A Journey Through the Beauty of Art: Revised Illustrated Edition

Author: Li Zehou
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-03-01
Features: This book is a classic work of Chinese aesthetics. It embodies the many years of research by the author, Li Zehou, who vividly presents the Chinese people's ancient and modern sense of beauty. It is so (sensitive) and so (intimate). Now accompanied by exquisite illustrations, the book more vividly reveals the tumultuous journey of beauty in China. The Journey of Beauty provides a macroscopic overview of Chinese art and literature over thousands of years, offering a comprehensive description and aesthetic grasp. It introduces important concepts such as the "Dragon and Phoenix Dance" of primitive and ancient art, the "fierce beauty" of Shang and Zhou bronze art, the "Confucianism and Taoism complementarity" of the pre-Qin rational spirit, the "romanticism" of Chu Ci, Han Fu, and Han stone reliefs, the "awakening of humanity" in the Wei and Jin artistic style, the Buddhist sculptures of the Six Dynasties, Tang, and Song periods, the landscape paintings and poetry, ci, and qu of the Song and Yuan dynasties, each with its own aesthetic category, and the transformation of novels and operas in the Ming and Qing dynasties from romance to melancholy to realism, among others. Many of these ideas were first proposed by the author and have not been previously explored. The book was first published in 1981 and has been reprinted many times, with hundreds of thousands of copies sold. It has also been translated into multiple languages, including English, German, and Korean.