Events

Non-Portraits in the Late Northern Song

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Date:

29 Nov 2013

Time:

4:30pm – 6:00pm

Venue:

LT6, Level 2Cheng Yu Tung BuildingThe Chinese University of Hong Kong(Adjacent to the MTR University Station)

Speaker(s):

Prof. Peter Sturman

Biography of Speaker:

Peter Sturman is Professor of Chinese Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His has written widely on painting and calligraphy, with a particular focus on the literati tradition. Among his major publications are Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China (Yale University Press, 1997) and The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in 17th-Century China (The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2012). His current book project is on the development and practice of literati painting during the Northern Song.

Admission:

Free admission, registration required.
To register, please email finearts@cuhk.edu.hk

Enquiries:

3943 7615

Synopsis of Lecture:

Literati (wenren) artists of the late Northern Song period are known to have painted in almost every major genre, including landscapes, bamboo, bird-and-flower, horses, and figures, but portraiture is noticeably absent. A close contextual study of one painting in particular, The Ear Picker, wrongly attributed to the Five Dynasties Period painter Wang Qihan of the tenth century, will demonstrate that portraiture of a very particular nature, one that ironically can be labeled self-effacing, was not only practiced by wenren painters in Su Shi’s coterie, it constitutes some of the most intriguing works of art of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The Ear Picker will be examined in the context of other figural representations from the Song dynasty to consider questions regarding the physical expression of the ‘self’ in an era when art, politics, and a heightened concern for making one’s mark in history resulted in fascinating experimentations in painting.