Kingfisher Blue
 Beverley Jackson
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Ten Speed Press
  ISBN: 1580082610

Treasures of an Ancient Chinese Art.

Many cultures around the world have used bird feathers to adorn themselves, the Chinese, however, took the art to extra-ordinary levels of both husbandry in breeding the birds to supply the artists, & the hundreds of artisans who decorated everything from screens, flowerboats, fans, scent containers, headdresses, figurines, purses, goblets, landscape panels, fingernail guards, furniture finials, crowns, tiaras, hair ornaments, brooches, necklaces, earrings & all things theatrical. China was a society enamored of these cyanic birds.

While Kingfishers today are celebrated around the world from Papua New Guinea, to Australia, Malaysia, England & our own neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest, with their images appearing on paper money & stamps, it has been the people of China who have, over thousands of years, penned paeans to these ultramarine, halcyon-feathered creatures, & their songwriters have sung their turquoise-tinted praise. & of course, stories have abounded. Beverley Jackson weaves one of them through the pages of her latest book, & re-enchants us with the visions that have mesmerized emperors, peasants, dowagers, actors, prostitutes, brides & foreigners alike.

As with her earlier Splendid Slippers, Beverley Jackson researches from her lifelong passion for all things Chinese. This time it is the coraciiformes -- kingfishers, bee eaters & rollers -- their varied breeds, habitats & life cycles. When it came to the objets d'art, housed among a rarefied circle of connoisseurs, they made Beverley Jackson's search a little easier, once word got out she was looking.

From such illustrious collections as the Victoria & Albert Museum; the Hong Kong Heritage Museum; the Royal Collections of Stockholm; the Palace Museum of Beijing; the Field Museum of Chicago; Das Faecher Kabinet Museum of Bielfeld; Mrs. Georgette Tilley's; the Peabody & Essex Museum of Salem; the Burghley Preservation Trust; the National Palace Museum of Taipei; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Museé des Arts Decoratifs of Paris; the Pacific Asian Museum of Pasadena, as well as from her own rare collection, she recounts the history of each piece, weaving excerpts from centuries of travelers' tales & eye-witness accounts.

Beverley Jackson breathes new life into a venerable artform, whisking us away into their stories & the life & times of the people who would have made, used & worn these ornate & exotic items. For a truly unobstructed eyefull of awesome iridescence, look up the purse on page 39.

Kingfisher Blue is a masterpiece, a labor of love. If blue is your favorite color; if you have ever looked upon a thing of beauty colored by the feathers of these fabled birds, then you will simply have to put it on your Wish List or purchase your very own copy of Beverley Jackson's book.

Beverley Jackson always takes you away into the reaches of time, into the lives of another people, into a magical story where you learn about all sorts of strange & wondrous things, &, when you put down the book for a moment, she gifts you indelible images.

Brava! Brava! Brava!

Beverley Jackson is a photojournalist, newspaper columnist, civic leader, textile scholar, & an Asian art enthusiast. Her previous books include the prize-winning Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of An Erotic Tradition, & Ladder to the Clouds: Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank. An internationally recognized collector, lecturer, & author, Beverley Jackson lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Do catch my Interview with this intrepid collector & interpreter of rare Asian history.
(08/04/02)

Rebecca