The Ghost in the City
Luo Ping and the Craft of Painting in Eighteenth-Century China
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of Washington Press
Published:16th May '23
Should be back in stock very soon
A visual and social exploration of early modern Beijing's cultural milieu
In 1771 the artist Luo Ping (1733–99) left his native Yangzhou to relocate to the burgeoning hub of Beijing's Southern City. Over two decades, he became the favored artist of a cosmopolitan community of scholars and officials who were at the forefront of the cultural life of the Qing-dynasty (1644–1911). From his spectacular ghost paintings to his later work exploring the city's complex history, compressed spatial layout, and unique social rituals, Luo Ping captured the pleasures and concerns of a changing world at the end of the Qing's "Prosperous Age."
This study takes the reader into the vibrant artistic and literary cultures of Beijing outside the court and to the networks of scholars, artists, and entertainers that turned the Southern City into a place like no other in the Qing empire. At the center of this narrative lie Luo Ping's layered reflections on the medium of painting and its histories and formal conventions. Close reading of the work of Luo Ping and his contemporaries reveals how this generation of experimental artists sought to reform ink painting, paving the way for further developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on a vast range of textual and visual sources, The Ghost in the City shares groundbreaking research that will transform our understanding of the evolution of modern ink painting.
"A dynamic exploration that deftly weaves together art, history, literature, and culture against the vibrant backdrop of Beijing's Southern City."
* Choice *"An elegant and erudite study of painting, social networking, and the politics of culture in late eighteenth-century Beijing. . . The multifaceted reach, superb research, and fine production values of Matteini's book will surely open Ghost in the City to a wide readership of scholars working on the Qing and, more broadly, on cultural approaches to Chinese history."
* Journal of Chinese HistoISBN: 9780295750958
Dimensions: 254mm x 178mm x 21mm
Weight: 885g
248 pages