Chinese Silks
By: Edited by Dieter Kuhn ; Foreword by James C. W. Watt ; Contributions by Chen Juanjuan, Huang Nengfu, Dieter Kuhn, Li Wenying, Peng Hao, Zhao Feng
Series: The Culture & Civilization of China
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New Haven, CT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 571
ISBN-13: 9780300111033
Subjects: Silk; History
Description: Over the past fifty years, archaeological explorations in China have unearthed a wealth of textile materials, some dating as far back as five thousand years. In this magnificently researched and illustrated book, preeminent Chinese and Western scholars draw upon these spectacular discoveries to provide the most thorough account of the history of silk ever written. Encyclopaedic in breadth, the volume presents a chronological history of silk from a variety of perspectives, including the archaeological, technological, art historical, and aesthetic. The authors explore the range of uses for silk, from the everyday to the sublime. By directly connecting recently found textile artefacts to specific references in China's vast historical literature, they illuminate the evolution of silk making and the driving social forces that have inspired the creation of innovative textiles through the millennia.
Notes: Includes index.

"Chinese Edition Edited by Huang Nengfu and Zhao Feng."
Table of contents: title: Reading the Magnificence of Ancient and Medieval Chinese Silks - Fashionable Weaves and Ingenious Craftsmanship / Dieter Kuhn; title: The Origins of Sericulture and Silk Weaving-From Antiquity to the Zhou Dynasty / Peng Hao; title: Silk Artistry of the Qin, Han, Wei, and Jin Dynasties / Li Wenying; title: Silk Artistry of the Northern and Southern Dynasties / Li Wenying; title: Silk in the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties / Zhao Feng; title: Silk in the Song, Liao, Xi Xia, and Jin Dynasties / Zhao Feng; title: Divergent Styles of North and South-Silk Artistry of the Yuan Dynasty / Zhao Feng; title: The Path to Refinement: Silk Fabrics of the Ming Dynasty; title: Huang Nengfu & Chen Juanjuan; title: Textile Art of the Qing Dynasty; title: Chen Juanjuan & Huang Nengfu.