Understanding East Asian Art in America: The Early Study and Exhibition of Ink Rubbings from the Longmen Grottoes

My research examines the antiquarian conventions utilized by American scholars in the creation of East Asian art history as an academic discipline in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Early restoration practices and the teaching of East Asian art were built on an intersection of traditions associated with European plaster casting and ink rubbings in Asia. Taking the Chinese Buddhist caves of Longmen as a microcosm, I explore how this synthesis of traditions became embedded in objects during the study, removal, and restoration of sculpture from the site. In turn, the pedagogical needs of a new class of educators led by the Harvard curator of Asian art, Langdon Warner, spurred technical transformations to ink rubbing practices and antiquarianism in Asia. Specifically, this talk addresses the unique role that monumental ink rubbings of Buddhist sculpture from the Central Binyang Cave at Longmen played in the early teaching of Asian art in the United States. Drawing upon new bodies of archival materials and objects rediscovered in 2016, I explore how these rubbings fundamentally shaped the pedagogical, exhibition, and restoration practices of the first generation of East Asian art professionals in America.