Customer Reviews

Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art

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Let me say up front, I am not an unbiased reviewer. I have been a close friend of the author's since the early 60's and can attest to her love of this topic. However, I think I can offer some insight to the work and its value in the study of Chinese art objects.

The purpose of this book is to decode the intensely rich visual vocabulary of Chinese art. While paintings, ceramics, and virtually all other forms of Chinese may aesthetically stand on their own, without such interpretation (some art critics would rather have it that way), in the context of its cultural setting, such works are understood by the knowledgeable person to have quite specific meanings. For example, a painting of the Asiatic redheaded crane is a common symbol of a wish for long life.

For more than a century, there have been studies of the symbolism in Chinese art. There have also been a few studies of punning, plays on the hundreds of homophones in the Chinese language. Throughout her career, the author has studied both Chinese and Western language sources on this material with an unending relentlessness. For years, many of us in the field have known that Terese Bartholomew was THE authority on the topic and several of her other publications reflect this intense interest. However, what she has done in Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art is to put together the finest encyclopedic dictionary conceivable. This in not a "selection" of signs, symbols, and puns. Rather it is as complete as is humanly possible at this time. I cannot say that she has "every one" but I will say that most non-specialists are unlikely to ever come across one that is not in this magnificent work. An accomplished traditional painter, Terese and her artist daughter, Mulan, have created hundreds of beautiful small drawings to supplement the several hundred photographic images in the book.

The purpose of decoding the details of Chinese symbolism has been beautifully met by this sumptuous publication that is sure to become the "classic" of the field. Indeed, it is my sincere belief that no future work on Chinese art should ever be written without reverence to this work.

At long last, Terese has brought to fruition something that we all knew was "in there" because many of us have been using her as a resource for decades! Everyone involved is to be congratulated on a wonderful contribution to understanding Chinese art.

Terese Tse Bartholomew's "Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art" is far and away the most impressively researched of all the books available in English on the complex and endlessly fascinating subject of symbolism in Chinese art. It is also cause for celebration that Bartholomew's scholarship is teamed with beautiful color photographs and drawings and that each substantive entry is accompanied by Chinese characters and pinyin transliterations. Despite these Chinese-centric flourishes, the book is as useful for the study of Japanese culture and art as it is for Chinese, and it is therefore no surprise that it is dedicated to Frances Bushell, one of the great patrons of Japanese art in the United States. Bartholmew's book is destined to be a classic and a critical resource for scholars and collectors, and one hopes that San Francisco's Asian art Museum will keep the book in print for decades to come.

In contrast to previous books on East Asian symbolism, Bartholomew's "Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art" often disaggregates its material on individual subjects. Thus references to peaches, peonies, and carp, for example, are scattered among multiple chapters, and the reader has to rely on the index to track down and reaggregate the full range of meanings for any one symbol. This occurs because Bartholomew has chosen to arrange the book according to such auspicious themes as Motifs for a Happy Marriage, Motifs for Numerous Sons, and Motifs for Wealth. While these motifs are dear to the hearts of the Chinese, this singular focus has ocasionally meant that some symbols, especially those related to religion and abstract constructs, are not included. Owners of the Bartholomew book therefore will want to keep on hand, or newly acquire, copies of C.A.S. Williams' early 20th-century study of Chinese motifs and symbolism.