Abstract

The literati tradition has long celebrated “blandness and naturalness” (pingdan tianzhen 平淡天真), treating brushwork as a trace of the mind—as if art could transcend the world of things. Yet Dong Qichang (1555-1636) declared that in painting, “the universe rests in one’s hand, and nothing before the eyes is without life.” If the universe rests in the hand, then the hand holds a brush, ink, and paper. This talk centers on the material media of Dong’s painting and calligraphy—brushes, ink, and paper—and explores how his choices of materials shaped the characteristics of his brushwork and aesthetic style. From his trials of brushes and choices of ink, to paper sourced through friendship networks, and further to the paper–silk divide underlying the Southern–Northern Schools theory, materiality was never a transparent medium of spiritual expression, but the very condition and path through which it took form. Entering the mind through things, this talk revisits Dong Qichang’s artistic world and reappraises the long-obscured material dimension of the Chinese painting and calligraphy tradition.

Speaker Bio

Kaiyue Yu, Ph.D. in Art Theory from Zhejiang University, 2025–2026 visiting student at Harvard FAS CAMLab, member of China Artists Association and China Calligraphers Association. Her research focuses on painting and calligraphy connoisseurship in Ming–Qing dynasty.

Event Information

• Free and open to the public
• September 4th (Friday)
• 12:00 – 1:30 PM ET
• This is an in-person event.

Please note

Advanced RSVP required.
The event will be conducted in Mandarin Chinese.