THE Cleveland Museum of Art last week opened the finest survey of Chinese landscape painting ever assembled in America. Its 137 exhibits, borrowed from collections as far distant as Tokyo and Beirut, ranged from the 4th century to the 19th, and included dozens of masterpieces. Though Europe has produced a host of great landscapists, from Claude Lorrain to Paul Cézanne, the West's best could have learned much from the Chinese.
In Europe, landscape painting did not amount to much until religious art declined. Things were very different in the East, for China's two greatest religious leaders, Confucius and Lao-tse, carefully taught their...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
