The “Sleeve Dancer” is among the works of art from other collections in the United States, Canada, Europe and China included in the exhibition.
At left: The centerpiece of the exhibition is the University Art Museum’s own set of rare, 19th-century ink-on-paper rubbings of the "Wu shrines" pictorial carvings.
"Kneeling Female Attendant," (above) a clay piece from the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 C.E.), and "Massive Green-Glazed Horse," (below left) a piece of red earthenware from between A.D. 25 and A.D. 220, also are part of the exhibition.
Photos: Bruce M. White
"Recarving China's Past: Art, Archaeology and Architecture of the 'Wu
Family Shrines,'" an exhibition that re-examines one of ancient China's
great archaeological sites, is on display through Sunday, June 26, at
the University Art Museum.
For more than a thousand years, the burial site known as the Wu Family
Shrines in the Shandong Province of northeastern China has served as a
benchmark for the study of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) -- one
of the defining periods in Chinese history. The inscriptions and
pictorial carvings covering the stone slabs from this family cemetery
complex have been the basis for much of what is known about critical
dates concerning artistic, literary, cultural and architectural
developments from one of ancient China's richest eras.
New scholarship led by Princeton is presented in the exhibition and in
an accompanying catalog. This work likely will prompt significant
re-examination of the site's long-accepted implications, including even
its attribution to the Wu family.
The exhibition and catalog reinterpret the shrines based on the
discovery, since the 1980s, of additional structures and archaeological
materials, as well as evidence that some of the writing and pictorial
carvings at the site may have been re-cut over the intervening
centuries -- essentially recarved to fit prevailing attitudes and
assumptions about the Han era.
"In leading this project, we intend to reopen discussion about what has
been taken for granted over nearly a thousand years of study and create
the possibility to reconsider and re-imagine some of the most
fundamental assertions about China's cultural, archaeological, and
artistic past," said Cary Liu, curator of Asian art at the museum and
team leader for the project.
"We are proud to lead this re-examination of a cultural legacy that is fundamental to those steeped in the study of ancient China," said Susan Taylor, director of the museum. "This initiative, centered on objects in Princeton's collection but including works borrowed from collectors and other institutions, also allows the public to participate in a reappraisal of this extraordinary legacy and to open an unusual window onto the remarkable issues surrounding archaeological research and cultural history."
