PhotoBooks China

Commencing with its cover photo of the Great Wall, and leading readers through 180 color plates (some folding out to nearly four feet wide) of this most populous and pivotal nation, Spectacular China lives up to its title. The commentary illuminates China's ancient treasures and its landscapes.

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For centuries opera companies have mesmerized audiences with their elaborately costumed and made-up characters and the pageantry of their productions combining music and voice with dance and gesture. Because of its venerable tradition, many of the operas have historical and military themes, which are still performed today. As in the past, the emphasis in these productions is not on scenery or props but on the elaborate costumes and makeup worn by the leading characters, who display a variety of acting styles, and the best known are the Peking, the Cantonese, and Shanghai's Yue Operas, which are featured in this photographic book. Jessica Tan Gudnason's stunning portraits look more like painted sculptures than photographs. Her images were taken over a ten-year period during which she frequented Peking, Cantonese, and Yue opera productions, capturing many different actors in all stages of preparation for leading and supporting roles or fully dressed for the performance. Some of the remarkable characters she presents include a gorgeously costumed female warrior wearing peacock feathers in her headdress and state flags in her voluminous costume; a clown made up to look like a monkey, who, according to Buddhist legend, accompanied his master on a quest for self-knowledge; a heavily made-up male warrior wearing an intricately embroidered red coat and carved headdress; a close-up of a beautiful woman wearing an elaborate head piece adorned with flowers and jewels, indicating her high rank; and boys transforming themselves into costumed and made-up performers. Gudnason's aim is to recreate the excitement, emotion, sound, color, and movement of the actor's backstage from an insider's view. Supplementing the photographs is an insightful text by actress Gong Li as she comments on these powerful photographs and their significance. The authors provide background information about the Peking, Cantonese, and Yue opera companies, the plays, and the major character types depicted here. This unique book is ideal for collectors of exceptional photography and for anyone who loves opera, music, and theater.

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Marc Riboud's images are a window on a world in transition as China reinvents itself with dizzying speed--his is as revealing a window as we are likely to find. The contrast between China old and new, as interpreted by Riboud, is an often startling one that cannot help but inform and intrigue. He specializes in the juxtaposition of images, perhaps none are more jarring than his photograph of a poor man lugging a sack of belongings down a trash-littered back street while a pair of chubby-cheeked babies glance over his shoulder in a nearby poster and a porno actress bares her chest in an ad overhead. Riboud's home is France, his territory is the world from Vietnam to Iran, but his heart and soul are apparently in the China he has covered from the days of Mao's revolution through the erosion of Communism to the country's modern economic upheaval.

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Ever since Marco Polo first returned from the Far East with exotic treasures and wondrous stories, China has been a land of great fascination to the Western world. One of the world's oldest civilisations developed there on some of the most strikingly beautiful land in the world. From the verdant mountains and clear waters of the Lijiang River valley, to the majestic Great Wall, to the sculptured gardens of West Lake in Hangzhou, China's Splendours displays a range of visual treasures. China's depth and variety are explored in full-colour photos and historical text, including the giant Buddha sculpture at Leshan (at 71 feet in height, the world's largest stone sculpture) and the giant pandas being studied and protected in the Wolong Nature Reserve.

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This fascinating visual tour of two historic Chinese capitals includes 48 full-page color photos; the accompanying text discusses the history, significance, and interesting details associated with each of the treasures pictured. Beijing was the capital city of five imperial dynasties. The emperors' legacies include the Imperial Palace, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Gate. Xian was the capital for over a thousand years, hosting other powerful dynasties. At the eastern end of the famous Silk Road, it was a center of international trade and cultural exchange as early as the first or second century B.C. Today, Xian houses a wealth of archaeological treasures, the most famous of which is thearmy of 8,000 life-sized terra-cotta warriors in the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang. Other attractions include the Forest of Steles and the Banpo Neolithic village.

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Essay by Rae Yang Photographs by Robert Capa, Lois Conner, Stuart Franklin, Zhang Hai-er, Wu Jialin, Wang Jinsong, Hiroji Kubota, Sebastio Salgado, Liu Heung Shing, and Others. A stirring tribute to china's land and people, and a lasting vision of the country within.

