Ping Foong: Friday, Dec.5

Ping Foong

 (Assistant Professor from Art History Department, University of Chicago)

“The Ritual Context for Painting in late Northern Song”

Dec.5, Friday, 4:00-6:00 p.m.

CWAC 152

Abstract

This talk is on intersections in the arenas of ritual, politics, and painting in late-eleventh century China.  I will present my latest research on the responses of two artists to ritual debates of the late Northern Song dynasty: Guo Xi, leading court painter of ink landscapes and Li Gonglin, scholar-official and figure-painter.  From the mid-eleventh century, ritualists and officials deliberated over the role of the Song ancestors in state and imperial sacrifices at key ritual centers such as the Southern Suburb Round Mound, the Bright Hall, the Ancestral Temple, and the Temple of Spectacular Numina.  Arguments intensified during the divisive period of sweeping reformations under the reign of Emperor Shenzong, and again after his death when the reformations were repealed.  Focusing on two surviving masterworks “Early Spring” by Guo Xi and “The Classic of Filial Piety” by Li Gonglin from this period, I will show how these painters demonstrated the ways in which the visual medium could engage in the conversation with erudition, contemporary relevance, and political delicacy.

 
This talk is co-sponsored by The Literature and Cultural History of Pre-Modern East Asia workshop

 

campus

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