Drinking Alone
Tags
Summary
In seven years in Jingdezhen, Dong Quanbin has launched such important series or exhibitions as "Ninety-Nine Cups," "Starting from a Lotus Leaf," "Sitting in Forgetting," "Change," "Little Teapots," "Drinking Alone," and "Structured Encounters." Starting from tea drinking, through delving into the roots of traditional culture, observing the laws of nature, and dialectical thinking about beauty, he creates objects with a multifaceted sense of beauty.
In this illustrated collection, the daily practice of tea drinking, the philosophy of making, and records of creation interweave, clearly tracing the ceramic artist's lines of thought: perceiving how subtle changes in vessels bring differences in taste while drinking tea, associating the beauty of plant forms with vessel design, imagining the lives of the ancients to gain creative inspiration, and more. Drinking Alone is not only a journey of reflection on creation and aesthetics but also offers a wholly new angle from which to examine oneself and one's life.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Enthusiasts with a strong interest in tea culture, vessel aesthetics, or handicrafts
- Urban readers seeking inner calm and hoping to be nourished in solitude
- Designers and art professionals hoping for inspiration from cross-disciplinary practice
- Readers who enjoy essayistic prose and appreciate plain, restrained, yet profound writing
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting a systematic, step-by-step technical manual on tea brewing
- Readers seeking fast-paced reading, exciting plots, or highly information-dense content
Reading tips
- Read in segments in a quiet environment, following one theme at a time (such as the birth of a particular vessel) for deeper appreciation.
- Keep a cup of clear tea at hand while reading, to experience in parallel the temperature and touch described in the text.
- Use the book's images to observe the lines and texture of the vessels closely, and understand the author's thinking of "solving problems through design."
About the publisher
Hunan Yuelu Publishing House Co., Ltd. is a publisher known for collating and issuing Chinese classical literature and traditional cultural works, with its catalogue centering on classical literature, philosophical readings, Eastern philosophy, military studies, and social culture. Representative titles include illustrated collector's editions of A Dream of Red Mansions, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin, and Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, as well as Socrates' Dialogues, Confucius and the Analects, and War: Humanity, Society, and Shaped History. Its authors range from classical writers such as Cao Xueqin, Luo Guanzhong, Wu Cheng'en, Pu Songling, and Shi Nai'an to Chinese and foreign figures including Xenophon, Zhu Zheng, and Kwong Kin-hang. The press emphasizes collated texts paired with illustrated collector's editions, balancing scholarship and general reading, and has formed a publishing profile featuring popular editions of classics alongside philosophical and sociocultural topics. Given limited public information, this description focuses on the publishing directions reflected in its catalogue.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 序一 得心思澄明
- 序二 反义词董全斌
- 自序 接近真实
- 第一篇 遥远的事物也有帮助
- 不得不
- 准确
- 时间与变化
- 连接
- 宽度
- 美
- 看见不可见
- 内用与外形
- 古代的美
- 植物笔记
- 变化系列
- 变化系列（始于2015）
- 第二篇 器物之先
- 泡茶
- 壶
- 水
- 煮水器
- 第三篇 手上的功夫
- 漫长的积累
- 壶于我的趣味
- 未知
- 三分的不同
- 择土
- 温度与萃取
- 器物的通道
- 制作
- 工具
- 有风系列
- 有风系列 （始于2018）
- 第四篇 认知就是风格
- 交叉、分支与回到根本
- 系统
- 关于风格
- 有限与无限
- 意识
- 如何对待错误
- 善刀而藏
- 生存而美
- 认识的两个方面
- 关于确定
- 关于不确定性的方向
- 朴素
- 第五篇 器物所连接的
- 茶的进化
- 今日适越而昔至
- 与接为构
- 思考的容器
- 一人饮
- 第六篇 问答录
- 奇数的花瓣有活的感觉
- 院子里的精彩
- 做壶就是为了泡茶
FAQ
Is this book mainly about tea or about ceramics?
If I have no tea vessels and no tea-drinking habit, can I still understand this book?
Are there many illustrations in the book? What style are they?
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Dong Quanbin is an author about whom limited public information is available. The only work currently on record is Drinking Alone, which is classified under design. Judging from the title and category, the book centers on the everyday scene of drinking alone and may touch on design-related topics such as the choice of vessels, drinking methods, and the aesthetics of daily life, though further details about its content and format cannot be verified from public sources. As no clear records exist regarding the author's biography, nationality, education, or professional experience, this profile refrains from speculation and presents only the authorial identity and work as reflected in the available facts. Based on the existing material, Dong Quanbin's writing appears to focus on design details and personal experience in everyday life, linking the use of objects with ways of living—an orientation that gives Drinking Alone a certain distinctiveness among design books. Readers interested in the author and the book may learn more by consulting the original text.
