The distant mountains

by James Cahill

With this third volume in James Cahill's ongoing account of later Chinese painting it becomes even clearer what a monumental task the author has set himself and how brilliantly he is accomplishing it. Here again is proof that the remarkable achievements of Chinese art, complex as they are, can be made understandable--and enjoyable--to art lovers anywhere. And the book will be no less welcome to scholars, with its masterly summation of recent research and theory together with the original insights of one of the world's leading authorities in the field. We turn here to the fascinating but extremely complicated art of the late Ming dynasty, with all its currents and crosscurrents of politics, art, and criticism. The time span is less than a hundred years, encompassing the years from 1570, through the decline of Ming fortunes, to the dynasty's final defeat by the Manchu hordes from the north in 1644. The turbulence of the period was echoed in its art, which saw the creation of some of Chin