“We Know Mountains!” — Contending Perspectives on Landscape During the Northern Song

Attendee registration link: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__uMVB6MGSbSeaNlCordhgg

When Su Shi（1037-1101）wrote in a poem to his friends Wang Shen（ca. 1048-ca. 1103）and Wang Gong（1048-1104）that the three of them understood mountains, the intention was to establish exclusivity, triumph, and no small measure of defiance. This is because the mountains Su referred to were shorthand for the landscapes they had experienced in their individual exiles following the political difficulties of Song Shenzong’s reign（1067-1085）. Less obviously, Su’s claim reflects a politically fractured view of landscape in the late eleventh century that helps sharpen our understanding of the diversity and richness of landscape painting. This presentation will offer some new research to explore the means by which a range of artists, including professional court painters and scholar-officials, utilized different vocabularies of landscape to express contending perspectives and ideals.

Peter Sturman - Professor, Departments of History of Art and Architecture / East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Sponsor（s）: Center for Chinese Studies