GERHARD WOLF Image, Object, Art: Talking to a Chinese Jar on Two Human Feet I T IS HARD TO SAY why I stopped in front of you so much longer than before your neighbors, while walking through the collection of Chi- nese ceramics at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich recently (fig. 1). Is it because the base of your body has the somewhat simplified shape of two abstract Through ‘‘conversation’’ with a more than four thousand-year-old Chinese vessel, this essay engages with some of the fundamental principles of the discipline of art history espoused in recent decades. In particular, it situates Bildwissenschaft and thing theory and the material turn within ongoing debates on art and artifacts and delineates a more fluid approach to the study of image, object, art (Bild, Ding, Kunst). Representations 133. Winter 2016 The Regents of the University of California. ISSN 0734-6018, electronic ISSN 1533-855X, pages 152–59. All rights reserved. Direct requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content to the University of California Press at http://www.ucpress. edu/journals.php?p¼reprints. DOI: 10.1525/rep.2016.133.6.152. figure 1. Jar on two human feet, earthenware (China, Gansu or Qinghai Province, perhaps Qijia culture, 2nd millennium BCE). Permanent loan, Meiyintang Foundation, Inv. MYT 2095, Rietberg Museum, Zurich. 152