Worshiping the Ancestors

Download or read book Worshiping the Ancestors written by Jan Stuart and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their powerful presence and exquisite quality, Chinese ancestor portraits have never been studied as a genre. This illustrated text explores the artistic, historical, and religious significance of these paintings and places them in context with other types of commemorative portraiture. During the late Ming (1368-1644) and Quing (1644-1911) dynasties, full-length portraits of individual men and women came into vogue. These ancestor portraits were important objects of veneration, and the practice continued into the 20th century, when paintings were gradually replaced by photographs. The authors explore the works in depth, presenting a fascinating glimpse of Chinese life and culture and providing biographies of the sitters. Worshiping the Ancestors should appeal to connoisseurs of Chinese art and to all those interested in social history, portraiture, and devotional art.