Rethinking the Tenth Century: A Pivotal Period in the History of Chinese Painting

From one of the world’s leading scholars of Chinese art history, a revelatory account of how the long tenth century witnessed some of the most important changes in Chinese paintingIn the standard narrative of Chinese painting, the half century spanning the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 CE) is often considered a transitional period between the art of the Tang and Northern Song dynasties.In this beautifully illustrated book, acclaimed art historian Wu Hung draws on new archaeological evidence and research methods to challenge this perspective, identifying a considerably broader period in which Chinese painting evolved in significant ways. From the late ninth to the early eleventh century, Chinese painters explored diverse new mediums, subject matter, brushwork, and styles.Wu looks at innovations such as the hanging scroll, which stimulated new compositions in the millennium that followed and became the driving force behind the rise of landscape as the dominant subject of Chine