Calligraphy and painting were seen as scholarly pursuits of the educated classes, and in most cases the great masters of Chinese art distinguished themselves first as government officials, scholars and poets and were usually skilled calligraphers. Sculpture, which involved physical labor and was not a task performed by gentlemen, never was considered a fine art in China.

Book production in America and throughout the industrialized world has flourished and expanded during the twentieth century. Important advances in printing, such as the introduction of the offset printing press and computerized typesetting, have made mass production more economical. The development of the paperback book, which was introduced in the 1940s to provide a less expensive alternative to the traditional hardback book, has also made books more...

he early history of Russia, like those of many countries, is one of migrating peoples and ancient kingdoms. In fact, early Russia was not exactly "Russia," but a collection of cities that gradually coalesced into an empire. I n the early part of the ninth century, as part of the same great movement that brough the Danes to England and the Norsemen to Western Europe, a Scandanavian people known as the Varangians crossed...

The development of sophisticated calligraphy as an art form is not unique to Islamic culture. Other examples include Chinese and Japanese calligraphy and illuminated bibles from north-west Europe including the famous Book of Kells. In the Islamic world, however, calligraphy has been used to a much greater extent and in astonishingly varied and imaginative ways, which have taken the written word far beyond pen and paper into all art forms and materials. For these reasons, calligraphy may be...

Among the works proceeding from the imperial scriptorium attached to the Palatine School is mentioned the Evangeliary copied for Charlemagne by the monk Godescalc in 781 (now at the Bibliothèque Nationale), and the Psalter of Dagulf presented to Adrian I (now at the Imperial Library of Vienna). Other important scriptoria were established at Orléans by Bishop Theodulfe (whence issued the two beautiful Bibles now kept in the treasury of the cathedral of Puy Amand (where the copyist...