Jottings from the Granite Studio

A Qing historian reads the newspaper…

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The Ming Amateur Ideal and the Art Factories of Shenzhen or "Why Mo Shilong would probably carry a Prada man-purse"

August 25th, 2006 · No Comments

In the Ming sixteenth-century fin-de-siècle, elite painters clung to an ideal of amateurism in art and painting. Painters such as Wen Zhengming (文徵明 1470-1567) and Dong Qichang (董其昌 1555-1636) among others championed the connoisseurship of the dilettante and disparaged those who painted to make a living. Never mind the constant exchange between literati [...]

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Tags: Chinese History