Superfluous things and their cultural significance

Superfluous Things: Social Status and Material Culture in Early Modern China

The title of Craig Clunas' book Superfluous Things: Social Status and Material Culture in Early Modern China might at first seem to be proclaiming a particular ideological orientation about the nature of 15th century China. Most people are well aware of the famous Ming vases of the era. Raising the notion of superfluity seems to ask the question if the Ming aesthetic was the result of an inward-looking society, focusing on internal cultivation and exterior artifice of material forms, rather than politics or internal self-exploration? However, Clunas' book is less a historiography with a clear thesis than it is a biography and translation of particular persons of interest to the era who wrote about a diversity of subjects from health to art to tea making. Often these persons are iconoclastic rather than representative it seems, given that they represent a fairly elitist view of society -- mainly that of the court or the theater. From this catalogue of literature and art, a portrait emerges of some of the intellectuals of the era, and how these person's writings led to the development of the Ming aesthetic of beauty within a certain social elite. However, the idea that the Ming era was marked by a growing interest in retirement, scholarship, and beauty emerges less from analysis than from Clunas' selection of primary sources, which he chooses to translate, and the select nature of these sources makes his portrait of the era seem limited rather than expansive in its nature.

The book is colorful, and filled with bright and interesting pictures of the works that it describes. It gives a strong sense of the visual presentation of books of the period, and the importance of the visual in the Ming Dynasty, where symmetry and care and yes, superfluity of interest in design and cultivation of the mind was all-important. However, the work is somewhat disappointing for persons who might wish a clear overview of the history of the period, combined with a unique, intellectually challenging and clearly articulated thesis by a contemporary historian about the significance of art during this period of early Chinese modernity. This perspective should come as little surprise, however, when one reflects upon the author's academic specialty and biography. Craig Clunas received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University in the discipline of art history, not history in general. He later received his PhD from the University of London. He is primarily known for his work in art and archeology, rather than historiography. He worked for fifteen years as a member of the curatorial staff of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Clunas left his curator's position to teach the history of Chinese art at Sussex University in England, although he also served as the curator of Sussex University's Barlow Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Jades and Bronzes. In spring of 2003 he was appointed to the Percival David Chair in the Department of Art & Archaeology at the University of London, and the professor received prizes from the Iris Foundation and the Oriental Ceramic Society for his contribution to the study of Chinese art. ("Craig Clunas," University of London: SOAS, Faculty Biography, 2006) Hence, Clunas is mainly known for his work in art and archeology, rather than history.

Clunas is highly fluent, however, in Chinese culture, and in Chinese languages. Most of his work that does not explicitly examine the art and archeology of the Ming is devoted to extended translations of writings of the period that attempted to provide a social philosophy of the importance of art. In this book, he devotes most of his effort to translating the works of Wen Zhenheng. Zhenheng's greatest masterwork was entitled A Treatise on Superfluous Things, and thus provides the title of Clunas' own work. Zhenheng wrote his long epic on the place of art and design in a cultivated person's life over many years, probably between the years of 1620-1627. Zhenheng's work seems superficially about garden architecture and interior design, but also provides clues as to what the author believed constituted a meaninful life, which to this intellectual meant to him a life of retirement.

When reading Zhenheng's actual words, a description of the aesthetic of the time, of what might be considered extra or superfluous or perhaps better translated as trivial aspects of existence emerges as a defense of the idea that a focus upon such simple elements of life is right and significant. In other words, by cultivating peace, serenity, and right mindfulness, and by focusing on arranging the perfect garden or home, or making the perfect artifact, one achieves a serenity and harmony between mind, body, and nature.

Clunas' extended translation of Zhenheng's different expressions of the various progressions of modern Chinese men of his day through different stages of life show the Chinese writer's attention both to superfluity and detail, and how such details outline a general, far-reaching aesthetic, even though they apparently focus on minutia. Consider the guide provided by Chapter 23, Article 12, where Zhenheng writes in detail about how he believes that a person retired from office should build a small hut near a hill by his home, which must be furnished with teawares. The author dictates that this ideal retired man must also hire a boy as a tea servant to take care of his errands so he can entertain his guests and chat or sit in solitary confinement.

This level of prescriptive specificity shows not only the extent of detail that the Treatise provides regarding an ideal life in physical terms, but also the author's belief of what a good life should be in terms of its moral values. Clunas' desire to let Ming era authors speak for themselves, without much scholarly interpolation is the book's strength as well as its weakness. Clunas also discusses the influence of Gao Lian, who was a dramatist of the Ming Dynasty and wrote about ways to prolong health, advocating the need for peace and harmony as a way to support life, rather than seeking out drama in the real, political world of the court in ambitious terms.

Selections of Lian's work on "Eight Treatises on the Nurturing of Life" are also translated in the volume, along with works of another dramatist who wrote about the ability to improve one's physical health by achieving the right mindset, a man named Tu Long. As a playwright, Long disdained conventional, rigid formats of how to construct dramatic narratives, and after he retired from the stage he became interested in the correct way that a seculded intellectual, rather than an working person active in political life should conduct himself and improve his mindset. The title of his work, "Desultory Remarks on Furnishing the Abode of the Retired Scholar" (1590) discusses the way that architecture can facilitate one's peace of mind.

By focusing on individual figures, artifacts, and writing, a fairly piecemeal and individualistic picture of the Ming emerges. Clunas relies upon primary sources, but a fairly select number. His work is structured upon a series of presentations of these translations, more than a coherent thesis, and it is left up to the reader to draw conclusions from what is presented. This is difficult, especially if the reader is not fluent in an analysis of physical, artistic artifacts. The book contails long, detailed descriptions to accompany its pictures and photographs of various objects of the period, and for this alone, it would be a useful inclusion to a Chinese or art historian's library. Also, for a person who is unable to read Chinese, he offers translations of many works that would otherwise be lost.