Traditional Chinese illustrations to The Book of Historical Documents

Abstract

In a topic unusual for Russian Oriental studies, this article reveals the study of the ancient Chinese historical Classic Shangshu. The author talks about the unique edition of the book, published in 1905 under the name Shujing tu shuo (The Book of Historical Documents with Illustrations and Commentary). This Qing dynasty edition was the result of a centuries-old tradition of illustrations to the Chinese Classics. The illustrations in this edition are the main element, and the text itself is of secondary importance. The article focuses on the Shujing illustration tradition, starting from the Han reliefs from Shandong and ending with book illustrations of the eighteenth century. The illustration tradition of the Chinese Classics comes from ancient times and exists until today. As these days almost only professional researchers know the ancient Chinese language used in the Classics, more and more ancient books are being published in popular form on the principle of “explanations through images” and look like comics. On one side it is necessary for the preservation of ancient Chinese, on the other side it is an endemic part of traditional Chinese book culture. Refs 15.