Facing China Truth And Memory In Portraiture

A highly illustrated examination of portraiture in China across media and millennia. Facing China is an exploration of the portrait arts in China from the dynastic to the modern and contemporary, in painting, sculpture, photography, and video. The book focuses on truth and memory in the portraiture process, from encounters between subject, portrait, and artist, to broader familial, social, and political arenas. It also examines the influence of location on portrait production, reception, and display, from tombs, ancestral shrines, temples, gardens, and palace halls to public and private spaces. Featuring one hundred fifty fine illustrations, with one hundred in color, Facing China has much to say to specialists in the field as well as general readers interested in Chinese art.

This work explores the developments in the function of informal portraiture in later Ming and Qing dynasty China, from about AD1600 to 1900. The study focuses on images of artists, including self-portraits, and their associates from centres of painting in

Despite their powerful presence and exquisite quality, Chinese ancestor portraits have never been studied as a genre. This illustrated text explores the artistic, historical, and religious significance of these paintings and places them in context with other types of commemorative portraiture. During the late Ming (1368-1644) and Quing (1644-1911) dynasties, full-length portraits of individual men and women came into vogue. These ancestor portraits were important objects of veneration, and the practice continued into the 20th century, when paintings were gradually replaced by photographs. The authors explore the works in depth, presenting a fascinating glimpse of Chinese life and culture and providing biographies of the sitters. Worshiping the Ancestors should appeal to connoisseurs of Chinese art and to all those interested in social history, portraiture, and devotional art.