Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

This is the catalogue for an exhibition mounted first in San Francisco (Asian Art Museum, June-September 2016) and then Houston (Museum of Fine Arts, October 2016-January 2017) of Chinese art housed at Taiwan's National Palace Museum. It focuses on dynastic collections from the reign of eight emperors and one empress, spanning almost one thousand years from the Song to the Qing dynasties. Three essays address the history of imperial collecting--specifically, emperors' calligraphy and paintings, emperors who collected antiquities, and imperial patronage in general. The catalogue proper includes 178 works of art. The individual entries, which are rich with curatorial and historic data, are by several dozen authors, many of them curators at the National Palace Museum. The catalogue treats the works of art chronologically by dynastry (Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing). Each section is introduced by He Li (curator, Asian Art Museum), who provides superb, concise histories that emphasize the nature of the various dynasties' collections. The volume also features a chronology of dynastic China, a list of emperors, and an extensive bibliography (in Chinese and English). The volume should have a broad audience, but it will be of particular interest to advanced scholars.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Thompson (curator, Japanese art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) has put together an invaluable, detailed study of three volumes of drawings by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), one of the most important artists of Japan's Edo period. Although the original volumes were not signed, Thompson's introductory section provides a finely drawn analysis that convincingly attributes the volume to the popular (now, as in his own time) Hokusai. Also, there is a clear discussion of the woodblock-printing scene in Japan at the time. Thompson clearly examines the iconography of each of the 178 drawings in "annotations," which also gives a fuller understanding of individual drawings and relevant aspects of Japanese culture. Remarkably, the illustrations are reproduced in the actual size of the originals, so readers have a somewhat personal experience with the artist. Occasional enlargements reveal Hokusai's brilliant techniques. The nine footnotes to the introductory section, wonderfully titled "Hokusai's Tasty Morsels: The Lost Manga," are the only ancillary material. A necessary book for those studying or interested in Japanese art and culture.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.