"Sensuous Surfaces" is a systematic introduction to the decorative arts in Ming and Qing dynasty China. Jonathan Hay's analysis takes in both material and technique, and also issues of patronage and taste, which together formed a loose system of informal rules that affected every level of decoration in early modern China, from an individual object to the arrangement of an entire residential interior. By engaging the actual and metaphoric potential of surface, this system guided the production and use of the decorative arts during a period of explosive growth, which started in the late sixteenth century and continued until the mid-nineteenth century.The system made a fundamental contribution to the sensory education of China's early modern urban population, both as individuals and in their embodiment of established social roles. "Sensuous Surfaces" is also a meditation on the role of pleasure in decoration. Often intellectually dismissed as merely pleasurable, Hay argues that decoration is better understood as a necessary form of art which can fulfil its function only by engaging the human capacity for erotic response.

Featuring around 280 colour images, of a wide range of early modern Chinese objects and art-works, this book will engage anyone with an interest in decoration, art, China - or the experience of pleasure itself.

喬迅（Jonathan Hay) 1956年齣生於蘇格蘭。1978年獲英國倫敦大學亞非學院中國考古學學士；1981年入美國耶魯大學，隨班宗華教授（Richard Barnhart)學習中國藝術史，專攻晚期中國繪畫史、物質文化史。1989年以論文《石濤晚期的作品（1697-1707）；一副主題的地圖》]獲博士學位。現任美國紐約大學美術史研究所艾爾薩梅隆布魯斯講座教授，藝術史期刊《人類學與美學》特邀顧問（1990-1999）。喬迅的寫作主要討論中國藝術的現代性、主體性與世界性等問題；研究領域設計藝術的理論與方法、中國明清藝術、唐代墓室壁畫、宋畫及當代中國藝術。