Research Catalog
Pattern and person : ornament, society, and self in classical China
- Title
- Pattern and person : ornament, society, and self in classical China / Martin J. Powers.
- Author
- Powers, Martin Joseph, 1949-
- Publication
- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Asia Center, 2006.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | NK1483.A1 P69 2006 | Off-site | |
Not available - Please for assistance. | Text | Use in library | Off-site |
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Details
- Description
- xvi, 374 pages : illustrations (some color); 24 cm.
- Summary
- "In Classical China, crafted artifacts offered a material substrate for abstract thought, as graphic paradigms for social relationships. Focusing on the 5th to 2nd centuries B.C., Martin Powers explores how these paradigms continued to inform social thought long after the material substrate had been abandoned. In this detailed study, the author makes the claim that artifacts are never neutral: as distinctive possessions, each object - through the abstracting function of style - offers a material template for scales of value. Likewise, through style, pictorial forms can make claims about material "referents," the things depicted. By manipulating these scales and their referents, artifacts can shape the way status, social role, or identity is understood and enforced. The result is a kind of "spatial epistemology" within which the identities of persons are constructed. Powers thereby posits a relationship between art and society that operates at a level deeper than iconography, attributes, or social institutions."--BOOK JACKET.
- Series Statement
- Harvard East Asian monographs ; 262
- Uniform Title
- Harvard East Asian monographs ; 262.
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-367) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction : graphic patterns and social order -- Ch. 1. Style -- Ch. 2. Terms of craft -- Ch. 3. Abstraction -- Ch. 4. Craft -- Ch. 5. Government -- Ch. 6. Labor, invention, and "taste" -- Ch. 7. Craft and political theory -- Ch. 8. Ornament and identity -- Ch. 9. Bureaucracy and agency -- Ch. 10. The politics of personhood -- Ch. 11. Patterns, pictures, and fractals -- Ch. 12. The laws of nature -- Ch. 13. Nature and society -- Ch. 14. Identity and possession -- Epilogue : sources of self.
- ISBN
- 0674021398 (cl : alk. paper)
- LCCN
- 2006008313
- 9780674021396
- OCLC
- OCM64624952
- SCSB-14067182
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries