Model Letters and the Audiences of Calligraphy in
Early Modern China
Lei Xue, PhD
4 March, 2023      ​
​9:30 am - 11:00 am, PT
Shutiaoshi, stone slabs with engraved calligraphy, are commonly found in Chinese gardens. Join First Saturday PDX as Dr. Lei Xue shows us how these stones were once made to produce compendia of ink rubbings, known as fatie, which served as copybooks for calligraphers. While the trend of installing these stones on walls in gardens may have had earlier precedents, it was largely reinvented during a politically charged interaction between the Machu emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–96) and cultural elites in the Jiangnan region. The display of shutiaoshu in gardens also presaged a modern form of spectatorship that differs from the traditional way of viewing calligraphy.  
About the speaker:
Lei Xue received his PhD in Chinese art from Columbia University and is currently Associate Professor of Asian Art and the Coordinator for Art and Art History Program at Oregon State University. His publications include Eulogy for Burying a Crane and the Art of Chinese Calligraphy (University of Washington Press, 2019) and articles on Chinese calligraphy and painting. His ongoing book-length project, entitled “Model Letters: Media, Space, and Visuality of Chinese Calligraphy,” inquiries into the social role of fatie, calligraphy model books in the rubbing form that have been circulated and displayed from the seventeenth century to the modern time, in and beyond China.
Suggested References:

Cary Y. Liu. “Calligraphic Couplets as Manifestations of Deities and Markers of Buildings.” In Harrist, Robert E., and Wen. Fong. The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection. Princeton, N.J: Art Museum, Princeton University in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1999, 360–379.
 
Jan Surat, “A Scholar's Garden in Ming China: Dream and Reality,” Asian Art 3, no. 4 (1990): 30-51.
 
Craig Clunas. Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
 
Amy McNair. “The Engraved Model-Letters Compendia of the Song Dynasty.” Journal of the American Oriental Society114, no. 2 (1994): 209–225.


​Join us after the webinar from 11 - 11:30am in our First Saturday PDX Tea House to further the discussion and online social time.  Bring a cup of tea! 
​(Separate  access link for this will be provided in your single registration for this event.)
Our program series is supported by Portland State University's Institute for Asian Studies, Northwest China Council, Portland Chinatown Museum, and Lan Su Chinese Garden.   All our programs are free and open to the public.