China can boast a history of art lasting 5,000 years and embracing a huge diversity of images and objects - jade tablets, painted silk handscrolls and fans, ink and lacquer painting, porcelain-ware, sculptures, and calligraphy. They range in scale from the vast 'terracotta army' with its 7,000or so life-size figures, to the exquisitely delicate writing of fourth-century masters such as Wang Xizhin and his teacher, 'Lady Wei'. But this rich tradition has not, until now, been fully appreciated in the West where scholars have focused their attention on sculpture, downplaying art more highlyprized by the Chinese themselves such as calligraphy. Art in China marks a breakthrough in the study of the subject. Drawing on recent innovative scholarship and on newly-accessible studies in China itself Craig Clunas surveys the full spectrum of the visual arts in China. He ranges from the Neolithic period to the art scene of the 1980s and 1990s,examining art in a variety of contexts as it has been designed for tombs, commissioned by rulers, displayed in temples, created for the men and women of the educated ilite, and bought and sold in the marketplace. Many of the objects illustrated in this book have previously been known only to a fewspecialists, and will be totally new to a general audience.

A beautifully illustrated showcase of the rich and varied ceramic tradition of Iran Featuring a broad selection of objects from one of the most distinguished collections of Iranian art, this volume brings together over 1,000 years of Persian Islamic pottery. With more than 500 illustrations, authoritative technical treatises, and insightful commentary, Ceramics of Iran assembles a collection of rarely seen treasures from the Persian world and presents a collective history of its renowned ceramic tradition. Included among its comprehensive catalogue entries are numerous translations of the object’s inscriptions, providing readers with a richer and more detailed understanding of the cultural heritage from which these items are derived. In addition, the book contains new research and material from previously unknown sites. Featuring all new photography of nearly 250 objects, Ceramics of Iran brings the extraordinary contributions of Persian art into a wider historical context, along with a wealth of images to demonstrate the full scope of its intricate beauty.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

The Ashmolean's holdings of Indian art are the most extensive in Britain after the great London collections of the British Museum and the V&A. This book is arranged chronologically in three separate sections -- Hindu, Buddhist and Jain sculpture; folk bronzes and paintings; paintings and decorative arts of the Mughal and British periods.