Chinese Painting

by James Cahill

Chinese Painting

Genres: Art, China, History, Art History, Nonfiction, Asia, Ancient History

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

Reviews

[Dirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really got a lot out of this book. It's one of those fine old library-bound Skira art books with tipped-in illustrations. I do a set of stretches and exercises every day, and it's been my habit for many years to keep an art book handy and look at something before every set of exercises begins. Normally I don't look at any text except the caption. But because I knew so little about Chinese painting and the text was so captivating and informative I read every word. What I got out of it most, besides seeing and understanding of many beautiful paintings, was a sense of entirely different perspectives on various issues that have appeared in the history of Western painting. For example the difference between amateurs and professionals, which of course varies over the centuries, but often in China took the form that amateurs are serious artists and professionals are hacks. For another, there is the importance of the presence of the artist in the painting. Whole schools of thought about Chinese paintings held that what was most important for the viewer to get out and painting was a sense of the attitude of the artist, but yet, at least in the works surveyed in this tome, Chinese painting never took the step to abstract Expressionism. Having studied this book I not only feel I see Chinese painting better and know more about it, but I have a widened perspective of the human capacity to render images.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent overview of the history of Chinese painting, and while there's a fair number of illustrations, they are of average quality. Not a surprise for a book published in 1960.

[Tea73 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've owned this book for over forty years, but only just got around to actually reading it. It's a good jumping off point for a beginner to the subject.

It's probably unfair to quibble too much about a book that attempts to cover 1300 years of Chinese painting in less than 200 pages. I really appreciate that all the illustrations are in color and of a good size. Cahill uses the old Wade-Giles system for transliterating Chinese names which makes looking up artists on the internet a bit of a two-step process. I don't agree with all of Cahill's assessments, but I am an artist not a scholar, so take my opinions for what they are worth.

[翰林院编修]

图说中国绘画史
8.6 (2600人评价) [美] 高居翰 / 李渝 / 生活·读书·新知三联书店 / 2014
本书是1958年由瑞士人史基拉策划的一套亚洲艺术丛书之一，以编入他当时已获盛名的欧洲艺术丛书。

[Toon Pepermans · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...

[Wenyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hesitation of a nation.

[Tsai Wei-chieh · Rating 4 out of 5]

2015年讀的，充滿回憶的書。

[Jerry Dreesen]

Wonderful, inspirational...

[Yangqi Yu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attention: the scope is quite disappointing. This is not an exhaustive visual art history. The abundant other forms of visual art, sculpture, archtecture, decorative pictorial motifs etc., all these are intentionally ignored by the author. Some very important types of paintings are just mentioned briefly, like the fresco, buddhism paintings, folk painting and prints. The choices are interesting, not many household names are here. There are really a lot out there to be discussed.

Now the bright side. There is always a storyline here going thru the whole book: the conflict and influence of professional painting and amateurs' work with each other. Since there is a clear focus here, the author is able to go into quite depth for thousands of years of history with only 100 paintings.