Product Description

From the fluid strokes in the characters denoting "grace," "enlightenment," and "tranquility" to the complex meanings inherent in the words for "honor," "love," and "wisdom," the richness and depth of the Chinese language come alive in this compact, elegant volume of 40 beautifully rendered ideograms. Every character is accompanied by a simple chart showing its physical composition, stroke by stroke, as well as an informative text describing the myriad linguistic components from which its meaning is derived.

As a result, the reader can grasp each character's significance and connection to centuries of Chinese philosophy and, ultimately, gain an understanding of the language beyond a mere familiarity with linguistic symbols. Complete with two-color printed end-papers and a charming full-color bookmark, The Spirit of the Chinese Character makes a lovely gift or keepsake volume, sure to inspire a fascination with the complexity of an incomparably beautiful and evocative language.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #312695 in Books
• Published on: 1992-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

About the Author
Barbara Aria -- whose previous works include a companion book, The Nature of the Chinese Character -- is a native of England and now lives in New York City.

Russell Eng Gon has studied and practiced Chinese caligraphy for over 20 years. He was born and raised in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Beautifully explains the origins of Chinese characters
If you only have the time and patience to learn forty Chinese characters in your lifetime, you should learn the ones in this book. Concepts such as "spirit", "benevolence", "harmony", "loyalty", and "wisdom" characterize so much of traditional Chinese thought and culture. The authors illustrate each of these characters with beautiful brush and ink calligraphy on rice paper background. There is a short explanation accompanying each character telling why it is written just so. For example the strokes making up the character "love" show us that the word means "breathing into the heart with a gracious motion". The character "enlightenment" shows the two components "sun" and "moon" which together light the world. Students who wish to practise writing these characters can follow the useful stroke order guide next to the explanations. This is a beautiful gift for the student or scholar, or just for those who appreciate Chinese culture.

Beautiful
This book is wonderful. It was what kinda got me started into the research of Chinese characters and such. Until I read this book I never knew how beautiful and interesting and deep the chinese character is. The stories and describtions just captivate you. The in depth design of every single character and the story behind it is very interesting and fascinating. Though not as long as I would have hoped, I reccomend it.

good for learning to draw about 40 characters
great for learning a limited number of characters - 40. step by step illustration to create each character in the order they should be formed. also a brief description of the concept/meaning for each.