How to Fill a Circle--Design in Warring States Bronze, Jade, Lacquer, and Silk
Date and Time
Location
How to Fill a Circle - Design in Warring States Bronze, Jade, Lacquer, and Silk
A talk by Haichen Wang
(Mary and Cheney Cowles Endowed Professor, School of Art+Art History+Design, University of Washington, Seattle)
New developments in the lacquer and silk workshops posed significant challenges to other medium, causing a complete change of aesthetic during the Warring States period (5th-3rd century BC). Moreover, because fine examples of lacquer and silk have actually survived from that time, we can see what other materials copied from them. But the only reason we can recognize borrowings is that each material has a character of its own. The lecture will explore this two-sided phenomenon—the individual character of each workshop tradition and the exchanges between workshops—by looking at inlaid bronzes, mirrors, jades, lacquers, and silks, using the problem of designing for a circular space as a case study to infer the thinking of designers working in each medium.