A History of Cultic Images in China

Alain ARRAULT ; Lina VERCHERY (trans.)

ISBN 10: 9882371051 / ISBN 13: 9789882371057

Edité par City University of Hong Kong Press, 2019

A propos de cet article

200 p., 18,5 cm x 26 cm, English, hardcover. In what period did objects of worship appear in China? Could there be a possible convergence between written testimonies and archaeological remains? How was the production of icons understood, especially in light of its eventual condemnation in iconoclastic discourse? This history of cultic images designed for religious worship in China remains to be written. The statue collections over the course of 16th to 20th centuries in central Hunan of southern China will give us insight into the local artistic tradition of statue-making, and the dynamics of multifarious religious practices consisting of a hybrid of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucian, Shamanism, and so forth. The documents contained inside these effigies, as well as the inscriptions found on the statues themselves, provide first-hand information that has not been filtered down through theological or philosophical discourses. Moreover, this art of domestic statuary which is found far from palaces, large temples, monasteries, and painted or sculpted grottoes is, indeed, still alive.

N° de réf. du vendeur PGEFEO503

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: A History of Cultic Images in China
• Éditeur: City University of Hong Kong Press
• Date de parution: 2019
• Langue: français
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 9882371051
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9789882371057
• Reliure: Hardcover
• État de l'article: New
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • China

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

In the past twenty years, work on the local culture of central Hunan has been one of the most exciting sources for rethinking the nature and variety of Chinese local society. At the heart of this society is a kind of statuary found nowhere else in China--sculpted images of local people, primarily religious specialists of a wide range, but also parents and ancestors who, according to Confucian orthodoxy, should be represented by tablets, not statues. While the consecration ceremonies of these statues include rites that are common to all China, they are embedded in unique local ritual traditions. Based on two decades of international collaborative research, Alain Arrault focuses on some 4,000 of these statues and studies them on the basis of consecration certificates inserted in the statues, the earliest of which date to the sixteenth century.

À propos de l'auteur

Alain Arrault is a professor at the École française d'Extrême-Orient (French School of Asian Studies), attached to the Research Center on Modern and Contemporary China.

Lina Verchery graduated from Harvard Divinity School and studies contemporary Chinese Buddhist monastic life in China and worldwide. She is also a documentary filmmaker.