"Traditionally the "Chinese body" was understood as a totality and explained by sweeping comparisons of the differences that distinguished Chinese examples from their western counterparts. Recently, scholars have argued that we must look at particular examples of Chinese images of the body and explore their intrinsic conceptual complexity and historical specificity." "By charting multiple, specific bodies and faces, the twelve contributors to this volume seek to explain a general Chinese body and face conditioned by indigenous traditions and dynamics of social interaction. All the chapters are historical case studies and investigate particular images, such as Han dynasty tomb figurines; Buddhist texts and illustrations; pictures of deprivation, illness, deformity, and ghosts; clothing; formal portraiture; and modern photographs and films. All of them are based on close examination of textual, visual, and archaeological evidence. But the authors use their findings to illuminate broader changes in representations of the body and face in various religious, political, and cultural contexts. From the diversity of art forms and historical periods studied, as well as the differences in research methods and analytical approaches, there emerges a more complex picture of ways that the visual culture of the body and face in China has served to depict the living, memorialize the dead, and present the unrepresentable in art."--Jacket.