Pictures for Use and Pleasure

In this groundbreaking book, James Cahill significantly expands the field of Chinese pictorial art history with the first scholarly account of paintings for "use and pleasure." These functional, so-called vernacular works were produced by professional urban artists for affluent patrons, from the end of the Ming through the Qianlong period—the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Traditional Chinese collectors disparaged these works, which were intended as decorations or produced to mark a special occasion, and favored the "literati" paintings of upper-class amateurs. But today the often stunning vernacular images add a strong visual dimension to our understanding of High Qing culture.