Title
<i>Eulogy for Burying a Crane</i> and the Art of Chinese Calligraphy [electronic resource] / Lei Xue.
ISBN
0295746351
9780295746357
9780295746364
Published
Seattle : University of Washington, [2019] (Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2015)
Physical Description
1 online resource.
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
Description based on print version record.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
"Eulogy for Burying a Crane (Yihe ming) is perhaps the most eccentric piece in China's calligraphic canon. Apparently marking a burial of a crane, the large inscription, datable to 514 CE, was once carved into a cliff on Jiaoshan Island in the Yangzi River. Since the discovery of its ruins in the early eleventh century, it has fascinated generations of scholars and calligraphers and has been enshrined as a calligraphic masterpiece. Nonetheless, skeptics have questioned the quality of the calligraphy and have complained that its fragmentary state and worn characters make any assessment of its artistic value impossible. Moreover, historians of calligraphy have trouble fitting it into their storyline. Such controversies illuminate moments of discontinuity in the history of Chinese calligraphy that complicate the mechanism of canon formation. In this volume, Lei Xue examines previous epigraphic studies and recent archaeological finds to consider the origin of the work in the sixth century, and then traces its reception history after the eleventh century, suggesting that formation of the canon of Chinese calligraphy over two millennia has been an ongoing process that is embedded in sociopolitical realities of particular historical moments. This biography of the stone monument Eulogy for Burying a Crane reveals Chinese calligraphy to be a contested field of cultural and political forces that have constantly reconfigured the practice, theory, and historiography of this unique art form"-- Provided by publisher.
Variant and related titles
Project MUSE - 2020 Asian and Pacific Studies
Project MUSE - 2020 Complete
Project MUSE - 2020 Global Cultural Studies
Added to Catalog
January 15, 2020
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.