This book is the first systematic study to clarify the concepts, scope, history, and cultural origins of plainwood and plainwood furniture from both scientific and artistic perspectives. It also provides a detailed account of Western scholarship on plainwood furniture and how it has been understood abroad. With objectivity and candor, the author examines the formation, meanings, dissemination, and influence of the concept of “Ming-style furniture,” arguing that certain authoritative conclusions and long-accepted assumptions about classical Chinese furniture—ideas that have profoundly shaped modern understanding—deserve to be reconsidered, and in some cases, questioned.

The book’s most important contribution lies in its exploration of a largely overlooked dimension of classical Chinese furniture aesthetics, one that has not yet been fully studied by scholars either in China or abroad. It argues that the beauty of classical Chinese furniture does not lie simply in the use of precious woods such as rosewood or huanghuali, nor in fine craftsmanship alone. Rather, its true aesthetic value resides in the literati spirit: the refined sensibility and intellectual consciousness of the scholar class as expressed through furniture.

Fully illustrated with color photos, text in Chinese.

2022, SDX Joint Publishing, hardcover, 328 pp., as new.