CHINA SEMINAR | 13 FEBRUARY 2013 | Lennert Gesterkamp | Is ‘Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains’ a Daoist Inner Landscape Painting?

Is Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains a Daoist Inner Landscape Painting?
Speaker: Dr. Lennert Gesterkamp (Independent scholar)
Expertise: Chinese art history, Daoism

Date and time: Wednesday, 13 February 2013, 15.15-17.00
Venue: Arsenaal building, 001
Language: English
Abstract: Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains《富春山居圖》is probably the most famous landscape painting in Chinese history. There are different views on what the painting depicts, and how it should be interpreted: does it depict the mountain resort of the painter, Huang Gongwang 黄公望 (1269-1354) and the scenery of the Fuchun mountains, south of Hangzhou? Or is it a typically auspicious location, based on principles Chinese geomancy?
What could be the theme of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains? And furthermore: do Chinese landscape paintings have to depict a theme? Can the painter not simply give expression to his individual feelings, or for example depict the atmosphere of a certain season as often alluded to in many other paintings?
This presentation takes the social identity and background of the painter and the recipient as a starting point, and investigates the possible links with inner alchemy, and the Inner Landscape Paintings (neijing tu 內境圖, or內景圖, 內經圖) of this tradition.

Lennert Gesterkamp received his PhD from Leiden University in 2008, after graduate work at Leiden and SOAS, London. He was a post-doc at the Academia Sinica, Taibei, and most recently at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou. He is i.a. the author of The Heavenly Court: Daoist Temple Painting in China, 1200-1400, and has published several articles in Chinese on landscape painting and temple painting.

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