowledge with the reader in an engaging and lively way.' Nick Pearce, Professor and Richmond Chair of Fine Arts, University of Glasgow

Author Bio

Shane McCausland is Percival David Professor of the History of Art at SOAS University of London. His many books include The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 12711368 (Reaktion Books, 2014), and he has curated numerous exhibitions in Europe, North America and China.