James Cahill (1)

For a summary of the book, read David's Goodreads review; it's very well written and summarises the content. The final chapter that covers 'ghost painters' and related topics is a 'must read' and a topic not many art historians before Cahill's time were willing to share in print.

For my part, I love James Cahill's work and only wish I had been fortunate enough to study under him. That said, this was undoubtedly a wonderful lecture series, but was a bit repetitive as a book and the black & white photographs were such a disappointment (even though most of the paintings were ink drawings, one still needs to see those slight colour washes and the colour of the background silk, etc.).

If you're serious about Chinese art, you need to read this volume to blow away some of those platitudes one has heard or read about the 'amateur status' of literati artists. Everyone needs to eat. And like all Cahill works, be sure to read the footnotes; they're loaded with valuable information. The bibliography is also excellent and provides the perfect leads into your next 'want to reads'. Do pull out and re-read any of the referenced works you might have that are listed in the footnotes; you will get double the value out of them re-reading them in the context of this volume (for example, Cahill's chapter on the Confucian influence in Chinese paintings in [b:The Confucian Persuasion|7455905|The Confucian Persuasion|Arthur Wright|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404591713s/7455905.jpg|9504455]).
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