The notion that gardens might offer a private space, apart from the larger public world and even family responsibilities, dates to the middle Tang (late 8th-early 9th c.). Dr. Kile’s talk offers an introduction to the first two works in the Chinese tradition to consider the making of the garden itself as an art: Ji Cheng's Yuanye (Fashioning Gardens, 1631-34) and Li Yu's Xianqing ouji (Leisure Notes, 1671). Both men create a middle category between manual laborer and garden proprietor: that of the garden designer, who, they both argue, is the true master of the garden. The work of raising garden design to the status of an expressive art, rather than mere craft, followed the model by which literati painting had been elevated in status during the Song dynasty (960-1279), when literati borrowed from theories of poetry to argue that painting, too, could express the "hills and valleys" in their hearts.

SE Kile is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. A specialist in Ming and Qing literature and culture, Dr. Kile is finishing a book that theorizes early modern mediation and entrepreneurship through a synthesis of Li Yu's (1611-1680) cultural production.

Zoom webinar; attendance requires registration: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YJwm_w_JS_iHdY3mpQLHZg