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Visual art and historical representation in ancient Greece and China

Tanner, J; (2018) Visual art and historical representation in ancient Greece and China. In: Lloyd, GER and Zhao, JJ and Dong, Q, (eds.) Ancient Greece and China Compared. (pp. 189-233). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. Green open access

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Abstract

Both classical Greece and early imperial China saw the development of an artistic genre novel to each cultural tradition: visual depictions of historical events. This essay explores the development of the picturing of history in these two traditions from a long term institutional perspective. It compares the role played by works of art in the ancestralising strategies of elite kinship networks in the Western Zhou and archaic Greece, and how these were displaced by the practice of picturing history in classical Athens and early imperial China. The development of practices of picturing history is linked to the development of more differentiated state institutions, and the new uses of historical memory associated with the new forms of state. The distinctive Greek and Chinese use and character of such depictions were shaped by the differing balance of power among cultural elites and state agencies in classical Athens and early imperial China.

Type: Book chapter
Title: Visual art and historical representation in ancient Greece and China
ISBN-13: 9781316091609
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1017/9781316091609
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316091609
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: history painting, comparative art, sino-hellenic studies, ancient Greek art, ancient Chinese art, collective memory, historicities
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology > Institute of Archaeology Gordon Square
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1505848
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