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I read the translation of this at St Bride's Library last night. It was a great Foreign Language Press book. It looked at the classical use of Chinese woodcuts in book illustrations from the Tang dynasty to the Qing as well as woodcuts used as New Year prints and political woodcuts from the 20th century (both pre and post 1949). It contained such great passages as:
and
I did love the original illustrations, they were very pretty and depicted many scences from my favorite stories. What surprised me the most was how much I also enjoyed the political ones, they were much more stark but portrayed such real emotion I found them quite moving.
There was also a rather unflattering mention of Aureal Stein and his removal of the Dunhuang documents, "In the year 1907 an Englishman swindled part of the treasure including the Diamond Sutra" (19)
A lovely illustrated book, with a good deal about Lu Xuan and the Communist's fight in the Civil War. The author mentions, with obvious sadness, the time of the Cultural Revolution when woodcuts were considered to be evil. But was glad that once again he was seeing them return to popularity. Unfotunatley he didn't live long enough to see his book translated into English. But it was highly enjoyable.
Ancient and modern woodcuts are two connected inseperatble parts. However, the old belonged to a feudalistic epoch and the modern to an art of revolution (15)
and
The palace editions of woodcut prints were exceedlingly nice, but their content was merely propaganda for the Imperial court, so they were lifeless and hindered the growth of the woodcut
I did love the original illustrations, they were very pretty and depicted many scences from my favorite stories. What surprised me the most was how much I also enjoyed the political ones, they were much more stark but portrayed such real emotion I found them quite moving.
There was also a rather unflattering mention of Aureal Stein and his removal of the Dunhuang documents, "In the year 1907 an Englishman swindled part of the treasure including the Diamond Sutra" (19)
A lovely illustrated book, with a good deal about Lu Xuan and the Communist's fight in the Civil War. The author mentions, with obvious sadness, the time of the Cultural Revolution when woodcuts were considered to be evil. But was glad that once again he was seeing them return to popularity. Unfotunatley he didn't live long enough to see his book translated into English. But it was highly enjoyable.