ABSTRACT
Having shown that paintings can be things that function within the artworld, but also outside it, this chapter asks what might be the roles of globalization, continuing cultural peculiarity, and translation in the making, use, and amenability to historical understanding of paintings both within the artworld and beyond it. This chapter looks at instances of paintings, some of which function within the artworld, and others that do not. Some of these might be said to function globally, while others have a predominantly local significance. This chapter examines how these factors play out in the case of one society in the non-European world—China—in which European products are well-known and have affected the making and use of things, including paintings. Such things can also move into and out of the artworld, assuming and losing the status of art as they move among people across space and time. This chapter examines the peculiarities of painting types being produced in China, all of which share a complex of characteristics, including emulation, imitation, and copying. Examining how this is manifested in a wide variety of ways is vital to understanding what is at stake aesthetically in Chinese art in relation to the supposed globalization of values, and therefore to an ability to understand the point of such things as items amenable to historical understanding. This chapter refers to scholars Joseph Banks, Arthur Danto, and Hao Sheng; and artists Ai Weiwei, Hai Bo, Arnold Chang, John C. Gonzalez, Thomas Kinkade, Lam Qua (Guan Qiaochang), Li Jin, Liu Ding, Liu Guosong, Tupaia, Wang Shimin, Xu Bing, Zhao Xiaoyong, Zhou Tiehai, and Zhou Yibo.
