Two Twelfth-Century Texts on Chinese Painting presents two texts in translation that provide dual insight into the Painting Academy of Emperor Hui-tsung and the literati school of painting. The Shan-shui ch'un-ch'uan chi is a treatise for beginning landscape painters dated to the Hsüan-ho era. The treatise was written by Han Cho, a reputed member of the Academy, but the text was not specifically directed at Academicians. The treatise collects and orders previous writings on landscape painting; one of Han Cho's main goals is to list all landscape definitions and their practical application in painting. Yet his view is more detached and analytical than a stereotypical Academy painter, revealing an approach reminiscent of Confucian scholarship and literati painting as well. The Hua-chi by Teng Ch'un is a history of painting that was written as a sequel to two earlier painting histories. In ten chapters, Teng Ch'un compiles facts and critical evaluations of painters from 1075 to 1167, as well as listings of selected masterpieces. Teng Ch'un provides more specific information about the Academy than Han Cho, discussing its organization and examination system, and noting that “form-likeness” and adherence to rules were leading standards for painting in the Academy. On the other hand, he thinks that painting should transmit “soul,” not just “form.” Thus, Teng Ch'un writes the history of both the establishment values of the Academy and the intellectual tendencies of the literati.

Two Twelfth-Century Texts on Chinese Painting presents two texts in translation that provide dual insight into the Painting Academy of Emperor Hui-tsung and the literati school of painting. The Shan-shui ch’un-ch’uan chi is a treatise for beginning landscape painters dated to the Hsüan-ho era. The treatise was written by Han Cho, a reputed member of the Academy, but the text was not specifically directed at Academicians. The treatise collects and orders previous writings on landscape painting; one of Han Cho’s main goals is to list all landscape definitions and their practical application in painting. Yet his view is more detached and analytical than a stereotypical Academy painter, revealing an approach reminiscent of Confucian scholarship and literati painting as well. The Hua-chi by Teng Ch’un is a history of painting that was written as a sequel to two earlier painting histories. In ten chapters, Teng Ch’un compiles facts and critical evaluations of painters from 1075 to 1167, as well as listings of selected masterpieces. Teng Ch’un provides more specific information about the Academy than Han Cho, discussing its organization and examination system, and noting that “form-likeness” and adherence to rules were leading standards for painting in the Academy. On the other hand, he thinks that painting should transmit “soul,” not just “form.” Thus, Teng Ch’un writes the history of both the establishment values of the Academy and the intellectual tendencies of the literati.

Two Twelfth-Century Texts on Chinese Painting presents two texts in translation that provide dual insight into the Painting Academy of Emperor Hui-tsung and the literati school of painting. The Shan-shui ch’un-ch’uan chi is a treatise for beginning landscape painters dated to the Hsüan-ho era. The treatise was written by Han Cho, a reputed member of the Academy, but the text was not specifically directed at Academicians. The treatise collects and orders previous writings on landscape painting; one of Han Cho’s main goals is to list all landscape definitions and their practical application in painting. Yet his view is more detached and analytical than a stereotypical Academy painter, revealing an approach reminiscent of Confucian scholarship and literati painting as well. The Hua-chi by Teng Ch’un is a history of painting that was written as a sequel to two earlier painting histories. In ten chapters, Teng Ch’un compiles facts and critical evaluations of painters from 1075 to 1167, as well as listings of selected masterpieces. Teng Ch’un provides more specific information about the Academy than Han Cho, discussing its organization and examination system, and noting that “form-likeness” and adherence to rules were leading standards for painting in the Academy. On the other hand, he thinks that painting should transmit “soul,” not just “form.” Thus, Teng Ch’un writes the history of both the establishment values of the Academy and the intellectual tendencies of the literati.

