{"id":100,"date":"2022-10-07T18:32:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T18:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artonholycrosscampus.me.holycross.edu\/?p=78"},"modified":"2022-10-07T18:32:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T18:32:40","slug":"summer-research-at-the-cantor-art-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/2022\/10\/07\/summer-research-at-the-cantor-art-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Research at the Cantor Art Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 2021, I was invited to be Weiss Summer Research Fellow at the Cantor Art Gallery. The Weiss Program<\/a> allows Holy Cross students to stay on campus for 8 weeks, working on research projects with College faculty. My project was researching collections at the Cantor Art Gallery with the Gallery\u2019s Director, Meredith Fluke. On my first day at the Gallery, Dr. Fluke took me through gallery storage, where she showed me a group of Asian decorative objects, that had not been previously researched by the Gallery staff \u2013 many of which had been unearthed during a complete collections inventory that was completed during Covid (we later discovered their provenance; given to the College by alumnus Frank Gallagher III, who served under General MacArthur after World War II). I was overjoyed to peek into them. Their materials are opulent, their styles lavish, their colors sensational, and their messages nostalgic.<\/p>\n

Among them, there was an exquisite porcelain sculpture of Avalokite\u015bvara (Gu\u0101ny\u012bn \u89c0\u97f3) in the form of Padmap\u0101\u1e47i (Fig. 1), on which I had an instant crush. To people in East Asia, Guanyin is ohne Zweifel<\/em> the embodiment of purity \u51c0 and compassion \u60af, just as Mary is to Christians. If you peek into any sculpture of Guanyin, her body is always perfectly proportioned, her expression tender, and her manner kingly. Historically, Guanyin has been blessed with at least thirty-three iconographies in Chinese Buddhist scriptures and art, one of which was Padmap\u0101\u1e47i, namely the Lotus Bearer \u6301\u84ee\u89c0\u97f3. As early as the cosmopolitan Tang dynasty (618-907), Chinese Guanyin statues had taken a female manifestation. By contrast, their Himalayan prototypes took a male manifestation while also featuring a softness of the anatomy, as evident in a turquoise-inlaid, bronze Padmap\u0101\u1e47i statue (Fig. 2) in the MET collection.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Porcelain Statue of Bodhisattva Guanyin Holding a Lotus Bloom c. 20th century. China.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Cantor Guanyin stands right on the top of a huge, flat lotus leaf, holding a spray of an aromatic lotus bloom. To me, the message that the Guanyin conveys is not physiological but rhythmic and emotional, resembling Botticelli\u2019s Venus with leggiadria<\/em>. Although her loose garment opens at her partially exposed chest, it didn\u2019t seem to me to be lascivious at all. And, how could we not fall in love with the color of the statue? Its infinite pure whiteness was probably modeled after the Blanc de Chine <\/em>\u5fb7\u5316\u767d\u74f7, a type of ivory glazed porcelains that were crafted in present-day Fujian Province during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).<\/p>\n

The absence of a signature hindered us from deciphering who crafted the Cantor Guanyin and when it was crafted. Dr. Fluke explained that there are many times when we research historical objects that definitive knowledge about production is lost and irretrievable. When I studied a Japanese doll in the form of a man (Fig. 3), a new \u201cquestion mark\u201d popped up. To me, it was hard to tell its exact identity. The only clue was his extravagant crimson ch\u014dfuku \u671d\u670d, which parallels with the one worn by Fujiwara no Takamitsu \u85e4\u539f\u9ad8\u5149 (939-994) in Kan\u014d Yasunobo\u2019s \u72e9\u91ce\u5b89\u4fe1 (1614-1685) Sanj\u016brokkasen-gaku<\/em> \u4e09\u5341\u516d\u4eba\u6b4c\u4ed9\u4f1d (Fig. 4). Since Fujiwara as a mid-Heian samurai armed with bows and arrows wears splendid crimson fabric in Kan\u014d\u2019s painting, the Cantor doll\u2019s ch\u014dfuku, when coupled with the long wayumi \u548c\u5f13 in his hand, indicates that he might be a samurai either in the Asuka period (592-710) or in the Heian period (794-1185).<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jinze Mi and Tim Johnson installing \u014cmori Mitsumoto \u5927\u68ee\u5149\u5143.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was not discouraged when I reach these dead ends in my research. I would rather wade into the murmuring brook\u2014despite being fraught with vagaries\u2014out of sheer curiosity and exhilaration.\u00a0I used my research as the foundation for an exhibit I curated for the Spring of 2021. For the first time, the gifts of Frank Gallegher ’32 were on display. I selected 10 of the 33 objects that were a part of his original gift, including the Guanyin and the Kimona Doll. At a time that the virus kept me far from my family for a long time, the Cantor experience familiarized me with collection research methodologies and professional curatorial practices, which inspired me to reconsider how the early modern world was intermingled, both artistically and commercially.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jinze Mi standing beside “Porcelain Statue of Bodhisattva Guanyin Holding a Lotus Bloom” in his exhibit “Asia in the Mirror.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

– Jinze Mi ’23<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 2021, I was invited to be Weiss Summer Research Fellow at the Cantor Art Gallery. The Weiss Program allows Holy Cross students to stay on campus for 8 weeks, working on research projects with College faculty. My project was researching collections at the Cantor Art Gallery with the Gallery\u2019s Director, Meredith … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Summer Research at the Cantor Art Gallery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/artonholycrosscampus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}