A Pure and Remote View: Visualizing Early Chinese Landscape Painting

UC Berkeley's Institute for East Asian Studies presents a talk by Professor James Cahill to discuss his project on early Chinese landscape paintings.

James Cahill, Professor Emeritus, History of Art, UC Berkeley

James Cahill hopes to bring his life’s work to the digital age with the creation of “A Pure and Remote View: Visualizing Early Chinese Landscape Painting.” This project will present a wealth of examples from early Chinese painting, accompanied by Cahill’s own commentary and analysis, as a set of lectures for digital distribution. In this talk, Professor Cahill will discuss his plans for the project, his rationale and methodology, and offer samples of the lectures as they have developed thus far.

James Cahill received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 1956 he joined the staff of the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where he served as curator of Chinese Art until joining the UC Berkeley History of Art faculty in 1965. His publications include the widely read and much reprinted Chinese Painting (Skira, 1960) and many other books and exhibition catalogs, in addition to numerous articles on Chinese and Japanese painting. Professor Cahill retired from UC Berkeley in 1994. Both before and since then he has received major accolades, including the College Art Association Lifetime Distinguished Teaching of Art History award in 1995 and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art in 2007.