Art and Ocean Objects of Early Modern Eurasia

Shells, Bodies, and Materiality
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-94-6372-115-8
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 4, 220 Seiten, Format (B × H): 173 mm x 247 mm, Gewicht: 694 g

Reihe: Connected Histories in the Early Modern World

During the early modern period, objects of maritime material culture were removed from their places of origin and traded, collected and displayed worldwide. Focusing on shells and pearls exchanged within local and global networks, this monograph compares and connects Asian, in particular Chinese, and European practices of oceanic exploitation in the framework of a transcultural history of art with an understanding of maritime material culture as gendered. Perceiving the ocean as mother of all things, as womb and birthplace, Chinese and European artists and collectors exoticized and eroticized shells’ shapes and surfaces. Defining China and Europe as spaces entangled with South and Southeast Asian sites of knowledge production, source and supply between 1500 and 1700, the book understands oceanic goods and maritime networks as transcending and subverting territorial and topographical boundaries. It also links the study of globally connected port cities to local ecologies of oceanic exploitation and creative practices.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grasskamp, Anna

K Grasskamp, Anna

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: Renaissance, Manierismus
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Materielle Kultur, Wirtschaftsethnologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

1 Shell Connections: The Exoticization and Eroticization of Asian Maritime Material Culture

From Guangzhou to Florence: Parrot Cups as “Actors”

Layers of Exoticization: Chinese and European Shell Surfaces

Surfaces and Skins: The European Eroticization of Asian Shells

Conclusion – Shell Connections

2 Shell Bodies: The Creative Agency of Molluscs across Cultures

Clever Objects

Shell Agency

Clam Creations

Female Features

Bird Bodies

Cultured Connections

Conclusion

3 Shell Worlds: Maritime Microcosms in EurAsian Art and Material Culture

Shells in Flux

Coralscapes

Conclusion

4 Woman with a Shell: Transcultural Exchange, Female Bodies and Maritime Matters

Women on Shells

Women in Shells

Women with Shells

Women with EurAsian Shells

Conclusion – Woman with a Shell

Conclusion

Cited Primary and Secondary Sources

Acknowledgments

Index

Über Autor(innen)

K Grasskamp, Anna
Anna Grasskamp is Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Oslo. She co-edited EurAsian Matters: China, Europe, and the Transcultural Object, 1600-1800 (2018) and is the author of Objects in Frames: Displaying Foreign Collectibles in Early Modern China and Europe (2019).