27th Sammy Yukuan Lee Lecture on Chinese Archaeology and Art

The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents Professor Jonathan Chaves. He will discuss Wang Hongdu's masterpiece and explore the history of scholarly and religious pilgrimage to the area.

The Yellow Mountains (Huangshan) of China’s Anhui Province have been famous for centuries as a place of scenic beauty and inspiration, and remain a hugely popular tourist destination today. A “golden age” of Yellow Mountains travel came in the seventeenth century, when they became a refuge for loyalists protesting the new Qing Dynasty, among them poet and artist Wang Hongdu (1646–1721/1722), who dedicated himself to traveling to each and every peak and site and recording his impressions. Unfortunately, his resulting masterpiece of Chinese travel writing was not printed until 1775 and has since remained obscure and available only in Chinese.

Jonathan Chaves will discuss Wang's masterpiece, and explore the history of scholarly and religious pilgrimage to the area, and the role of the Yellow Mountains in the great Neo-Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist revivals of the early Qing period, that is, as the center of a yearned-for spiritual and cultural renaissance.

Jonathan Chaves is professor of Chinese literature at The George Washington University. His translations of Chinese poetry have been nominated for the National Book Award, and his work on the relationships between poetry and painting led to his curating of the exhibition, The Chinese Painter as Poet, at The China Institute (New York) in 2000.

Sammy Yukuan Lee Lecture on Chinese Archaeology and Art
First presented in 1982 in celebration of his 80th birthday, the Sammy Yukuan Lee Lectures on Chinese Art and Archaeology honors the life and philanthropy of respected businessman, art collector, and Chinese art authority, Sammy Yukuan Lee. This series is presented annually by the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies with support from the Sammy Yukuan Lee Foundation, and in partnership with the Fowler Museum at UCLA.

Parking on the UCLA campus is $12. Enter UCLA from Sunset Blvd. at Westwood Plaza. Parking attendants will direct you to Lot 4. There is an elevator at the southeast end of Lot 4 and a stairwell at the northeast end, closest to the museum.

A reception with refreshments will follow the talk.

RSVP here.