People all over the world make art and take pleasure in it, and they have done so for millennia. But acknowledging that art is a universal part of human experience leads us to some big questions: Why does it exist? Why do we enjoy it? And how do the world’s different art traditions relate to art and to each other? Art Without Borders is an extraordinary exploration of those questions, a profound and personal meditation on the human hunger for art and a dazzling synthesis of the whole range of inquiry into its significance. Esteemed thinker Ben-Ami Scharfstein’s encyclopedic erudition is here brought to bear on the full breadth of the world of art. He draws on neuroscience and psychology to understand the way we both perceive and conceive of art, including its resistance to verbal exposition. Through examples of work by Indian, Chinese, European, African, and Australianartists, Art Without Borders probes the distinction between accepting a tradition and defying it through innovation, which leads to a consideration of the notion of artistic genius. Continuing in this comparative vein, Scharfstein examines the mutual influence of European and non-European artists. Then, through a comprehensive evaluation of the world’s major art cultures, he shows how all of these individual traditions are gradually, but haltingly, conjoining into a single current of universal art. Finally, he concludes by looking at the ways empathy and intuition can allow members of one culture to appreciate the art of another. Lucid, learned, and incomparably rich in thought and detail, Art Without Borders is a monumental accomplishment, on par with the artistic achievements Scharfstein writes about so lovingly in its pages.

"At the end of the sixteenth century, Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636), painter, calligrapher, connoisseur, art historian and theoretician, and quintessential scholar-official, revolutionized Chinese painting and calligraphy. He brought to these arts a new vision and historical perspective, and established the direction both would follow for centuries to come. Indeed, he is generally recognized as the most important and influential figure in Chinese art to have appeared since the fourteenth century. The Century of Tung Ch'i-ch'ang, the first major exhibition and publication of Tung's painting and calligraphy, reappraises this unparalleled artist in light of modern scholarship. Not only are his most important works included in this study, but examples of the works of more than forty major seventeenth century artists who were influenced by his genius have also been assembled to demonstrate his enormous impact on both the Orthodox and Individualist movements of later Chinese painting. This international project, organized by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, has been realized through the unprecedented cooperation of China's two preeminent museums, the Beijing Palace Museum and the Shanghai Museum. One hundred of the one hundred and seventy-one works in the exhibition are on loan from these two renowned collections. The material is rare, and hitherto unknown masterpieces are made available for the first time to scholars and the general public alike. The remaining works have been gathered from the most important public and private collections in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, Australia, and North America. This two-volume scholarly catalogue, featuring more than seven hundred illustrations and including extensive biographical, chronological, and critical material, is the work of a venerable team of international scholars who have made major contributions to the study of Tung Ch'i-ch'ang and his extraordinary influence on the history and evolution of Chinese painting and calligraphy." -- Provided by publisher