Over the last couple of decades, scholars specializing in early modern China have shown a bourgeoning interest in the wider spectrum of social and cultural history. Field-shaping works by Craig Clunas, Timothy Brook, and John Meskill, which focus mostly on the discussion of luxury goods and elegant lifestyles, have aptly shown how the desire to advance oneself and the illusion of social positioning were mediated and negotiated via conspicuous consumption, leisure activities, and critical debates. If this recent research has succeeded in opening a new sort of macro-discourse in sinology, Jonathan Hay's new book must be applauded for being the first meticulous micro-investigation, which extends research boundaries inward, taking as its focus decorative objects, including ceramics, jade, textiles, ink stones, carvings, accessories, and even frames or stands. Such objects, often categorized as “craft,” have been mainly celebrated in museum exhibitions and their catalogues; they have barely been touched on as a primary material in any serious research in the history of Chinese art. But the true originality of Hay's research lies in the way he treats the physical appearance and display of individual decorative objects (e.g., their shape, materials, color, or texture) as a kind of receptacle and conduit of their viewers’ appreciation and the cultural debates or protocols around them that engaged people and were shared across early modern China. Thus, his detailed explanations of objects and their physical characteristics are not offered as descriptive labels, as if identifying animals in a zoo, but rather as a way to illuminate a whole ecology wherein these objects interacted with people's minds and society.

The book's overarching theorization is proposed in part I in the neologism “surfacescape.” An elaborate analytical apparatus, this term refers to the topography of any given object's materiality, which is deeply bound up with its production, consumption, and reception. Jonathan Hay defines decoration's primordial function as how an object's ornamented surface invites viewers to respond emotionally. He explains, “We are allowing that a surfacescape, like a person, can have an affect. Surface also affects us imperceptibly” (p. 78). We can see that the physical surfaces of objects are staged to project their own kind of subjectivity. Thus, surfacescape not only is a final product of any artistic creation, but it also participates in the larger material and subjective environment, and the aura around the life of an object can forge an emphatic alliance between the object and its viewers.

Part II analyzes the various manifestations or components of surfacescape: color, texture, pattern, inscription, and even some natural changes on the surface, such as condensation or oxidization (whether artificial or natural) across various media. These are presented in often lengthy descriptions, yet they are simultaneously balanced with a contextual analysis that sets their visual effects against social discourse. There are a number of excellent interpretations. One good example is the popularization of objects with trompe-l'œil designs in Qing China, which, Hay argues, was not a solely visual effect, but also a subtle rhetorical device by which the political authenticity and legitimacy of the Manchu court was metaphorically projected and insinuated before the critical gaze of the Han Chinese elite.

All the unique characteristics of individual objects and their surfaces are tied together in part III. Decorative objects were never displayed or experienced in isolation. They were exhibited in architectural interiors to create a certain atmosphere, and perception of them was often conditioned by the season, time of day, temperature, and lighting, in addition to the social occasion and customs in line with gender, elite taste, and the erotics of the gaze. Jonathan Hay calls the orchestration of all of these factors “objectscape,” and in the course of this book, he carefully disentangles the complicated webs of “surfacescape” and “objectscape” and then knits them back together.

This book was a delightful discovery, and I am sure that even experienced sinologists and historians of East Asian art will appreciate its wide-ranging knowledge and the sharp-edged terminology developed in the course of its analysis. Many objects illustrated here were new to me, and the reproduction quality is superb. However, there are a couple of minor issues. The book seems a bit too lengthy; there is some over-description, and its ideas could have been put across more concisely and directly. In addition, some terms were used unevenly, for instance trompe-l'œil, which the author uses now to refer to visual artifice, now to virtuality, and now to pictorial deception. Nevertheless, among the books I have recently read on the cultural history of the early modern period (both Asian and European), this ranks as one of the best, and I am extending my highest recommendation of it to my students, colleagues, and the readers of this review.