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Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇
March 28, 2024, 08:24:51 pm
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Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery

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Author Topic: Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery  (Read 1823 times)
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David
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« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2015, 11:14:41 pm »

Dear Tom,

Amazingly, I received 3rd edition Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs by CAS Williams yesterday... the seller must live closeby. I am on Deer right now and wanted to let you know what I think.

The sections written by Williams with 0 or 1 "authority" referenced is very nice, he really knows the materials in these sections, I learned a few things that I did not even know about or heard before. I read these carefully. There are still inconsistencies with what I know, but very minor and most likely due to translating Chinese word/concepts. The only serious ones, is when he uses western logic to explain Chinese rituals.

The sections where he sourced from 2 or more authorities are usually not good. Either he is not interested and just included some other's saying for completeness or he does not feel comfortable to correct them. I think this is where most of the errors, mistakes that other readers noticed came from. I had started to skim or skip these sections.

My impression of him from his sections that I read so far is that he is very strong in Scholarly Chinese traditions, Confucian rituals, imperial, antiques (bronze, porcelain etc...), animals, Taoist and oddly... clothing.

It's like 2 books in one. A very good book of his strong areas, and a book of collection of information/misinformation from other sources. They should take those out and make an abridged version of his strong areas (minus the "modern" 1900-30s information), it is a shame that some really good information is buried in the chaff.

Best Regards,
David
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