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New developments in the lacquer and silk workshops posed significant challenges to other medium, causing a complete change of aesthetic during the Warring States period (5th-3rd century BC). Moreover, because fine examples of lacquer and silk have actually survived from that time, we can see what other materials copied from them. But the only reason we can recognize borrowings is that each material has a character of its own. The lecture will explore this two-sided phenomenon—the individual character of each workshop tradition and the exchanges between workshops—by looking at inlaid bronzes, mirrors, jades, lacquers, and silks, using the problem of designing for a circular space as a case study to infer the thinking of designers working in each medium.

Wang Haicheng is Mary and Cheney Cowles Endowed Professor of Chinese art at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research interest focuses on the comparative study of the art and archaeology of early China. Recent publications include Art and Artistic Thinking in Ancient China (co-authored with Robert Bagley, 2025) and a chapter on ancient states and the rise of writing in The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology & Language (2025).

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