Humanities 205: Travels of an Art Historian

A while back, I stumbled upon an unusual machine.   It was something that was out of the ordinary.   As I looked upon this machine, I began to notice that it was not like any other machine that I had ever seen before.   In fact, it was one of the most unusual looking machines I had ever seen.   It was shaped as if it were an oversized egg, with several silver panels on the outside with an antenna on the top of it.   It resembled an escape pod for a space ship on the outside, but on the inside was something completely different.   Inside of this egg were buttons with different names beside them, names that I remembered from school some of the names that I saw… names like “Early Italian Renaissance”, “Early Chinese Civilization”, “Early Japanese Civilization”, and “Early 20th Century”.   These names were the names of different periods in history.   Above the panel was a sign that read “Do NOT press any button.   IF you do, beware of what could happen.”   Out of curiosity, I pressed my first button that said “Early Chinese Civilization”.   All of a sudden, the machine started to make noises and lights started flashing.   In almost an instant, I was transported to another moment in time.
      I feel as if I have been in a whirlwind.   As I stepped out of this machine, I realized that I was no longer in the year 2011, but rather that I was back in the world of ancient China.   I had entered into a time machine.   This was something that I had never seen before.   Could it be that someone had actually figured out a way for people to travel in time?   Could there really be a way to actually understand and learn about the art that was done so many years ago?   I remembered very suddenly that there was a piece of art that I had wanted to learn more about when I was in college, and immediately, I began my hunt to try to understand the simple, yet stunning image in my head of The Poet Li Bai Walking and Chanting a Poem, by Liang Kai, and I was determined that I would not stop until I learned...