This listing is for a signed copy of the hardcover book "Heavenly Order: Twenty Five Meditations of Wisdom and Harmony" by Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave. This beautifully-illustrated book has a personal inscription and signature from the author. This book has never been read and is in excellent unread condition. This 96-page book measures 6 1/4" x 9 1/4".  

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Here is the second book in Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave's series of compelling poems paired with representative art, featuring the Japanese Renaissance artist Hon' ami Koetsu. With a preface and foreword by luminaries at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution- the pairing of poignant details and poetic musings reflect on the nature of life, love, and loss, for poetry and art-lovers alike.

From the Preface: The images are drawn from the Japanese paintings and screens, and she has juxtaposed poetry in a Western idiom with Eastern idioms of painting and calligraphy, bringing together East and West.

From the Foreword: Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave's decision to place the printed text of her verse over carefully selected images of seventeenth century Japanese painting surfaces is inspired. Her diligent research of the Japanese tradition of linking work and image has produced this delicate hybrid that invites her readers to imagine a world in which the dividing line between what is seen and what is said is provocatively fluid. 

The Japanese aesthetic that Mrs. de Borchgrave has chosen to reference has a long and complex history but understanding a few of its basic concepts might enhance the appreciation of this volume. The foundational element of the Japanese writing system is ideogram or kanji. These many thousands of kanji are beautifully sophisticated abstractions of symbolic drawings. The long Japanese tradition of placing sacred texts and  poetry on very specially prepared surfaces probably evolved from the custom of producing illuminated sutra texts, the sacred Buddhist scriptures. Many of the background images reproduced in this volume show works created in the seventeenth century, which are, in various ways, aspirations to the revival of earlier aesthetic styles. 

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