Original Intentions: Essays on Production, Reproduction, and Interpretation in the Arts of China (David A. Cofrin Asian Art Manuscript) - Tapa dura

Nicholas Pearce, professor of Chinese art and Head of the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow, is the author of Photographs of Peking, China, 1861-1908. Jason Steuber, Cofrin Curator of Asian Art for the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, is the author of China: 3000 Years of Art and Literature.

For both museums and collectors, questions of “authenticity” often dominate the decision to acquire a new work. This issue is especially thorny for Westerners when dealing with Chinese art.Believing that everything has a precedent, Chinese artists were never bashful about reproducing art, typically seeing less of a difference between the original work and reproductions.
The Chinese understanding of the idea of production and reproduction parallels the creation of art with natural evolution, acknowledging a gradual growth from a common source. For them, originality within a work of art took on a complexity that reflected the complexity of nature itself. There is, however, a distinction between copying and faking. Intention was everything. Faking, or the art of deception, was as frowned upon by Chinese scholars and collectors as it was by their Western counterparts. A copy was one thing, but a fake—a deception—was another, and the language of connoisseurship reflected this distinction.
As a result, replication has often been considered a fundamental mode of production in Chinese art, with roots extending to antiquity. In turn, some collectors would knowingly brandish originals next to replicas while others completely rejected the idea of imitations as artworks.
The essays in Original Intentions explore the highly controversial questions of faking, copying, and replicating Chinese painting, bronzes, ceramics, works on paper, architecture, and sculpture. Offering a broad range of perspectives on conservation, technical analysis, social history, and collecting, the contributors to the volume explore the question of authenticity in the arts of China. The primary emphasis is on three-dimensional works, a relatively unexplored area in both Chinese and Western languages. Essays feature both theoretical and object-based research in a broad chronological framework, addressing a wide range of issues in both Chinese and Western contexts.

Nicholas Pearce, professor of Chinese art and Head of the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow, is the author of Photographs of Peking, China, 1861–1908. Jason Steuber, Cofrin Curator of Asian Art for the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, is the author of China: 3,000 Years of Art and Literature.

A volume in the David A. Cofrin Asian Art Manuscript Series

For both museums and collectors, questions of authenticity often dominate the decision to acquire a new work. This issue is especially thorny for Westerners when dealing with Chinese art.Believing that everything has a precedent, Chinese artists were never bashful about reproducing art, typically seeing less of a difference between the original work and reproductions.
The Chinese understanding of the idea of production and reproduction parallels the creation of art with natural evolution, acknowledging a gradual growth from a common source. For them, originality within a work of art took on a complexity that reflected the complexity of nature itself. There is, however, a distinction between copying and faking. Intention was everything. Faking, or the art of deception, was as frowned upon by Chinese scholars and collectors as it was by their Western counterparts. A copy was one thing, but a fake a deception was another, and the language of connoisseurship reflected this distinction.
As a result, replication has often been considered a fundamental mode of production in Chinese art, with roots extending to antiquity. In turn, some collectors would knowingly brandish originals next to replicas while others completely rejected the idea of imitations as artworks.
The essays in Original Intentions explore the highly controversial questions of faking, copying, and replicating Chinese painting, bronzes, ceramics, works on paper, architecture, and sculpture. Offering a broad range of perspectives on conservation, technical analysis, social history, and collecting, the contributors to the volume explore the question of authenticity in the arts of China. The primary emphasis is on three-dimensional works, a relatively unexplored area in both Chinese and Western languages. Essays feature both theoretical and object-based research in a broad chronological framework, addressing a wide range of issues in both Chinese and Western contexts.

Nicholas Pearce, professor of Chinese art and Head of the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow, is the author of Photographs of Peking, China, 1861 1908. Jason Steuber, Cofrin Curator of Asian Art for the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, is the author of China: 3,000 Years of Art and Literature.

A volume in the David A. Cofrin Asian Art Manuscript Series