Sensuous Surfaces

?Sensuous Surfaces is a systematic introduction to the decorative arts in Ming and Qing dynasty China. Jonathan Hay’s analysis takes in both material and technique, and also issues of patronage and taste, which together formed a loose system of informal rules that affected every level of decoration in early modern China, from an individual object to the arrangement of an entire residential interior. By engaging the actual and metaphoric potential of surface, this system guided the production and