Chinese Garden Programs, Lectures, and Events

The Huntington is creating an innovative, long-range educational program that will embrace a wide variety of individuals including scholars, visitors, teachers, and school children. The Chinese Garden programs will feature an assortment of activities from lectures and conferences, to public festivals for families, and educational workshops for children and adults. The intent of these programs is to actively promote and further an understanding of Chinese culture – landscape, literature, art, and history – as it relates to gardens.

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Curator Tour: The Garden of Flowing Fragrance

March 13, Thurs., 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Explore the elements of poetry, artistry, and symbolism that give classical Chinese gardens their unique spirit in this tour with June Li, curator of The Huntington’s Garden of Flowing Fragrance, Liu Fang Yuan.  Inspired by the famed “scholar’s gardens” of Suzhou, China, it incorporates traditional elements, materials, and scholarly associations.  Members: $15.  Non-members: $20. Registration: 626-405-2128.

 

Children’s Workshop:  Exploring the Chinese Garden

March 15, Sat., 9 – 11:30 a.m.

Children can get to know The Huntington’s new Garden of Flowing Fragrance as they explore this unique landscape and the poetic calligraphy within.  A hands-on workshop in traditional Chinese calligraphy will follow, led by artist Peifang Liang.

Ages 7 and up, with one accompanying adult.  Members: $20. Non-members: $25.  Registration:  626-405-2128.

Lecture:  “Another World Lies Beyond: Visual Allusions in the Chinese Garden”

April 8, Tues., 7:30 p.m., Friends’ Hall

An inscription inside the entrance gates to The Huntington’s Garden of Flowing Fragrance reads “Another world lies beyond.” The words allude to a well-known tale in Chinese literature about a hidden utopian land. Louise Yuhas*, professor of art history and Asian studies at Occidental College, will discuss the many kinds of “other worlds” that are evoked in traditional Chinese gardens and how they enrich the visitor’s experience. Free. Friends’ Hall. The 2007-08 Chinese Garden Lecture Series is made possible by the generosity of René Balcer and Carolyn Hsu-Balcer.

*Dr. Louise Yuhas is currently Professor of Art History and Asian Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Her research interests include Chinese landscape painting of the Ming Dynasty, especially topographical and travel paintings by literati artists of 16th century Suzhou, and, more recently, imperial patronage under Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, including imperial gardens in Beijing and Chengde. Through the latter she is expanding into Sino-Tibetan religious art and to regional styles of Buddhist art on the Silk Road. She received her PhD in History of Asian Art at the University of Michigan, and has published articles in Ars Orientalis, Orientations, the National Palace Museum Bulletin, and Artists and Patrons: Some Social and Economic Aspects of Chinese Painting. 

Lecture: “Architecture and Furniture in a Chinese Garden”

Tues., May 6, 2008, 7:30 p.m., Friends’ Hall

A Chinese garden is a living space equipped with architecture and furniture.  In an illustrated lecture Sarah Handler*, author and expert in Chinese furniture and architecture , will show how these two arts function in the garden.  She will explain how these two arts are similar modular wooden structures created according to the same principles of design, proportion, and construction.  Ornamented with the same motifs, architecture and furniture  merge with garden plants and rocks to create a unique world. The 2007-08 Chinese Garden Lecture Series is made possible by the generosity of René Balcer and Carolyn Hsu-Balcer.

*Chinese Art Historian, Dr. Sarah Handler, is an independent scholar and has written definitive books on Chinese furniture, including Ming Furniture in the Light of Chinese Architecture, and Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture. She has taught at UCLA and the University of Michigan. Her research is especially important for the Huntington Chinese garden project because of her interpretive focus on architecture. Buildings are one of the “essentials” of a Chinese garden and distinguish the garden style from others such as Japanese, French and English.