Art and Empirical Inquiry in Pre-Modern China
Art and Empirical Inquiry in Pre-Modern China is a project undertaken by Jennifer Purtle (University of Toronto) and Kathleen Ryor (Carleton College) to develop and publish work relating to the mobilization of empirical knowledge of the world by scholars, technicians, and artisans in premodern China.
15 February 2024 (Thursday), 11:00am - 12:30pm (in person)
We are chairing the panel, and Eugene Wang, Harvard University, will be the discussant. The speakers and their topics are:
Ziliang Liu, Williams CollegeThe Immortal’s Ruler: Art and Metrology in Early ChinaA painted wooden ruler excavated in Shuanglongcun Tomb No.1 in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province in 2002 distinguishes itself with its exquisite depiction of the King Father of the East and the Queen Mother of the West, the two ruling deities of the realm of immortals in ancient Chinese mythology. While past scholars have taken these images for granted as auspicious decoration, it has been overlooked that the ruler’s pictorial design in fact reflects the re-formulation of metrology in the late Western Han (206 BCE–9 CE).
Firmly anchored in the Five Phases correlative cosmology, the Han metrological system theorized a fundamental conceptual alignment between all units of measurements, including length, weight, volume, and even time, which are then methodologically tested and authenticated. Examining the ruler’s design in the context of late Western Han discourses on the standardization of length/distance units, I argue that the ruler visualizes the unification of temporal and spatial measurements by superimposing the images of the divine couple, whose annual meeting manifested the cycle of cosmic time, on a measuring tool of one chi (23.1 cm), a basic unit of length. In doing so, this paper highlights the unique intellectual foundation of the science of measurement in early China, while also shedding new light on other artifacts of metrological significance in the Han and beyond.
Weitian Yan, Indiana UniversitySu Shi’s Inkstone Inscriptions: Celestial Imagination and Object DesignA polymath of his day, Su Shi (1037–1101) had produced a variety of literary texts that explore the relationship between human and material things. Unique among those are a genre of texts, known as “inscriptions (ming 銘),” which were produced for, or inspired by, actual objects and real places. In this paper, I focus on a group of inscriptions on inkstones (yan ming 硯銘), with an emphasis on the celestial imageries Su Shi saw through these objects. Rain, clouds, wind, lunar movement, and constellations were a few common natural phenomena Su Shi employed to describe the pattern of stone surface, as well as the effect of ink and water. With such imagination, inkstones became a miniatured universe that could not only sit on a scholarly desk but also be held by a scholar’s hands. Later in the sixteenth century, sketches of inkstone designs that feature celestial motifs also appear in printed books as curious collectibles. The making and circulation of these pictures, texts, and objects exemplify the desire of Chinese scholars to understand, and be connected with, the cosmos through material objects.
Roslyn L. Hammers, University of Hong KongSeeing, Reading, Knowing, and Making: The Production of Scientific Knowledge and the Manufacturing of Things in 14th-Century ChinaThe Book of Agriculture (Nong Shu) with a preface dated to 1313 contains an exhortation, in verse, that can be paraphrased as, “get an artisan, he will look at the picture and will understand how to make it.” The author, Wang Zhen (1271-1333), argues that the image can be translated into an object by a knowledgeable, insightful artisan. In this treatise, text (mostly in poetry) and image function as complements. The images are not technical drawings, as they display affinity with practices and content associated with painting practices.By 1334, the Pictures of Salt Production (Ao Bo Tu) incorporate poetry and imagery to represent the forty-seven procedures to harvest salt. In Chen Chun’s (1293-1335) treatise, expository writing is included as a means to create better knowledge about the activities undertaken and the materials needed to produce salt. The explanations bring the voice of laborers to the viewer/reader to offer commentary on the images and advance knowledge.In my presentation, I explore the roles of image, verse, and expository writing to evoke and to validate differing epistemological frames that engage with the production of things during the 14th century. Commodities and their production, in my interpretation, were observed to generate positivist information. These two treatises through their writing and imagery serve as testimony to the empirical approach that motivates the formation of material that constitutes scientific knowledge.Anne Burkus-Chasson, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignQi Biaojia at Yushan: The Pleasure of Construction in a Late Ming GardenThis paper is about the technological experiments, especially in hydrology and horticulture, that underlay the construction of Yushan 寓山 (Sojourner’s Mountain), a garden that Qi Biaojia 祁彪佳 (1603-1645) built between 1635 and 1645 on the outskirts of Shaoxing 紹興. The garden, which no longer exists, has been extensively researched, but Qi’s daily record of the intensive manipulation of land and waterway required to shape the garden has not been fully examined. This is unsurprising, for it is generally assumed that late Ming gardens (1522-1644) were purely aesthetic constructions that displayed the good taste and wealth of their owners who lived in a commercialized society that thrived on competition; despite their small scale, these gardens stimulated the eye with calculated designs whose elements were elaborated in printed guides. Yushan embodied these aesthetic and social values. However, although the gimmicks required capital, they also demanded know-how. In Qi’s diary, we catch a glimpse of the engineering required to dredge waterways and create soundscapes. The investigation of the physical world that drove his land art is further evidenced in his unusual decision to farm at Yushan and in his tours of drought-afflicted communities, which he undertook to support famine relief. Qi took “pleasure” (le 樂) in manipulating the land at Yushan. In traditional philosophy, the word “pleasure” referred to activities that promoted humaneness. Thus, Qi clarified the parallel he drew between learning and making.
We will be following up this College Art association panel with a Roundtable at the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting.
Association for Asian Studies Association Annual Meeting, Seattle
1 March 2024 (Friday), 1:30-3:00pm (Virtual)
This roundtable will explore the relationships between forms of art production in China before 1700 in relation to indigenous Chinese empirical knowledge, such as the analogs of astronomy (McCoy), botany (Ryor), chemistry (Liu), mathematics (Purtle), and physics (Wang), in addition other fields of inquiry raised by the audience members. Some questions for discussion will include: How does visual art enact or collaborate in the investigation of the physical world? What are the interconnections between fundamental concepts within Chinese cosmology, discrete areas of scientific knowledge, and visual imagery? How might the materiality of certain forms of Chinese art or visual culture contribute to concrete forms of scientific practice? How might the visual or descriptive aspects of different types of art act as adjacent or complementary forms of scientific investigation? Ultimately, this roundtable seeks to advance understanding of how indigenous ways of knowing and representing relate to each other.
Discussants:
Michelle McCoy, University of Pittsburgh
Jennifer Purtle, University of Toronto
Kathleen Ryor, Carleton College
Eugene Wang, Harvard University