Pania Mu, Research Associate, Institute of East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University
30 November 2026, Tui Room @ Hamilton Gardens (suggested donation: $10 waged; $5 unwaged)
This talk introduces how gardens, temples, and landscapes were represented in Chinese paintings from the Yuan to Qing periods (12th–19th centuries). Guiding a general audience with no prior background, the talk offers a way to read classical Chinese paintings as spatial worlds through paintings from Shen Zhou, Xu Ben, Wen Zhengming, Wang Hui.
Drawing on research from my published book, the talk invites audiences to reflect on how telling details in paintings, such as the mounds, pavilions, and water edges, reflect social and environmental transformations. The lecture further shows how architectural modelling and site archaeology help connect historical paintings to current gardens on site.
Dr Pania Mu is an art and architectural historian based in Berlin, Germany. Her book From Temples to Garden Estates and Academies, published by Routledge Press in 2025, investigates the socio-hydraulic transformation of Suzhou gardens in late imperial China. Her recent research examines Dunhuang Buddhist architecture in Medieval China and the transition of Silk Roads reconfiguration.
