The Met Store Coffee Table Books | Met Publications*How to Read Chinese Paintings

By Maxwell K. Hearn

The Chinese way of appreciating a painting is often expressed by the words

du hua

, “to read a painting.” Because art is a visual language, words alone cannot adequately convey its expressive dimension.

How to Read Chinese Paintings

seeks to visually analyze 36 paintings and calligraphies from the encyclopedic collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in order to elucidate what makes each a masterpiece. Author Maxwell K. Hearn’s elegantly erudite yet readable text discusses each work in depth, considering multiple layers of meaning. Style, technique, symbolism, past traditions, historical events, and the artist’s personal circumstances all come into play. Spanning more than a thousand years, from the eighth through the seventeenth century, the subjects…See More