Jay Xu

Fan Jeremy Zhang

"Featuring about 150 loans from China's Hubei Provincial Museum, this exhibition, set to open at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco under the name Lost Kingdoms of Ancient China, examines the new finds of Zeng and Chu tombs together to explore the cultural landscape of the southern borderland of the Zhou dynasty. It also reveals the legendary rising story of the phoenix kingdom erased by the Qin, highlighting the importance of the middle Yangtze River region in forming a southern style in Chinese art. For a better understanding of the Zeng and Chu material, the exhibition catalogue consists of seven essays to elaborate the introduction to the remarkable art and culture of this region, with entries of about 150 works in six categories (jade, bronze ritual vessels, musical instruments and weapons, lacquerware for luxury and ceremony, funerary bronze and wood objects, and textiles and artefacts with designs). Seven contributors have written for this catalogue, including five outside scholars with expertise on different subjects"--

Last Splendor of China's Bronze Age

Phoenix Kingdoms

Donald Jenkins

Janice Quivey

Winner of a Choice Magazine 2006 Outstanding Academic Title Award Mysterious Spirits, Strange Beasts, Earthly Delights features artifacts from one of the most compelling periods in China's early history, the Warring States and Qin-Han eras. They comprise a seven-century span (4th century bce-3rd century ce) remarkable for artifacts of wide-ranging subject matter. Among them are found both imaginative creatures of the supernatural world and realistic images of many objects and artifacts of daily life in the secular world. Here are figures of mythical beasts, dogs, courtly attendants, musicians with their instruments, a chef trimming fish, horsemen, an elaborate watchtower, a pigpen, fanciful trees, game players, wine vessels, and ordinary plates. Some originally afforded luxurious and opulent comforts for the living, or protection and blessing for the deceased. Asian art scholars Donald Jenkins and Jay Xu provide absorbing and lucid overviews of the period and a fascinating discussion of each object. The book offers insights into the interests, concerns, and aesthetic values of the ancient Chinese people.

Jay Xu

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