Chinese Landscape Woodcuts

Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »

Four priceless landscape woodcuts of the Sung Dynasty are published here for the first time in a modern edition. Dating from the late tenth century, they are older than any other landscape woodcut known to art historians. Max Loehr discusses the beginnings of printing in the Far East and the various Sung editions of the Buddhist Canon, and provides a detailed critique of the pictures illustrated by more than forty reproductions. That he has been able to date the woodcuts conclusively is of great significance: never before in this field has there been available for purposes of comparison material of such impeccable authenticity.