Dreams of Spring, Erotic Art in China
YIMEN & FERRY BERTHOLET
THE PEPIN PRESS, Amsterdam, 1997
ISBN: 90-5496-039-6
English, French, and German editions.
Erotic art – in letters and in pictures – is an eminent part of the cultural heritage of ancient China, and was already flourishing in pre-Imperial times. With its peak during the late-Ming period, this art remained a fixed feature in Chinese literature and visual arts until well into the 20th century.
At its best, Chinese erotic art is a search for beauty in all its manifestations, for not only does it offer stimulation, it provides a source of great aesthetic pleasure.
It never presents sex in a crude or pornographic way, but within a framework of beauty and harmony, enhanced with details of a profound or symbolic nature.
Dreams of Spring presents for the first time the treasures of the Bertholet Collection, one of the world’s most important surviving collections of Chinese erotic art. Many of the pictures reproduced are unique in their style and content, and have never been published before.
The text and descriptions in this book are the result of many years of scholarly research by one of the principal authorities in this field: Rev. Yimen, who studied Chinese history devoting herself to this neglected field of China’s spiritual traditions.