What Grows from Old Bricks: The Tactile Arts of Early 19th-Century China

Drawing on his recent book, Networks of Touch: A Tactile History of Chinese Art, 1790-1840, Hatch begins with a close look at a handscroll made in 1835 for the governor of Jiangsu province, an avid collector of antiquities featuring cast or carved inscriptions. The long picture unrolls to show a garden of penjing, “potted scenes,” like those on display in The Huntington’s Chinese Garden. Yet the governor’s garden was entirely imaginary: it was produced by combining ink rubbings of the words cast into ancient masonry bricks with images of flowering plants painted by the dozen friends whom he gathered to collaborate on the artwork. The effect is both tactile and visual, archival but also fictional. From this handscroll, we will begin to unfold the various motivations that compelled elites to engage the sense of touch alongside the sense of vision in the arts of early 19th-century China.