“Heaven Is High and the Emperor Is Far Away”: Jiangnan in Ming-Dynasty China

The Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Distinguished Lecture in Chinese Art

Lecture

Sunday, November 5, 2023, 2:00 p.m.

Location: Gartner Auditorium
Suzanne and Paul Westlake Performing Arts Center

detail of a Chinese handscroll painting — *The Nine Elders of the Mountain of Fragrance* (detail), 1426–52. Attributed to Xie Huan (謝環) (Chinese, c. 1370–c. 1450). Handscroll; ink and color on silk; 29.4 x 148.9 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry, 1997.99

About The Event

Although the Jiangnan region of China, meaning “south of the Yangtze,” was the site of the first Ming dynasty capital, the court relocated to the north of China half a century after the dynasty’s founding. From this time, emperors and their immediate families were largely absent from the culture of this prosperous and vibrant heartland. But many ties still linked the culture of Jiangnan’s “Southern Paradise” and that of the Ming court. This lecture focuses on what artworks, as well as literature, can tell us about the often-fraught relationship between Jiangnan, its people, and their distant rulers in the north.

Craig Clunas is the first scholar of Asian art to hold the chair of art history at the University of Oxford. Educated in Cambridge, Beijing, and London, he began his career as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He is the author of numerous works on Chinese art and culture, particularly of the Ming period. He is a fellow of the British Academy and, in 2012, delivered the Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Lecture Recording

Sponsors

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Major annual support is provided by Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter E. Fortney, David and Robin Gunning, Dieter and Susan M. Kaesgen, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Gail C. and Elliott L. Schlang, Shurtape Technologies, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. Generous annual support is provided by Gini and Randy Barbato, the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, Robin Heiser, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Mandi Rickelman, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Sally and Larry Sears Fund for Education Endowment, Roy Smith, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Trilling Family Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.