Overview

Chinese classical furniture is esteemed throughout the world for its beauty, functionalism, and influence on contemporary design aesthetics. Sarah Handler's stunningly illustrated volume traces Chinese hardwood furniture from its 10th century origins to the present. She offers a fascinating and poetic view of Chinese furniture as functional sculpture, a fine art alongside the other Chinese arts of calligraphy, architecture, painting, and literature. Handler, a widely respected scholar of Chinese furniture, uses her knowledge of Chinese social, political, and economic history to provide a backdrop for understanding the many nuances of this art form. Drawing on literary and visual evidence from excavated materials, written texts, paintings, prints, and engravings, she discusses how people lived, their notions of hierarchy, and their perceptions of space. Her descriptions of historical developments, such as the shift from mats to chairs, evoke the psychological and sociological ramifications. The invention of a distinctive way to support and contain people and things within the household is one of China's singular contributions, says Handler. With more than three hundred exquisite ill

Full Product Details

Author:   Sarah Handler
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Dimensions:   Width: 21.60cm , Height: 4.50cm , Length: 27.90cm
Weight:   2.313kg
ISBN:  

9780520214842

ISBN 10:   0520214846
Pages:   417
Publication Date:   30 October 2001
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   Awaiting stock  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Chronology of Dynasties Introduction: A Taste for Austere Luminosity Revolution and Discovery 1. Rising from Mat to Chair: A Revolution in Chinese Furniture 2. A Ming Meditation Chair in Bauhaus Light 3. George Kates Discovering Chinese Furniture during the Years That Were Fat Chairs 4. A Yokeback Chair for Sitting Tall 5. The Folding Armchair: An Elegant Vagabond 6. The Lowback Armchair with Carvings of Bamboo, Magic Fungi, or the Three Friends of Winter 7. A Ubiquitous Stool Beds 8. Life on a Platform 9. A Couchbed Day and Night for Comfort and Joy 10. The Canopy Bed: A Little World Made Cunningly Tables 11. On a New World Arose a Kang Table 12. A Square Table Where the Immortals Dine 13. A Clean Table by a Bright Window 14. The Side Table: A Surface for Treasures and Gods Cabinets and Screens 15. Cabinets and Shelves Containing All Things in China 16. The Screen: A Movable Wall to Divide, Enhance, and Beautify Stands 17. The Incense Stand and a Scholar's Mystical State 18. Lamp Stands and Lanterns: Carriers of Light 19. Perfumed Coals in Precious Braziers Burn 20. Washbasin Stands for Ablutions and Washing Clean Notes Works Cited Glossary-Index

Reviews

Sarah Handler has written a true cultural history of Chinese furniture. Her book is a highly erudite blend of art history and social history, yet with a structure as transparent and elegant as that of a fine piece of Ming-style furniture. - Klaas Ruitenbeek, author of Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth-Century Carpenter's Manual Lu Ban jing

Author Information

An historian of Chinese art, Sarah Handler was Curator of the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture and has taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan. She has published widely in journals, collected volumes, and is coauthor, with Nancy Berliner, of Friends of the House: Furniture from China's Towns and Villages (1996). She also edited and translated from the Chinese Wang Shixiang's Classic Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties (1986).

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