Center for East Asian Garden Studies

Susan Burns, professor of history at the University of Chicago, explores the incorporation of saffron into Japanese pharmacology, a complex process that involved the rise of natural science and a "productive confusion" that linked saffron with other botanicals. This program is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture series.

C. Pierce Salguero, associate professor of Asian History and Religious Studies at Penn State Abington, provides an introduction to the principles of Sino-Buddhist medicine, the product of centuries of cross-cultural exchange between medieval India and China, with particular focus on pharmacology and medicinal plants. This program is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture series.

Shigehisa Kuriyama, professor of cultural history at Harvard University, discusses the Inshoku yōjō kagami(Rules of Dietary Life), a Japanese woodblock print produced around 1850. The image appears to whimsically depict the traditional East Asian view of the body, but it in fact reflects the transformative impact of Western medicine and the rise of the money economy. Properly understood, says Kuriyama, no other single image reveals more about the hidden depths of embodied life in early modern Japan. This program is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture series.

In his inaugural Huntington lecture, Phillip Bloom, The Huntington’s new director of the Center for East Asian Garden Studies and curator of the Chinese Garden, examines the history of Shizhuanshan, a hilltop Buddhist sanctuary in southwestern China constructed in the late 11th century. Bloom argues that, at Shizhuanshan, architecture, image, and text work together to transform the natural environment itself into a site for the eternal performance of Buddhist ritual. Recorded Nov. 21, 2017.

Lugene Bruno, curator of Carnegie Mellon's Hunt Institute, and Alice Tangerini, curator of botanical art at the Smithsonian Institution, present an illustrated lecture on recently rediscovered artworks long forgotten in their archives. These botanical illustrations represent significant historical and scientific findings of an earlier era. Recorded Nov. 5, 2017.

Richard Pegg, Asian art curator of the private MacLean Collection in Chicago, discusses the similarities and differences in representations of space, both real and imagined, in early modern maps created in China, Korea, and Japan. He also examines the introduction of European map-making techniques into Asian cartographic traditions. This talk is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded September 5, 2017.

Originally conceived by art dealer George T. Marsh as an exotic setting in which to sell curiosities, the building that in 1912 became The Huntington’s Japanese House is a beautiful remnant of a transformational moment in design history. Art historian Hannah Sigur puts Marsh and his house in context, discussing the factors that helped make Japanese aesthetics the basis of good taste at the turn of the 20th century. This talk is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Mar. 28, 2017.

Composer Huang Ruo, the 2017 Cheng Family Visiting Artist at The Huntington, is joined by the acclaimed kun opera singer Qian Yi for an evening of discussion and performance. Together they explore the Chinese kun opera tradition and how Huang uses the form in his contemporary compositions. Recorded Mar. 24, 2017.

Composer Huang Ruo, the 2017 Cheng Family Visiting Artist at The Huntington, discusses his work, introduces Chinese opera types, and explains how he uses Chinese opera in the contemporary context. The program is the first in a series of three public presentations given by Huang during his residency. Recorded Jan 31, 2017

David Barker, professor of printmaking at the China National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, will consider the important contributions made to Chinese pictorial printing by the famous Huang family of artisan block cutters. This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints,” on view in the Boone Gallery. Recorded Nov. 22, 2016.