Networks of Touch A Tactile History of Chinese Art, 1790–1840

In this book, Michael J. Hatch examines the artistic network of Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), a scholar-official whose patronage supported a generation of artists and learned people who prioritized epigraphic research as a means of truing the warped contours of Confucian heritage. Their work instigated an "epigraphic aesthetic"―an appropriation of the stylistic, material, and tactile features of ancient inscribed objects and their reproductive technologies―in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century artwork. Rubbings, a reduplicative technology, challenged the dominance of brushwork as the bearer of artistic authority. While brushwork represented the artist's physical presence through ink and paper, rubbings were direct facsimiles of tactile experiences with objects. This shift empowered artists and scholars to transcend traditional conventions and explore new mediums, uniting previously separate image-making practices while engaging audiences through the senses.
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