In ancient China, wood was classified as an element, one of the irreducible components of the universe, along with air, fire, water and earth. It was also an element of society. There, and even more so in Japan, civilized life was inconceivable without wood, which furnished a world of artifacts, from the largest temple to the smallest lacquered box.
The nature of woodits grain, luster, density, color and growthis one of the material obsessions of Oriental art. Of all substances from which sculpture could be made, wood was the closest to life. But other...
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