The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting

In the first exploration of Chinese paintings as both material productsand pictorial representations, The Double Screen shows how thecollaboration and tension between material form and image gives life toa painting. A Chinese painting is often reduced to the image it bears;its material form is dismissed; its intimate connection with socialactivities and cultural conventions neglected.A screen occupies a space and divides it, supplies an ideal surface forpainting, and has been a favorite pictorial image in Chinese art sinceantiquity. Wu Hung undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the screen,which can be an object, an art medium, a pictorial motif, or all threeat once. With its diverse roles, the screen has provided Chinesepainters with endless opportunities to reinvent their art.The Double Screen provides a powerful non-Western perspective onissues from portraiture and pictorial narrative to voyeurism,masquerade, and political rhetoric. It will be invaluable to anyoneinterested in the history of art and Asian studies.