Symbols, Art, and Language from the Land of the Dragon: The Cultural History of 100 Chinese Characters

by Ni Yibin

Much more than a book about language, "100 Chinese Characters" interweaves history, culture and art to reveal one of the world's greatest civilizations. Chinese characters have developed over thousands of years, captivating as much with their artistic expressiveness as with their intriguing layers of meaning. In this book the text is accompanied with calligraphy and full-colour reproductions of Chinese brush paintings, calligraphic scrolls cermaics and textiles, whilst each entry explores the meaning behind the character and its significance in Chinese culture, from words such as dragon, mountain and heaven, to abstract concepts such as love, beauty and trust. Drawing on the latest scholarship, this silk-bound edition is both engaging and informative - language as an art form; art as language.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2009

Reviews

[Nancy]

Had my eye on this for a while but balked at the $50 price tag. Finally got a discount on Amazon. The author, Ni Yibin, covers the origin of 100 key Chinese characters. I do not study the Chinese raedinsg but have studied the Japanese, and the Japanese adapted their system from the Chinese. Japanese kanji have different readings, but usually there is a strong correlation in meaning. The way the characters came to be drawn often gives a deeper meaning to the kanji and to the compunds in which they are used. This will likely be on my "currently reading" shelf for a long time, since I am using it to help with kanji study, but already I can recommend it as unique and beautiful. For anyone attracted to the beauty of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, Ni Yibin's book is a real find. Plus, if you ever wanted to get a tattoo, you can do some research into what the character really means!

[mike]

As with any coffee-table book, it's not the sort of thing you "read" cover-to-cover. Unlike other coffee-table books, it's a reference that can sate (or stoke) curiosity in the space of one page. Curious about "dog" in Chinese? There's a page for that, with a pictorial evolution from a dog-looking glyph to today's character, along with notes on the dog's historical place in Chinese culture... and, yes, a paragraph on which regions most commonly eat them.

Each of the 100 featured characters gets just a one-page write-up; this is a feature, not a bug. A lot of editing goes into condensing information into bite-sized pieces.

Why a three-star "liked it" and not a four-star "really liked it"? I think I would have read a four-star coffee-table book cover-to-cover, regardless of the format. And I wouldn't have paid rack rate of $50 for the book (I found it in like-new condition for less than $20 at the bookshop around the corner).

[Todd Mayville]

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/0...