Xu Bing's Book From The Sky

is a piece of work written by Ntozake Shange. It is written in an unusual style

Similarities in Wen Zhengming’s and Tang Yin’s can mostly be attributed to the influence of Confucian ideals. Wen Zhengming was a “wen-jen,” meaning he was “a scholar well versed in the classics, poetry, and history” (Scarce 417). Similar to Confucianism, they both have the aesthetic of “integrity and sincerity” and “spontaneity and simplicity” (Scarce 417). Spontaneity is reflected in Wen Zhengming’s calligraphy when the characters vary in thickness. For example, the first character down from the fourth column from the right is thick and vertical. However, the sixth character down from the fifth column from the right is thin and horizontal. These contrasting qualities exemplify the spontaneity and expression in Wen Zhengming’s calligraphy.

Xu Bing’s is a Chinese artist who studied printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His style of art is defined as social realist which was greatly influenced by his time at a re-education camp during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960’s and 70’s. he favored the popular phrase in that time “ Use your pen as a weapon and shoot down reactionary gangs”. Bing’s father was a historian and his mother was an administrator in the library of science. A Book from the Sky is a four volume printed bound book a total of 604 pages invented 4,000 characters and hand-carved them into wood blocks with walnut wooden cases written in 1988-1991.It is classified as sculpture. It is filled with false Chinese characters, invented by Xu Bing then he cut out pear wood to create the movable type printing technique invented by the Chinese in the 11th century. He uses a traditional Chinese typesetting, and binding stringing. ”Each sheet is folded to make two pages; there are nine columns per page and up to seventeen characters per column. Each double-page sheet is folded along the center line of the print rack and stitch bound. Six-hole stitching , a blank paper lining folded into each –double page covered corner, and blue-dyed volume covers all derived from traditional Chinese book of binding of the highest quality.

Throughout history, art has played a major role in contributing to the development of cultures and communities. As one of the foundations of Chinese culture, this paper contains information about the life and brief of Jiang yingwen, the protagonist in the novel. This is a story about his effort to establish a new form of artistic expression in a century of change and transformation.

The symposium, “Artful Retreat: Garden Culture of the Qing Dynasty”, jointly organized by the Peabody Essex Museum and Harvard University and held on 12-13 November 2010, reveals Qianlong’s emotional relationships to the Qing gardens. Gathering scholars from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States, it provides an exceptional opportunity for ten scholars, such as Hui Zou (Professor of Architecture at the University of Florida) and Mark Elliott (Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University), to share their perspectives on the artistic, political, historical, and economic aspects of the Qing-period garden culture.

The prosperity of the publishing in late Ming China not only increased the number of imprint copies as well as created a more competitive book market, but also attracted a wider, even more broad readership. The publishers and the literati became more aware of the needs of the diverse readers, and tried to attract the late Ming readership to their fictions and stories. As one of the most influential literary works in late imperial China, Three Words Collection (三言) ,which includes three story anthologies complied by Feng Menglong, undoubtedly draws a large number of readers’ attention. Many scholars study the content of Feng Menglong’s stories, and they pay more attention to the iconoclastic views involving in the Three Words Collection (三言). Nevertheless, the literary technique that Feng Menglong used in his stories is also of great importance, and it is worthy of further examination. Through creatively utilizing a poem, lyric or quatrain as the opening, or the prologue of each story, Feng Menglong deployed aesthetic as well as material features successfully, and thus the rhetorical feature contributed to the art and uniqueness of his stories. In the following text, I will examine the significance of this literary feature, which is Feng Menglong’s special utilization of the poem or lyric as the prologue in the Three Words

Being an artist takes time, dedication and commitment, especially to become as talented as Xu Wei and Liu Dan. These famous Chinese artists put in the time, dedication and commitment and their hard work has paid off. Xu Wei, from Saoxing, Zhejiang, did not grow up in the ideal situation, he was orphaned at a young age, but escaped his problems in life by painting and writing calligraphy; where he excelled the most. (BOOK pg. 208) Later during the Ming dynasty, he began to paint flowers and plants. One of his famous works in which we will focus is called Twelve Plants and Twelve Calligraphers (1). (BOOK 209). Another well-known artist from this century is Liu Dan. Liu Dan is also from China and was a fan of studying Confucian classics, poetry and calligraphy with his grandfather. He enjoys creating new perspectives on his pieces and one of his artworks that hits close to home is called Sunflower (2). This artwork is found right here in Minnesota at the Minnesota Institute of Art. In this paper, I will explore the similarities and differences found in the composition of Xu Wei’s Twelve Plants and Twelve Calligraphers and Liu Dan’s Sunflower. The composition can be broken down into space, shape and overall composition.

