Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China

by Jonathan Hay

Sensuous Surfaces is a richly illustrated and in-depth introduction to the decorative arts in Ming- and Qing-dynasty China. Jonathan Hay explores materials and techniques, as well as issues of patronage and taste, which together formed a loose system of informal rules that affected every level of decoration in early modern China, from an individual object to the arrangement of an entire residential interior. By engaging the actual and metaphoric potential of surface, Hay contends, this system guided the production and use of the decorative arts during a period of explosive growth, which started in the late sixteenth century and continued until the mid-nineteenth century. This understanding of decorative arts in China made a fundamental contribution to the sensory education of its early modern urban population, both as individuals and in their established social roles.

Sensuous Surfaces is also an elegant meditation on the role of pleasure in decoration. Often intellectually dismissed as merely pleasurable, Hay argues that decoration is better understood as a necessary form of art that can fulfill its function only by engaging the human capacity for erotic response.

Featuring 250 color images of a wide range of early modern Chinese objects and artworks, this book will engage anyone with an interest in decoration, art, China-- or the experience of pleasure itself.

Genres: Art, China

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2010

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know this book has been criticised a bit for being very wordy (my teacher even warned me about it when he recommended it) but if you're prepared to skim / speed read a little, it has some really rewarding ideas that make you consider Chinese decorative arts from a completely new perspective. The scope of objects it covers is really amazing, and the photos are stunning! Read this in combination with Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China for two quite contrasting (but complementary) views on ornament and the decorative arts early modern China.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted so much to like this book, as I have read other articles by Jonathan Hay, but Sensuous Surfaces just didn't 'flow' for me. The best part by far were the pictures with the captions, and for that alone, I would recommend the work. Otherwise, it was heavy going (random sentence/opened book and typed first sentences my eyes hit: "Here the important point is that the cross-referencing of surfaces opened up a space of metaphor in which the relation between different surfaces and their respective associations...produced meaning, in this particular case through the suggestion of a cultural continuum and perhaps an equivalence of value. Nor was the metaphoric space of decoration restricted to the first-order level of cross-referencing of surfaces."), pedantic at times, and did not satisfy my curiosity as to what are the underlying principles of Chinese aesthetics.

I'm happy to be corrected if others feel I didn't give it its due.