Introduction:
In the introduction, Clunas insists that Chinese art is quite a recent invention, in actual fact, not more than a hundred years old. Although the textiles, pieces of calligraphy, paintings, sculptures, ceramics and other works of art date from over 5,000 years old, the idea of grouping Chinese art is a much more recent phenomenon. The book is purposely called ‘Art in China’ and not Chinese art since it is principally written out of a major distrust of the existence of unifying principles that bring together art from a particular country.
There are several abrupt decisions that have been made in the ...