The civilizations of the East have all looked upon sex as a central element in life and religion, and upon human love as a vital and valuable art that needs to be carefully cultivated. Now, for the serious adult reader, a scholar presents a frank appraisal, in text and carefully selected art, of the true meaning and significance of human love as practiced and visualized in the Orient.

The erotic is always a natural focus of human interest; but in the East it has been given high dignity both as a cardinal image in religious symbolism and as a powerful inspiration to the imagination of poets and artists. A vast amount of painting, sculpture, and graphic art bears witness to this dignity, hymning the splendor of love with unashamed delight in all its manifestations.

In this handsomely produced volume, Philip Rawson examines the most significant and beautiful works of erotic art in India, the Islamic countries, China and Japan, explaining the ideas and beliefs from which their intimate imagery is derived; while the fine and carefully chosen illustrations, over thirty in full color, give the reader an opportunity to assess for himself the beauty of this hidden province of art.

This history of Eastern erotic art, under the editorship of a scientist who is also an established art critic, is an unprecedented effort to explore the biological and sociological links between artistic symbolism and psychosexual symbolism generally, with new insights drawn from psychoanalysis and anthropology. Invaluable as a source book on aesthetic psychology, it will delight and surprise art lovers through the quality and vitality of the painting and sculpture, until lately arbitrarily concealed because of its sexual con-tent, only now generally available for the first time.