echo chamber

▶ Renowned art historian and Professor Emeritus of Oxford University, Clunas Clunas, in his latest monograph on Chinese art, uses the rigor of an archaeological excavation to salvage details from historical sources. Combining cutting-edge research methods and findings, he presents the culmination of years of reflection. ▶ Crossing borders, time periods, languages, and disciplines, this book breaks down the barriers of art historical research and offers a new understanding of early 20th-century Chinese art. Is Xie He in Calcutta, Kang Youwei in Rome? Rejecting the conventional narrative of East-West dualism, this book, with a global perspective, overturns the inherent perception of Eastern and Western art. Using the translation and circulation of the term "vital energy," this book exposes the "echo chamber" phenomenon in the dissemination of ideas, connecting the past and present, East and West, and meticulously recounting the formation of "Chinese art" in the 20th century. ▶ Presented in both Chinese and English, with a special reading leaflet, the book tracks every voice within this "echo chamber"!
The author's English manuscript is fully included, which is convenient for comparative reading and research. The accompanying leaflet helps to understand the dissemination paths of "vivid spirit" and "rhythm"▶Recommended by well-known scholars Wu Hung, Bao Huashi, Guo Weiqi and Ruan Yuan!
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In the early 20th century, as Chinese art flowed overseas, a surge of enthusiasm for Chinese art swept the West. Ancient Chinese painting theory, exemplified by the concept of "vitality and rhythm," resonated closely with contemporary Western intellectual trends. Translated by sinologists such as Okakura Tenshin, Lawrence Binyon, and Hiroyuki Hiroyuki, it circulated across multiple languages. Overseas scholars like Chen Shizeng, Teng Gu, and Liu Haisu translated it back into Chinese from Japanese, German, and English, applying it in academic research and artistic practice, further solidifying the central position of Xie He's "Six Principles" in 20th-century Chinese art theory.
In this innovative work, renowned art historian Craig Clunas uses diverse materials to break through inherent concepts and established boundaries, rethinking the margins of art history and the shaped "Chinese painting" from a cosmopolitan perspective.
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By identifying and reconstructing key historical moments in the emergence of Chinese art into the international context, Professor Craig Clunas leads us to consider how the binary concepts of "Chinese art" and "Western art" gradually emerged through understanding and misunderstanding, and how they became the fundamental framework for thinking about Chinese art. This is a book that asks profound questions, and its flexible narrative is also very fascinating.
——Wu Hung
Clunas offers fresh insights into the cosmopolitan underpinnings of Chinese art history during the late Qing and Republican periods. This masterful historical work examines crucial encounters and nuances of translation, inviting readers to rethink the East-West binary and appreciate the rich transnational integrations of the art world.
——Ruan Yuan
Professor Craig Clunas's lecture sought to transcend the generalizations of "East meets West." Starting with the translation of the "Six Principles," he explored the conceptual entanglements within a transnational context. Writing after his annual Beijing lecture, Clunas further characterized this transnational space of linguistic circulation as an "echo chamber." This vivid depiction of the world of artistic concepts spanning Eurasia also evoked memories of the lecture itself, as if the echoes of the captivating lecture and Q&A still linger. Faced with a subject that constantly pushes boundaries, Clunas's research defies simple categorization as "Chinese art history." This innovative work itself is bound to be like an echo chamber, generating varying responses to this important topic among scholars both domestically and internationally.
——Guo Weiqi

2024-05-01

上海人民出版社

Century Wenjing

514

9787208188105