Water and Art ─ A Cross-cultural Study of Water As Subject and Medium in Modern and Contemporary Artistic Practice

Restless, protean, fluid, evanescent - despite being a huge challenge to represent visually, water has gained a peculiar significance in the art of the twentieth century. This may be due to the fact that it allows for a range of metaphorical meanings, many of which are particularly appropriate to the modern age. Not only a subject of modern and contemporary art, but also a material increasingly used in art-making water's double presence can be detected as much in the marine-themed water's double presence can be detected as much in the marine-themed watercolours of J.M.W. Turner as in the more recent works of performance and installation art in which it is directly employed as a medium.

Water and Art probes the ways in which water has gained an unprecedented prominence in modern and contemporary Western art, as well as seeking to illuminate its depiction in earlier periods. David Clarke employs a cross-cultural approach, finding parallels within modern and contemporary Chinese art, which draws distinctively on a cultural tradition in which water has long played an important role as important role as both subject and medium. Featuring a wealth of images by artists from West and East, including Bernini, Monet, Kandinsky, Viola, Shitao, Fu Baoshi and Song Dong, Water and Art help to promote a new approach to the understanding of art. Fast-paced, accessible, and comprehensive, this book is for the specialist and the general reader alike, offering fresh perspectives on familiar artists as well as an introduction to many who are less recognized in the literature of art history.

David Clarke is Professor in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong, and one of only a few art historians who have undertaken in-depth research into both Western and Asian art. His books include Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization and Hong Kong x 24 x 365: A Year in the Life of a City.