Complementing the exhibition Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting, this colloquium explores the fascinating relations between Chinese art of the Ming and Qing dynasties and Japanese art of the Edo period, especially Hyakusen’s role in the transformation of painting in eighteenth-century Japan. Presenters are curators Felice Fischer and Richard Pegg and scholar Patricia Graham; BAMPFA Senior Curator of Asian Art Julia White, who organized the exhibition, will introduce the exhibition and moderate the program.

Felice Fischer, Luther W. Brady Curator of Japanese Art and Senior Curator of East Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, presents “Hyakusen’s Hut: Images of the Recluse.” She writes: “Literati ideals of solitary retreat looked to Chinese and Japanese sources. Hyakusen often found visual and literary inspiration in Japanese painting and poetry of the past for his images of the recluse in his hermitage, in turn inspiring his successors Ike Taiga and Yosa Buson.” Fischer has organized numerous exhibitions, including Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran: Japanese Masters of the Brush; Munakata Shiko, Japanese Master of the Modern Print; The Arts of Hon’ami Koetsu, Japanese Renaissance Master; and, most recently, Ink and Gold: Art of the Kano (with Kyoko Kinoshita). In 2013 Fischer was named to Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays in recognition of her contributions to cultural exchange in the field of art.

Patricia Graham, adjunct research associate at the University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies, delivers a presentation titled “Emigrant Chinese Chan Monks of the Obaku Zen Sect and Their Role in Transmitting Chinese Literati Culture to Japan.” She will explore various types of material culture associated with Chinese literati brought to Japan by well-educated emigrant Chinese monks, including books of Chinese poetry, history, Confucianism, and Daoism, alongside literati practices of drinking sencha (steeped) tea, practicing calligraphy, and composing poetry. A former professor and museum curator, Graham is a consultant and certified appraiser of Asian arts; she is the author of Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha; Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art: 1600–2005; and Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics, and Culture.

Richard Pegg, curator and director of the MacLean Collection of Asian Art and Maps in Chicago, will address the topic “Nanga and Ming Chinese Painting: Sakaki Hyakusen and Sheng Maoye.” He writes: “A founder of the Nanga school and a professional painter, Hyakusen was strongly influenced by original late Ming Chinese paintings. He closely imitated many aspects—brushwork, composition, themes, and calligraphy style—of the paintings of Sheng Maoye, a late Ming professional painter from Suzhou, whose work was widely available in Japan by the early eighteenth century.” Pegg is the author of seven books and two dozen articles primarily on the visual art of East Asia; his graduate work was in Chinese and Japanese languages and literature.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Japanese Studies.