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Lectures

“Heaven Is High and the Emperor Is Far Away”: Jiangnan in Ming-Dynasty China

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One or Two? Emperor Qianlong’s Mirrors and Mirror Images

For centuries, the Silk Road has been an important network of trade routes that has allowed for the exchange of silk and other goods, as well as of ideas and technologies between cultures across Asia and Europe. 

Chinese Textiles from the Silk Road

When Salt Was Gold: Yangzhou—City of Riches and Art

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Caves of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road

Sometime between 560 and 580, Buddhist monks engraved the names of Buddhas and passages from their holy scriptures on the bare rock of mountains in present-day Shandong province in northeastern China. With this “land art,” they transformed their homeland into the realm of the Buddha. This lecture explores these monumental carvings, which are unique in world art.

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Under the Open Sky—Buddhist Sutras on Chinese Mountains

The Chinese way of appreciating a painting is often expressed by the words du hua, “to read a painting.” How does one do that? Because art is a visual language, words alone cannot adequately convey its expressive dimension. In this lecture, Mike Hearn will visually analyze select paintings and calligraphies from the encyclopedic collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and elucidate what makes each a masterpiece. 

How to Read Chinese Paintings

Past Lectures

Giuseppe Castiglione (Italian, 1688–1766)

Giuseppe Castiglione

others

This portrait shows the Qianlong emperor at 26, in the first year of his reign. His likeness is followed by portraits of the empress and eleven consorts. Their portraits document the appearances of the court women around the time when they received their respective imperial titles, which occurred at different stages of the emperor's life. The first three portraits were done by the Jesuit (Roman Catholic) missionary artist Giuseppe Castiglione, whereas the later ones were by Chinese court painters. Formal portraiture contributed to the affirmation of status and construction of role and identity. This scroll served as both familial documentation and a "mind picture" of the Qianlong emperor, suggesting that his constructed image of emperorship was inseparable from concepts of self and family. It was stored in a carved red lacquer box bearing the original painting title Mind Picture of a Well-Governed and Tranquil Reign (see CMA <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1969.32">1969.32</a>).

Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 27-February 22, 1970).

Year in Review: 1969

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 11-March 29, 1981).

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting

Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 22, 1983-January 22, 1984).

Portraiture: The Image of the Individual

The Twain Shall Meet. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 30, 1985-January 5, 1986).

The Twain Shall Meet

Powerful Form and Potent Symbol: The Dragon in Asia. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 24-November 25, 1990).

Powerful Form and Potent Symbol: The Dragon in Asia

Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Nara National Museum (organizer) (February 21-March 29, 1998); Suntory Museum of Art (April 28-June 21, 1998).

Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art

Art Under Emperor Ch'ien-lung. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C. (October 5-December 20, 2002).

Art Under Emperor Ch'ien-lung

Silent Poetry: Masterworks of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 14, 2015-April 24, 2016).

Silent Poetry: Masterworks of Chinese Painting

China's Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).

China's Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta

Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 242). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 21, 2013-July 28, 2014).

Qing imperial collection (seals of Emperor Qianlong, r. 1736–1795)

(Hôtel Drouot, Paris, France. December 17–18, 1928 sale. Lot 329)

(Spink & Son, Ltd., London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Portraits of the Qianlong Emperor and His Twelve Consorts

乾隆帝及后妃圖卷

The annual Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Lecture brings nationally and internationally recognized experts in the field of art history and archeology to the museum to discuss new scholarship, exhibitions, and archaeological discoveries in Chinese art. The annual Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Lecture is made possible through the Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Family Endowment Fund.

The Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Distinguished Lecture in Chinese Art