Hoshino Futoshi | Feng Hanlin's "Illustrated Encyclopedia of the History of Chinese Painting"
Feng Hanlin's "Illustrated Encyclopedia of the History of Chinese Painting" ambitiously surveys Chinese art history through 74 carefully selected works.Summary
This article reviews the book "Illustrated Encyclopedia of the History of Chinese Painting" by Feng Hanlin, a young art historian born in 1993 specializing in ancient Chinese calligraphy and painting. Despite the high hurdle of publishing a physical art book today, this volume takes a bold approach by limiting the scope to 74 works to provide a comprehensive overview of Chinese painting history. The book features high-definition illustrations and detailed commentary, including multiple close-up "appreciation points" for each piece, allowing for thorough examination. The selected works span approximately 1,700 years, from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty. As noted by the supervisor, Yuki Tobita, the selection focuses on mainstream Chinese genres like landscape, figure, and bird-and-flower paintings, excluding Buddhist paintings often prominent in Japan. Because it is a translation from Chinese, the book offers a truly standard "history of Chinese painting," moving beyond the unique filters through which it has traditionally been viewed in Japan. The comprehensive commentary, accurately rendered into Japanese by the young translators (Yuki Tobita and Kazutaka Mimura), is highlighted as a major strength.
(Source：artscape)