Tenth-Century China and Beyond: Art and Visual Culture in a Multi-centered Age

The tenth century was a period of extensive change in East Asia, in which China was divided into regional kingdoms with the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 and powerful northern empires, the Khitan Liao and Kory dynasty, arose. Though historically regarded as a period declining into disorder between the great Tang and Song eras, it in fact saw art and culture flourish in regional contexts. Important new stylistic trends in painting, technologies of printing and ceramic making, and unprecedented features of construction of tombs and Buddhist and Daoist temples at regional centers of art emerged. At the same time, transregional interaction, exchange, and rivalries were also contributing factors to the dynamism and richness of artistic production during this period. The collected essays in this volume present groundbreaking research resulting from two international conferences organized by the Center for the Art of East Asia, Department of Art History, at the University of Chicago.