Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art

An incomparable look at how Chinese artists have used mass production to assemble exquisite objects from standardized parts

Chinese workers in the third century BCE created seven thousand life-sized terracotta soldiers to guard the tomb of the First Emperor. In the eleventh century CE, Chinese builders constructed a pagoda from as many as thirty thousand separately carved wooden pieces. As these examples show, throughout history, Chinese artisans have produced works of art in astonishing qua...