*Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 (His a History of Later Chinese Painting, 1279-1950 ; V. 1) **Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty, 1368-1580 (A History of Later Chinese Painting, 1279-1950 ; V. 2) ***Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting Of The Late Ming Dynasty, 1570-1644 (History of Later Chinese Painting, 1279-1950)
PARTING of the SHORE : Chinese paintings of the early and middle Ming Dynasty, 1368-1580 in this invaluable book James Cahill again shows that the world of Chinese painting is by no means the exclusive preserve of the specialist but welcomes art lover everywhere, layman and scholar alike. This is the second in a projected series of five volumes on Chinese painting of the later period, that remarkable age of creativity which extends from the thirteenth into the twentieth century. The book highlights the lives and work of almost 50 artists. It tells of the Ming continuation of major features already evident in the Yuan-the use of past traditions, the effects of historical events and circumstances on developments in painting, the further evolution of the scholar-amateur movement--and also discuss several new aspects of Chinese art. There is more emphasis here on local schools and traditions ad on the relationship between the social and economic status of the artists and their painting styles: between the patterns of their lives and the pictures they painted. The generous selection of 149 plates, including 14 in full color, presents both notable paintings never before reproduced and more familiar works viewed in a new light. The paintings include landscapes, figures (notably several from the extraordinary hand scroll "beggars and Street Characters," long a popular favorite), birds, flowers, trees, and insects.
With this third volume in James Cahill's ongoing account of later Chinese painting it becomes even clearer what a monumental task the author has set himself and how brilliantly he is accomplishing it. Here again is proof that the remarkable achievements of Chinese art, complex as they are, can be made understandable—and enjoyable—to art lovers anywhere. And the book will be no less welcome to scholars, with its masterly summation of recent research and theory together with the original insights of one of the world's leading authorities in the field.
We turn here to the fascinating but extremely complicated art of the late Ming dynasty, with all its currents and crosscurrents of politics, art, and criticism. The time span is less than a hundred years, encompassing the years from 1570, through the decline of Ming fortunes, to the dynasty's final defeat by the Manchu hordes from the north in 1644. The turbulence of the period was echoed in its art, which saw the creation of some of China's great masterworks. Treated in detail are the lives and works of some forty-two of the period's leading artists.
In the author's words: "Late Ming artists, besides producing a body of extraordinary interesting and sometimes superb paintings, were engaged in intricate ways with the past history of their art, and engaged also with their contemporary theorists in an elaborate interaction, a kind of cultural game that was played with especial intensity in this period. Theirs is often an intellectualized, historically conscious art; we can enjoy the paintings without reference to the issues that surround them, but to do so would be a severely limited reading of them. I have chosen instead to try to present them in all their complexity."
There are over 150 plates, including 19 in color, both of familiar masterworks and of pieces that have seldom or never been seen in the West, culled from leading collections in Asia and the West. This wealth of visual delight and instruction ably reinforces a text that is written with a great facility of style.
*Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 (His a History of Later Chinese Painting, 1279-1950 ; V. 1) **Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty, 1368-1580 (A History of Later Chinese Painting, 1279-1950 ; V. 2) ***Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting Of The Late Ming Dynasty, 1570-1644 (History of Later Chinese Painting, 1279-1950)
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