Evaluating works of art, is essentially making sense of the art in the best way. Along the River During the Qingming Festival is a gem of ingenuity and realism in Chinese painting, while the contextual evaluation of the work reveals the factional strife and social contradictions during Song Dynasty. On the other hand, Pietà, as Titian’s valedictory work with a memorial focus at his grave, engages the most expressive possibilities. And the expressive evaluation of Pietà looks into the details of Titian’s “late style” of darkly ambiguous expressiveness. The contextual evaluation of Along the River During the Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan and the expressive evaluation of Pietà by Titian provide insights of the society full of social contradictions that Zhang lived in and of Titian’s view of life and death.

Each piece was built by hand; small, independent parts were assembled to create a vast and complex whole, reflecting the relationship between the individual and the collective, which is a central dynamic in all societies, particularly that of contemporary China. Weiwei could not leave China so eighty volunteers helped assemble the work. Digital blueprints of the works were created and spilt into

Going to the art museum I had a lot of insight on unique artworks. One of the exhibits I attended to are the treasures of the Chinese Art from the National museum, Taipei. These pieces explore how Chinese art came to flourish under the rulers of Han Chinese, Mongol, and Manchu.The revolving Vase with Revolving Core and Eight-Trigram Design was made in the Quinlong emperor was one of the most fasinating pieces I have seen. This vase is no ordinary vase, the neck,upper, lower, and inner body of this vase are all separated but pieced together making the core of this vase rotate. The form of the famous revolving vase features eight trigrams, there are complex combinations of broken and unbroken lines in which symbolize the yin and yang energy, from the ancient classic text “I Ching” and wish wands in the shape of mushroom heads, an emblem associated with longevity and heaven in Daoism. This revolving piece of art did not only admire artist by their ability to create beautiful work pleasing to the eye but also technical mastery in the eighteenth century.

In today's discussion class, Jingyi tells a lot about the history of the world art and the appreciation of art history, which makes me feel the great content of the history of the world. In the summer of AH-2130 class I feel the charm of the history of the world art, in this semester I still feel the infinite charm of art. At the beginning of the discussion class, she told the French Ambassadors The case, which was the beginning of a discussion, and I also recorded information about the work, like the French Ambassadors by Hans Holbein. The younger. 1533/ Oil on wood panel. National Geally. After a detailed introduction, she told us how to look at art. I think this is a very good convergence process, and then she told about the formal analysis

The whole work has a large number of different characters’ people but each of them has been described in detail. Everyone is varying in gestures and full of charm. The houses and boats are well orderly. The trees are flourishing which makes the whole picture has a different aroma. Works with distinctive colors and neat way, actual and meticulous expression of the customs, rivers, historical sites and commercial prosperity of the situation. And each volume has Kangxi Emperor's seal. To a certain extent, the performance of the early Qing Dynasty social life and people's productive labor, so this volume has a precious historical value and artistic

Artist Xu Bing spent four years creating his own false Chinese characters for the project. He didn't write them by hand instead he opted to carve them out and stamp the paper in the way of the centuries old traditional fashion even going so far has to hand bind the books as well, yet not a single one of his hand crafted books or scrolls means anything.

In the next room I came across a very unique and interesting collection of pieces. If you especially like or have any interest in calligraphy, then you are going to love what Hongmo Ren has done. Calling it REN-script, Ren has created what he calls a calligraphy and linguistic “experimentale.” Consisting of seven English and six French pieces, he has combined the art and beauty of calligraphy with writing of equal stature. In ten of his pieces he elaborates on the beauty of nature during various seasons and includes a complete verse from the Book of Genesis. The rest of the pieces are large single word depictions again in calligraphy with intricate detail.

A book from the Sky (Tianshu) is an installation work by Xu Bing, first exhibited in 1988. It consists of three hanging scrolls vertically draping across the ceiling, hovering over columns and rows of books systematically arranged on the floor, surrounded by walls covered with similar scrolls. The books, which are all equally spilt open and spaced out, mimic a wave like motion, and the hanging scrolls in the ceiling appear to be delicately falling from the sky. At the front of the installation, a book with its front page opened signals the name of the artwork, followed by a couple other closed books, all over a short wooden block like table. Each hanging scroll and book is filled with several small Chinese characters, a contrasting black ink on white paper, that Xu Bing carefully printed using traditional Chinese wood blocking technique. To produce the columns of text, the artist hand carved over a thousand individual character on blocks of wood, then arranged them in a specific sequence before stamping them ink on paper. Since its first appearance, A book from the Sky has been displayed in several locations around the world, with slight variation on the arrangement of the elements (for instance, a forth hanging scroll may substitute the ones on the wall). It is arguably one of Xu Bing’s most significant artworks, and it focuses on visually exploring the limitations of written language and the transformation of traditional practices to convey postmodern ideas.