Asian Art and History

Lecture

Asian Art and History When Salt Was Gold:
Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art

Clarissa Von Spee, Ph.D., Chair of Asian Art and Donna and James Reid Curator of Chinese Art, Cleveland Museum of Art

Yangzhou, situated on the Yangzi River along the Grand Canal was a center of Buddhism and bronze mirror production during the Tang dynasty (618-906) and emerged as the most thriving city in China in the 1700s.

The Cleveland Museum of Art holds an extraordinary number of paintings by 18th-century artists from this city. The lecture explores how the city at the center of the country’s salt administration came to legendary wealth and attracted artists who created a distinctive style of painting that catered to the tastes of merchants and urban dwellers. Eccentricity, humor, a sketchy approach and close-up compositions are characteristic of their works, innovations that would later inspire modern artists in Shanghai.

This presentation is part of the Asian Art and History series.

Image: Fang Shishu (1693–1751), and Ye Fanglin (active late 1600s–mid-1700s). The Ninth Day Literary Gathering at Xing’an (detail), 1743. Handscroll, ink and color on silk. 12 3/4 x 79 3/16 inches. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 1979.72.

Clarissa Von Spee

Clarissa Von Spee

Clarissa von Spee is Chair of Asian Art and Donna and James Reid Curator of Chinese Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She was Curator of the Chinese and Central Asian collections at the British Museum from 2008 to 2016, and taught East Asian Art History at Heidelberg University from 2005 to 2008. Dr. von Spee studied in Heidelberg, Paris, and Taipei and received her PhD from Heidelberg University.

Dr. von Spee curated numerous exhibitions, such as The Printed Image in China from the 8th to the 21st Centuries; and most recently, China”s Southern Paradise. Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. Her publications include, Wu Hufan. A Twentieth Century Art Connoisseur in Shanghai; and The Perfect Brush. Chinese Painting 1300 -1900.