Description
Book SynopsisThis book traces the intimate connections between Britain and China throughout the nineteenth century and argues for China's central impact on the modern British visual imagination through a study of gardens, blue and white willow plates, the opium den, and the photograph, and literary texts.
Trade Review"Chang asserts that the British engagement with Chinese 'seeing' had a lasting impact on the reconceptualization of 'realist' standards generally—a provocative claim that opens up new possibilities for future research. This strong book will attract a diverse array of scholars in art history, history, literature, Victorian studies, and postcolonial studies." -- Daniel Bivona * Arizona State University *
"In its syncretic handling of complex and disparate historical material, and its deft comparative treatment of multiple media and genres, Chang's book makes an outstanding contribution to scholarship on British orientalism, and exemplifies the new visual-cultural studies at its best." -- Gillen D'Arcy Wood * University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
New Books on Line 19 *
"
Britain's Chinese Eye offers a rich and illuminating exploration of Britain's visual engagements with China over the course of the 19th century. The book's central claim, that the marking off and imaginative deployment by Britons of distinctively 'Chinese' ways of seeing contributed to emerging understandings of Britishness, is fresh and provocative and will advance our understanding of the proliferation of literary and literal 'images' of China during this period." -- David Porter * University of Michigan *
"Elegantly organized . . . [
Britain's Chinese Eye] is an admirable account of the role of spectacle and perception in imperial display and dominion. It is an important contribution to empire studies and British literary history that reminds us of the longstanding and inextricable relationship of vision to power." -- Karen Fang *
Victorian Studies *
"In this book, Elizabeth Chang employs a novel and canny range of texts and visual examples to analyze how the field of vision performed the cultural work of Sino-British relations in the long nineteenth century. Her readings are sharp, smart, elegant, and incisive; her assortment of texts is inventive and refreshing.
Britain's Chinese Eye is a creative, insightful, and beautifully rendered work." -- Lara Kriegel * Florida International University *