Published in conjunction with a December 1999 symposium held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and an exhibition, "The Artist as Collector: Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the C.C. Wang Family Collection." Twelve contributions give dissenting opinions regarding a book recently published by The Museum titled Along the Riverbank, which seeks to attribute the painting called "Riverbank" to the 10th-century landscape master Dong Yuan--an attribution that would call for the rewriting of early Chinese painting history. This volume contains 239 bandw illustrations to support the contributors' efforts to explain their opinions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In May of 1985, an international symposium was held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in honor of John M. Crawford, Jr., whose gifts of Chinese calligraphy and painting have constituted a significant addition to the Museum's holdings. Over a three-day period, senior scholars from China, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, and the United States expressed a wide range of perspectives on an issue central to the history of Chinese visual aesthetics: the relationships between poetry, calligraphy, and painting. The practice of integrating the three art forms-known as san-chiieh, or the three perfections-in one work of art emerged during the Sung and Yuan dynasties largely in the context of literati culture, and it has stimulated lively critical discussion ever since. This publication contains twenty-three essays based on the papers presented at the Crawford symposium. Grouped by subject matter in a roughly chronological order, these essays reflect research on topics spanning two millennia of Chinese history. The result is an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex set of relationships between words and images by art historians, literary historians, and scholars of calligraphy. Their findings provide us with a new level of understanding of this rich and complicated subject and suggest further directions for the study of Chinese art history. The essays are accompanied by 255 illustrations, some of which reproduce works rarely published. Chinese characters have been provided throughout the text for artists names, terms, titles of works of art and literature, and important historical figures, as well as for excerpts of selected poetry and prose. A chronology, also containing Chinese characters, and an extensive index contribute to making this book illuminating and invaluable to both the specialist and the layman.

In the latter half of the fourteenth century, at one end of the Eurasian continent, the stage was not yet set for the emergence of modern nation-states. At the other end, the Chinese drove out their Mongol overlords, inaugurated a new native dynasty called Ming (1368–1644), and reasserted the mastery of their national destiny. It was a dramatic era of change, the full significance of which can only be perceived retrospectively. With the establishment of the Ming dynasty, a major historical tension rose into prominence between more absolutist and less absolutist modes of rulership. This produced a distinctive style of rule that modern students have come to call Ming despotism. It proved a capriciously absolutist pattern for Chinese government into our own time. [1, 2 ,3]

Traditionally, criticism of plays from the Yüan Dynasty (1260–1368) has been dominated by the so-called poetic and socialist schools. Double Jeopardy instead rigorously evaluates a group of plays by aesthetic criteria generated from within the works themselves. It examines seven courtroom plays with special attention to language and the manipulation of dramatic characters—undoubtedly the most reliable indicators of the playwright’s strength and craftsmanship in such a stylized art form as Yüan tsa-chü drama. The analytical method adopted in Double Jeopardy is textual explication of the conventions of genre and the individual characteristics of each play. The innovation and creative vitality of each playwright emerges through close scrutiny of selected conventional aspects of courtroom dramas: the functions and placement patterns of lyric, verse, and prose as well as the custom of a single singing role and its implication for the presentation of dramatis personae. Because Yüan drama is driven by conventions, Perng demonstrates a method that can be applied not just to judgment reversal plays but to Yüan dramatic criticism as a whole. In pursuing a method of textual explication, Perng provides a basis on which a larger framework of criticism of Yüan drama may be built.

Shanghai’s January Revolution was a highly visible and, by all accounts, crucially important event in China’s Cultural Revolution. Its occurrence, along with the subsequent attempt to establish a “commune” form of municipal government, has greatly shaped our understanding both of the goals originally envisaged for the Cultural Revolution by its leaders and of the political positions held by the new corps of Party leaders thrust upward during its course—most notably Chang Ch’un ch’iao. At this interpretive level, the events in Shanghai seem to embody in microcosm the issues and conflicts in Chinese politics during the Cultural Revolution as a whole, while at the same time shaping our conception of what these larger issues and conflicts were. At the more general, theoretical level, however, the events in Shanghai provide us with an unusual opportunity (thanks to Red Guard raids on Party offices) to view the internal workings of the Party organization under a period of stress and to observe unrestrained interest group formation and mass political conflict through the press accounts provided by these unofficial groups themselves. The January Revolution thus provides us with an opportunity to develop better our more abstract, theoretical understanding of the functioning of the Chinese political system and the dynamics of the social system in which it operates. [1]

This book provides an insightful new study, drawn from the largely unpublished Buddhist paintings at Dunhuang, of medieval Chinese wall painting, workshop production, and artistic performance in theory and practice.