Venus Tour: A Chronicle of Western Art History

Author: Chen Wangheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: It is a book of dynamism. Beautiful images, beautiful texts, and beautiful sentiments will make you pause: Venus with full breasts and hips—Venus, enchanting birth—Botticelli, tea aroma by the window—Vermeer, but with melancholy—Watte, "stone" shapes create heroes—Rodin, when sorrow turns into happiness—Gauguin, adult fairy tales—Joan Miró, he is the book's natural protagonist. Not to be overlooked are Goethe, Taine, Hegel, Winckelmann, these masters who wander in the realm of art offer viewers feasts of words and thoughts just as generously. It is a book of solace. Wang Xiaobo said, "What is the passage of time?" "It's like a person who is possessed lying at the bottom of a river, watching the flowing water, sparkling light, falling leaves, floating wood, empty glass bottles, one after another flowing past." Touching the Eternal, Early-Ripened Aristocrat, Smiling from the Other Shore, Ode to Splendor and Joy, Drunkenness of Honey, Embrace and Farewell, The Never-Ending Show. These are the rich chapters of the history of beauty that unfold along the axis of time; are those talented geniuses in the clouds? No, they also have the joys and sorrows of the mortal world—there is aesthetics outside the history of art, and beyond the history of scholarship lies the tea of life. A book of solace is written with this intention.