China: Fifty Years Inside the People's Republic brings together images by twenty-five of the most important Chinese and Western photographers of our time. A moving essay by Rae Yang, author of Spider Eaters; writings by the photographers; and selections of ancient and modern poetry further illuminate this collection. China opens with compelling historical images of the bitter trials leading up to the birth of the new Republic and chronicles a society in transition following the death of Mao Zedong, offering profound insight into a country that has been closed to the West for more than half of its existence. A major traveling exhibition will open at the Asia Society in New York City in September 1999, then tour North America and Europe. 228 Duotone and Four-Color Images

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Accompanying the British Army during its decisive foray into China in 1860, Felice Beato (18201907) was the first photographer to document a military campaign in progress. He captured not only the immediacy of war, the aftermath of battle, and strategic military positions, but also the sumptuous new Summer Palace (seen by few Chinese and even fewer foreigners) before its destruction by the British. His photographic record of the Second Opium War consisted of approximately one hundred images, including a number of panoramic views, which survive in the form of private albums originally compiled by British officers as a record of their victorious campaign. One such album, now in the collection of Jane and Michael Wilson, is presented here. In addition to providing a strikingly beautiful glimpse of nineteenth-century China, these images also reveal how photography functioned as an integral component of British imperialism by shaping perceptions about a distant country and its culture. Essayist David Harris provides an overview of Beato's work in China, and his extensive catalog notes describe and contextualize each of the photographs.

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Ninety captivating black-and-white photographs invite the reader to learn about China through the lens of its children--alone, within their families, at school, at play. Through their faces and activities, Chinese culture and history come alive. The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN) commissioned Michael Karhausen, a German photographer/journalist, to spend two years with children in China to produce this work.

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An exhaustively illustrated portrait of one of the world's great wonders. An engineering feat rarely matched in the history of the world, the 1,500-mile-long Great Wall of China stretches from the shores of the Pacific to the Gobi Desert. It is such a prominent structure on earth that astronauts say they can see it with the naked eye from space. The 2,000-year-old Great Wall was originally constructed to shield the ancient empire from invaders, but today it is regarded as a national symbol and attracts hordes of tourists from around the world.

This splendid book offers 165 exquisite images portraying the Great Wall as never before. In addition to striking views of the wall as it snakes across the vastness of China's northern borders, there are paintings, sculptures, and scrolls depicting life along the wall through the centuries. Here also are evocative portraits of the nomads of the steppes who live near the wall, in much the same way as their ancestors. The fascinating text recounts the complete history of the wall, from the time it was begun during the Qin Dynasty twenty-two centuries ago to keep out strangers, to the era when it was used to expand the empire into Central Asia, to the period it was used as a trading route facilitating commerce along the Silk Road and later to allow for Buddhist expansion. Included in the text are excerpts from literature and poetry inspired by the wall that express the Chinese spirit throughout the ages.

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This is the most strange book about design and lifestyle. In China, the objects used for sitting are as manifold as the occasions for sitting. They are not elegant, and not always comfortable. But neither are they mass-produced items: they are individuals. Each chair and stool has its own character, is a companion, a bastard, or a venerable elder. Their occupants sit close to the floor, without the pressure of time, watching the world go by in self-observation. However, a photographer trying to document such a scene quickly becomes the focus of attention. People passing by wonder what is going on; the person on the chair assumes a pose, though the intent was to catch him or her unawares. Michael Wolf's photographs document the beauty of the ugly, the stretching of time, the art of improvisation, and the nature of the stool as a portrait of its user. Sometimes, a photographed chair was immediately confiscated: having lost its anonymity by being singled out as a noteworthy object, it rather became an object of embarrassment - too shoddy to ever get again into a camera's viewfinder.

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As Shanghai enters the 21st-century, this most dynamic of Chinese cities looks back over a decade of phenomenal growth. It is a focus for foreign investment and futuristic architecture, yet the city’s international past is still very much in evidence. In the crowded streets and shopping malls there is an unabashed enthusiasm for consumer-ism and a great capacity to enjoy whatever life has to offer.

Syke’s pictures range from moments of personal intimacy to industrial projects, and his work achieves a subtle chemistry between photo-journalism and fine art photography. The photographs are accompanied by perceptive captions and a lively chronology of historical events.

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No Western photographer is as intimately acquainted with China as Yann Layma, who speaks Chinese and has spent nine years working there over the course of a 20-year career. Layma's reportage of this vast country is extraordinarily complete: he portrays city and country; traditional customs and the shock of modernity; and every aspect of public and private life. His style is personal and poetic, and he is alive to nuances of gesture and expression. From the classical architecture of the Great Wall to the skyscrapers of up-to-the minute Shanghai, he captures the essence of one of the world's great nations.

With an introduction by Layma and five essays by highly regarded writers-including Dai Sijie, author of the celebrated novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress-China is the most significant and comprehensive visual book on its subject to be published in our time.

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