The Arts of China

Thames & Hudson, United Kingdom, 1973 Book. Good. Hardcover. English text; Hardcover (with dust jacket); 16,5 x 25 cm; 1 Kg.; 256 pages with 235 illustrations, 14 in colour, and 34 diagrams and maps.; Used with signs of wear.; New and revised edition of 'A Short History of Chinese Art, published by Faber and Faber in 1967.; Michael Sullivan presents a balanced picture of the arts of China from the Stone Age to the present day. It has grown out of the author's Introduction to Chinese Art, which first appeared in 1961 and was reissued in a revised edition in 1967 under the title of 'A Short History of Chinese Art'. Since then, the pace of archaeological discovery and research has quickened, some of the most sensational finds having been made at the height of the Cultural Revolution in 1966-68, when to the outside world it seemed for a time as if China had turned her back on cultural heritage. These new developments, which have been watched by admirers of Chinese culture with increasing excitement , have necessitated a completely new edition of the book, incorporating material on some of the most important new finds, and a reassessment of well-known material in the light of these discoveries and of the author's own further studies and thoughts. There is a new chapter on the twentieth century, and the number of illustrations has been almost doubled. Unlike some other books on Chinese art, which treat each art form separately, or break off long before the modern period, this book covers all the major arts, and some of the minor ones, in a continuous narrative. For the author still believes that only by seeing the arts of China in relation to each other and to the sweep of Chinese history as a whole can their meaning and beauty be measured..