Romain Graziani explores ancient Taoist body concepts

Sinologist Romain Graziani, known for his commentaries on the Zhuangzi (453-221 BCE), has published "Les corps dans le taoïsme ancien" with realia / Les Belles Lettres. Drawing on the Zhuangzi—one of Taoism's three classics alongside the Laozi and Liezi—Graziani examines bodily experience in ancient Taoism, focusing on the therapeutic powers of imagination and spatial virtues in Taoist aesthetics. He contrasts Western ideals of the athletic body, which he critiques as an "ideology of bodily form" driven by exhibition and exhaustion, with the Chinese vision of vital power that seeks a beneficial fusion between internal organic forces and Nature's dynamic elements. A chapter on visions of the human body analyzes links between physical completeness and inner integrity. Graziani argues that liberation comes not from external order but from one's individuality and "folds of the psyche." The review by Vincent Roy appeared in artpress.