Xishan Qingyuan

This book is translated and organized on the basis of the series of lectures "A Pure and Remote View: Visualizing Early Chinese Landscape Painting" given by the famous art historian Professor Gao Juhan. Recording this series of lectures was an important work of Gao Juhan before his death. It condensed what he had learned and realized throughout his life, and fulfilled his long-cherished wish to tell the world about the general history of ancient Chinese art.

Through careful reading of paintings and comparisons of works, the author starts a systematic narrative of the history of early Chinese painting, analyzes how it changed from "decoration" to "figurative representation", and reached its peak in the Song Dynasty, becoming the only great painting comparable to the European Renaissance. artistic tradition. This clue was ignored and belittled by the later history of literati painting, and it has not been clearly and fully explained in the current world art history. This book can make up for the lack of knowledge and expand people's understanding of the world significance and value of early Chinese painting history. Emphasizing the pleasure of viewing and advocating visual research starting from the painting itself is also the author's reflection on the methodology of Chinese painting history and the research on European and American art history.

The author is eloquent and eloquent, telling vivid and passionate stories, integrating extensive knowledge and delicate and sensitive painting experience, interspersed with the stories of his many years of personal experience in art appreciation and art history, and the amount of knowledge and information huge. The topic of this book is open and thought-provoking, and it puts forward novel thinking on many issues in the history of painting, which will surely trigger academic discussions.