TRADITIONAL STUDIES

The scholar’s study occupies a central role in Chinese culture and has, as a result, had an essential impact on the architecture of the home. Among the literati (wen ren) it was a well-used place for reading and learning as well as for cultivating self through meditation. It embodied Confucianism (though in feudal society only men were entitled to learn) and so, long before schools, a study shouldered the responsibility of education and served as the shrine for education. In modern China, this symbolism gives the scholar’s study a special, respected place. Traditional furniture is formally prescribed and focal to the arrangement, centering on a desk with chair and foot stool, and an array of containers and displays for scrolls (later books) and paintings. Traditional groupings include ‘The Four Treasures of the Study’ on the desk, ‘The Four Books and Five Classics’ on the bookshelf, ‘Rare Gems’ in the treasure shelf, and ‘Calligraphies and Paintings of the Famous’ in the scroll holder. These were considered necessary and useful tools of learning. A certain austerity pervaded studies such as the one in the main photograph here dating to 1797, in keeping with the ancient Chinese belief that a place of study required toil rather than relaxation, though this strict attitude has, of course, softened over time.

Deep turquoise was chosen for this office to set off the rich tones of the classical Ming desk, horseshoe-back chairs and spindle-back settee, all made of hong mu. A huanghuali document box rests on a modern marble coffee table.

An antique Ming horseshoe-back chair and heavy contemporary wooden desk below one of artist Shao Fan’s black series paintings. One of the attractions of Ming furniture is that its simple, rigorous lines complement equally simple modern furniture.

A dark wooden desk in the corner of a bedroom blends discreetly with the paneling in this restored Shanghai house.

An actual scholar’s study from a Qing dynasty residence in Tangli, in the West Dongting Hills, reconstructed at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in the United States. It features a plain large desk, foot stool and yoke-back chair. The decorative screen on the desk, which carries a stone with a natural landscape pattern, protected papers from any breeze.

The study in a 1930s longtang house, with a Chinese office cabinet of the period and an ancestor scroll painting at right.