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A Book from the Sky
Book of meaningless glyphs by artist Xu Bing
A Book from the Sky
A Book from the Sky (simplified Chinese: 天书; traditional Chinese: 天書; pinyin: Tiānshū) is a book produced by Chinese artist Xu Bing in the style of woodblock prints from the Song and Ming dynasties, but filled entirely with meaningless glyphs designed to resemble traditional Chinese characters. The book, which consists of four volumes totaling 604 pages, was printed in a single print run of 126 copies between 1987 and 1991, and was first publicly exhibited in October 1988, in Beijing's National Art Museum. The work was originally titled Mirror to Analyze the World: The Century’s Final Volume (simplified Chinese: 析世鉴－世纪末卷; traditional Chinese: 析世鍳－世紀末卷; pinyin: Xī shì jiàn—Shìjì mòjuàn), a title which "evokes the trope of the book as jian 鍳 or mirror in the venerable tradition of imperial historiography". However, the artist eventually felt that this title was "cumbersome" and "heavily influenced by Western forms and the current cultural climate", and decided to adopt the name that was already...
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