This monograph is about an artistic journey set off eighty years ago in the nascent Republic China. It charged into the "impossible" realm--nudity--in the grand Chinese tradition and turned it, if somewhat by accident, into the "possible", unveiling perhaps the most censored body in the art world. The journey has since been progressing--at times in twists and turns--although the artist, Xu Beihong, who initiated it had died 14 years after the set-off--never had a chance to reap results--leaving behind a legacy largely misunderstood and undervalued. Xu Beihong, a Paris academy-trained Chinese...