Reading Art: Art for Book Lovers is a celebration of an everyday object — the book, represented here in almost three hundred artworks from museums around the world. The image of the reader appears throughout history, in art made long before books as we now know them came into being. In artists’ representations of books and reading, we see moments of shared humanity that go beyond culture and time.
《阅读艺术：爱书者的艺术》是对一件日常物品——书籍的庆祝，展示了世界各地博物馆的近三百件艺术品。读者的形象出现在历史上，出现在书籍出现之前很久的艺术作品中。在艺术家对书籍和阅读的表现中，我们看到了超越文化和时间的共同人性时刻。
In this “book of books,” artworks are selected and arranged in a way that emphasizes these connections between different eras and cultures. We see scenes of children learning to read at home or at school, with the book as a focus for relations between the generations. Adults are portrayed alone in many settings and poses —absorbed in a volume, deep in thought or lost in a moment of leisure. These scenes may have been painted hundreds of years ago, but they record moments we can all relate to.
在这本“书籍之书”中，艺术品的选择和排列方式强调了不同时代和文化之间的联系。我们看到孩子们在家里或学校学习阅读的场景，这本书是几代人之间关系的焦点。成年人独自一人在各种场合，形态各异——沉浸在书中，沉思，或沉浸在片刻的休闲中。这些场景可能是数百年前绘制的，但它们记录了我们都能联系到的时刻。
Books themselves may be used symbolically in paintings to demonstrate the intellect, wealth or faith of the subject. Before the wide use of the printing press, books were treasured objects and could be works of art in their own right. More recently, as books have become inexpensive or even throwaway, artists have used them as the raw material for artworks — transforming covers, pages or even complete volumes into paintings and sculptures.
书籍本身可以在绘画中象征性地用来展示才智，主人公的财富或信仰。在印刷机广泛使用之前，书籍是珍贵的物品，它们本身就可以成为艺术品。最近，随着书籍变得便宜，甚至是一次性的，艺术家们将其作为艺术品的原材料——将封面、书页甚至整卷书转化为绘画和雕塑。
Continued developments in communication technologies were once believed to make the printed page outdated. From a 21st-century point of view, the printed book is certainly ancient, but it remains as interactive as any battery-powered e-reader. To serve its function, a book must be activated by a user: the cover opened, the pages parted, the contents reviewed, perhaps notes written down or words underlined. And in contrast to our increasingly networked lives where the information we consume is monitored and tracked, a printed book still offers the chance of a wholly private, “off-line” activity.
通信技术的持续发展一度被认为印刷已过时。从21世纪的角度来看，印刷书无疑是古老的，但它仍然像任何电池供电的电子阅读器一样具有互动性。为了发挥其功能，一本书必须由用户激活：打开封面、页面，阅读，或记下笔记，或下划线。与我们日益网络化的生活，消费的信息受到监控和跟踪形成鲜明对比的是，印刷书仍然提供了完全私人的“线下”活动的机会。
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