Saturday University Lecture Series:
Color in Asian Art - Material and Meaning
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Dip into dimensions of color and pigment in Asian art with eight in depth talks. From legend and ritual, to trade and cultural exchange, to technical innovation and changing artistic practices—the use of bold colors has been considered alternatively excessive, precious, or brilliant throughout history. What rare pigments and closely guarded techniques produced some artworks, and what artistic innovations and social changes produced others? Join us to enjoy a spectrum of talks on colors produced from the earth, sea, fire, plants, and insects.
Dragon’s Blood and the Blood of Dragons
Jennifer Stager, Johns Hopkins University
As an entry point into attitudes toward color, this talk considers the red pigment identified as cinnabar or dragon’s blood in the ancient Mediterranean. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder attributes this pigment (derived from Socotra tree resin) to the blood of actual dragons living on the Indian subcontinent. His critique of painters for their indulgence and excess in using it—and the persistent idea that colors contaminate—stands against an idealized whiteness constructed in opposition to the materials and geopolitics of other cultures. Prof. Stager examines the afterlives of Pliny’s fantastical slander.
About the Presenter
Jennifer Stager is Associate Professor of Art History, Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in the art and architecture of the ancient Mediterranean and its afterlives. Her areas of focus include theories of color and materiality, feminisms, multilinguality, and cultural exchange, and ancient Greek and Roman medicine.
Stager’s first book, Seeing Ancient Mediterranean Color (in progress), recovers period ideas of color as a phenomenon in ancient Mediterranean art. Stager analyzes the material colors found in dyes, pigments, stones, resins, and metals across the wider Mediterranean. An essay based on this work is “The Unbearable Whiteness of Whiteness”
OTHER LECTURES IN THIS SERIES
OCT 3
Dragon's Blood and the Blood of Dragons
OCT 10
The Colors of Space and Time
OCT 17
Shades of Green and White
OCT 24
Pigments and Artistic Interventions
OCT 31
Indigo in Two 15th-century Chinese Paintings
NOV 7
Korean Culture in Five Colors
NOV 14
Colors of the Earth, Colors of the Sky
NOV 21
Turquoise, The Sky Blue Stone
QUESTIONS? CONTACT US
gardnercenter@seattleartmuseum.org
Free with registration, a link to the zoom webinar will be sent to you. Two tickets available per registration.There are no series tickets, please register for each talk you wish to attend.
Dragon’s blood pigment in powdered and chunk form, sap from Sucotra tree, draceana cinnabari. Photo: Creative Commons.