A Short History of Chinese Art by Hugo Munsterberg

SHORTER NOTICES 439 It provides a much fuller treatment of the Prologue than any other book with which this reviewer is acquainted. With 316 pages of commentary on approximately 860 lines of text, a certain degree of fulness is possible. A possible misapprehension here might be created. The book is no line-by-line examination of the Prologue. The author is well aware of the difficulty of making a book interesting and useful to the scholar and to the layman. The arrangement of material is designed to help in overcoming this difficulty. The arrangement is uniform for each chapter, and chapter m, "The Perfect Knight," will serve for illustration. With copious references to and sizable quotations from medieval sources, explanatory of specific expressions in the General Prologue, the portrait of the Knight is enlarged, until by the time the discussion is completed the reader has been given an introduction to chivalry, a detailed account of the historical military events with which the Knight has been connected, a full explanation of the important words used to characterize him, and a brief but critical comment on Manly's views as to the identity of the Knight. The most important feature in this enlargement has been the inclusion of generous quotations from sources inaccessible to almost all readers. The emphasis has been on content, and the one grammatical remark on the number of the noun "hors" in line 74 has been relegated to the notes, otherwise used chiefly for the identification of quotations used in the chapter. It should be added that as the book proceeds, these notes are used much more extensively to relieve the general discussion in the chapter of information pertinent and curious rather than essential. No particularly new light is shed upon Chaucer, and indeed no claims of original scholarship are made. The excellent bibliography is eloquent testimony to the thoroughness with which the author has utilized the research work of other scholars in the field. The occasional note of enthusiasm, and even the occasional speculation made less tentative than it might be, should not lessen the confidence of the reader in the integrity of the book. J. D. ROBINS A Short History of Chinese Art. By HUGO MUNSTERBERG. New York: Philosophical Library; East Lansing: Michigan State College Press [Toronto: George J. McLeod]' 1949. Pp. xiv, 227. With fifty plates. $6.75. For whom did the author write this book? It is difficult to understand . If designed for the interested but fairly ignorant layman in 440 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY search of an over-all picture of Chinese art, it would bewilder and confuse him because the writer assumes that his reader has considerable knowledge of the Chinese scene. Even the student of oriental culture would have difficulty because he would frequently be confronted with statements both general and vague in nature. And a connoisseur seeking a concise summary of the whole field of Chinese art would discover many gaps in it. Within the scope of 211 brief pages, Professcr Munsterberg has attempted to make a survey of more than four thousand years of Chinese art. He includes bronzes, ceramics, paintings, and architecture as well as their historical settings. The author has set himself an all but impossible task. A successful outline is one of the most difficult books to write, for often within a few concise sentences the whole essence or spirit of an era must be crystallized. This is what, I believe, the writer has failed to do. His statements are factual rather than interpretative and thus they become too impersonal to be interesting. The salient features of the different periods of Chinese art arc mentioned, but the book lacks the fresh approach, the new insight and inspiration necessary to hold the reader. Apparently the author's intentions were good in this respect because in a number of instances he replaces generally accepted theories by novel explanations, but )1e gives neither proof nor argument to substantiate them. In dealing with the early periods of art's history he relies possibly too much upon the work of Karlgren and gives too little attention to later research. The interest of any book on art is greatly enhanced by...