Vocabulary 名词索引

The history of Chinese art is more consistent, and even more persistent, than the art of Egypt. It is, however, something more than national. It begins about the thirteenth century B.C. and continues, with periods of darkness and uncertainty, right down to the present century. No other country in the world can display such a wealth of artistic activity, and no other country, all things considered, has anything to equal the highest attainments of this art. It is an art which has its limitations; for reasons which we will presently consider, it has never cultivated the grandiose, and has therefore never had an architecture to compare with Greek or Gothic. But in all other arts, including painting and sculpture, it achieved, not once but repeatedly, a formal beauty as near perfection as we can conceive. --Herbert Read 中国艺术史要比埃及艺术史更富有连贯性、持续性和民族性。中国艺术大约从公元前13世纪开始，历尽沧桑，一直延续到现在。世界上没有任何一个国家能像中国那样，享有如此丰硕的艺术财富；从全面考虑，也没有任何一个国家能够与中国艺术的卓越成就相媲美。然而，中国艺术也有其局限性；从我们将要分析的原因看，中国艺术缺乏雄浑宏伟的作品。故而，中国的建筑比不上希腊或哥特式建筑。但在绘画与雕塑等其他艺术方面，中国艺术曾几度取得了一种完善无缺的形式美。——赫尔伯·里德