Embodied Image

Rating:
Summary: more please
Review: A handsome book, with excellent production values. The text is well presented, and the reproductions a treat for lovers of Chinese calligraphy. The compare-and-contrast of the different calligraphic styles is satisfying to read and follow. A useful overview.

Rating:
Summary: Private collection catalogue
Review: At 1st of May,2003, in Osaka municipal Museum, Japan, I appreciated the travelling exhibition including this John B. Elliott Collection.
This traced copy scroll of a two-line fragment of a letter by Wang Hsi-chih(ACE303-361) is fine. Atouched Dong Quichang(1555-1636) colophones and large character maximes calligraphy are impressive. Sung dynasty Emperor Hui-Tsong(r. 1101-1125) court mounting and seals seem genuine. The Wang calligraphy itself has enough quality among many his old replicas. The ink colour feels rather later period than 8th century.
Another impressive work is Zhu Yunming(ACE1460-1526)'s small square script
album.
However, this is a private and personal collection catalogue. Reading this, one imagines and looks for passed Mr. Elliott's personality and taste.
It is too heavy burden for this collection to act as a textbook of great chinese calligraphy history.
Indeed there is few museum whose collection is completely genuine, I recommend chinese-calligraphy lovers in USA to appreciate, study and learn masterpieces in National Palace Museum, Taipei, First.
Japanese collections also have masterpieces.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Most major styles are presented in this wonderfully printed book. The articles are informatory and scholarly. This fine collection of calligraphy is intoxicatingly beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: A Different Way of Thinking About the Written Word
Review: What fascinates me so much about this book, what keeps drawing me to it, is this: the calligraphers of ancient China wrote as they painted, and painted as they wrote. In other words, each character is an "embodied image" which expresses the moods and passions of its creator.

When we Westerners read, we read for content, for meaning only. We do not read and at the same time notice how the characters look. Since Gutenberg and the advent of movable type, and especially now, with digital type, each of our characters must always look the same. When they don't, it is considered an imperfection. In Chinese calligraphy, however, considerable attention is given to how the characters look. It is through their appearance that we can discern the whether the creator was hurried, what angle he wrote at, and what mood he might have been in.

The visual effect of a poem written by a great Chinese calligrapher a thousand years ago, vs. reading the same poem in a standardized font, is quite stark. We have a lot to learn from the Chinese, especially given their likely ascension of global power in the coming years. This book provides an indispensable, detailed, well illustrated reference for an important aspect of how Chinese culture differs so dramatically from our own.

Highly recommended.