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Edited by art historians Robert Harrist and Wen C. Fong and with contributions from 11 other scholars, the volume documents the calligraphy collection of Princeton University's Art Museum, which Fong calls "the only collection outside China and Japan that properly represents the sixteen-hundred-year history of this highly prized ... art form." Filled with marvels ranging from one of the earliest known fragments of the classic text Tao Te Ching to letters and scrolls by artists who are the Rembrandts and Picassos of the medium, The Embodied Image presents Chinese calligraphy in terms of brushwork, as text, as the expression of the writer's personal cultivation, and as the underpinning of later (if not all) Chinese painting.
There's plenty of ink play for the eye to dance over: fluid, angular, stiff, or scratchy. The accompanying texts--two introductory essays on calligraphic history and theory and eight specialized ones, with various levels of detail--allow readers to choose their own depth. But the visual "text" alone is illuminating and provides pleasure. The 55 featured works, dating from 270 to the 1870s, are divided into seven groups, with short historical introductions preceding the works (reproduced in color and nuanced duotone). Four hundred more illustrations, including character comparisons, are enormously helpful, as is the labeling of the parts of a 12-foot scroll assembled over several centuries around a traced copy of a two-line fragment of a letter by the most influential calligrapher of all, Wang Hsi-chih.
The book was published for an exhibition at Princeton University in 1999, touring New York and Seattle through 2001, but The Embodied Image will long contribute to the understanding of an art that is itself more than two millennia old. --Joseph Newland
From Library Journal
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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When we Westerners read, we read for content, for meaning only. We do not read and at the same time notice how the characters look. Since Gutenberg and the advent of movable type, and especially now, with digital type, each of our characters must always look the same. When they don't, it is considered an imperfection. In Chinese calligraphy, however, considerable attention is given to how the characters look. It is through their appearance that we can discern the whether the creator was hurried, what angle he wrote at, and what mood he might have been in.
The visual effect of a poem written by a great Chinese calligrapher a thousand years ago, vs. reading the same poem in a standardized font, is quite stark. We have a lot to learn from the Chinese, especially given their likely ascension of global power in the coming years. This book provides an indispensable, detailed, well illustrated reference for an important aspect of how Chinese culture differs so dramatically from our own.
Highly recommended.
This traced copy scroll of a two-line fragment of a letter by Wang Hsi-chih(ACE303-361) is fine. Atouched Dong Quichang(1555-1636) colophones and large character maximes calligraphy are impressive. Sung dynasty Emperor Hui-Tsong(r. 1101-1125) court mounting and seals seem genuine. The Wang calligraphy itself has enough quality among many his old replicas. The ink colour feels rather later period than 8th century.
Another impressive work is Zhu Yunming(ACE1460-1526)'s small square script
album.
However, this is a private and personal collection catalogue. Reading this, one imagines and looks for passed Mr. Elliott's personality and taste.
It is too heavy burden for this collection to act as a textbook of great chinese calligraphy history.
Indeed there is few museum whose collection is completely genuine, I recommend chinese-calligraphy lovers in USA to appreciate, study and learn masterpieces in National Palace Museum, Taipei, First.
Japanese collections also have masterpieces.
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