Article by Aaron K. Reich
Journal of Chinese Religions, 2021
Statues of the gods, or spirit images (shenxiang 神像), remain among the most ubiquitous material o... more Statues of the gods, or spirit images (shenxiang 神像), remain among the most ubiquitous material objects in the religious culture of modern-day Taiwan. Notwithstanding, research to date has yet to examine adequately the people and processes that produce, consecrate, and enshrine these statues, work that effects a transformation of these cult statues into sacred presences. How should we understand the relationship between these artistic and ritual processes and the resulting spirit image that is born out of them? The article argues that the spirit image at the heart of this study, a statue of the Daoist god Guangcheng Zi 廣成子, emerges in the context of its religious lifeworld not as a discrete entity, but rather as an “assemblage,” a coming together of the people who contribute to it, the materials those people use, and the specific spirits and divine powers those people invoke.
Dissertation by Aaron K. Reich
Currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong is a 30-f... more Currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong is a 30-foot painted handscroll dating from the final years of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The painting and its colophons respectively illustrate and describe a process known as daofeng , or “conferral of the Way,” typically translated in current scholarship as “canonization.” The term denotes the liturgical promotion of a local god into the authorized pantheon of the most prominent Daoist institution at the time, the Zhengyi Order of the Dragon-Tiger Mountains.
This dissertation offers a new interpretation of Canonization Scroll that aims to elevate its historical significance. Not only is the handscroll the only illustrated record of canonization to survive, but it furthermore introduces the notion of a representative, by-proxy liturgical procedure—where a local priest self-consciously assumes the authority of the hereditary patriarch of the Zhengyi Order. By allowing local communities to canonize gods at a distance from the Dragon-Tiger Mountains, the Zhengyi Daoist institution could more easily bring unity to what it perceived as heterodox local cults. With painted icons of the gods at the heart of this particular case, questions emerge as to the role images had in articulating ritual ties between local cults and the Daoist institution. What kind of document is this handscroll, and why is it illustrated? In the first comprehensive study of Canonization Scroll to date, I argue that the handscroll serves as an official certificate for a special form of canonization—namely a canonization by proxy—and its painted icons work to reinforce the sacred reality of the ritual event it records.
Draft by Aaron K. Reich
Reviews by Aaron K. Reich
Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Jun 2011
China Review International, 2016
Conference Presentations by Aaron K. Reich
Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Denver
2022 NOV 19... more Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Denver
2022 NOV 19
ABSTRACT:
In China’s sixth century, painters and connoisseurs started to compile and circulate texts that classified painters according to a traditional ranking system. This system divided painters into three primary classes (pin 品) and further divided these classes into three grades (deng 等). In the ninth century, a certain art theorist, Zhu Jingxuan 朱景玄, established an entirely new class of painters. He called this the yipin 逸品, conventionally translated as the “untrammeled class,” and he placed into this category three painters from the Tang period (618–907). These artists, he asserted, “did not adhere to the usual methods” and lie “outside the standard” of ordinary painters. By studying the biographies of the first yipin painters, this paper argues that Zhu Jingxuan and his contemporaries recognized these painters as having especial proficiency in Daoist techniques for entering into and producing images from a state of union with the Dao.
Presented at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Honolulu
2022 MAR 25
... more Presented at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Honolulu
2022 MAR 25
ABSTRACT:
Over thirty feet in length, a late Ming handscroll titled The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong depicts a local god standing in audience before the celestial court of the Daoist pantheon. Its pictorial and textual portions respectively illustrate and describe a process known as daofeng, literally “conferral of the Way,” typically translated in current scholarship as canonization. The term denotes the liturgical promotion of a local god into the authorized pantheon of the largest Daoist institution at the time, the Zhengyi Order of the Dragon-Tiger Mountains. Although scholars have recognized the handscroll’s value as the most detailed document on the procedures involved in late-imperial canonizations, questions remain regarding the place of Thunder rites and their pantheons in the liturgy that the handscroll describes. High-ranking supreme gods of Thunder stand at the center of document’s celestial court scene; meanwhile, the accompanying written certificate of canonization announces the local god’s promotion to the position of Minister in a Daoist celestial-bureaucratic body known as the Department of Thunder. What do these details suggest about Ming canonizations more broadly? Through a close analysis of the document alongside contemporaneous religious and historical texts, this paper argues that the canonization of local gods during the Ming period amounted precisely to an expansion of the Department of Thunder, an expansion that was part and parcel of what scholars have shown to be the Zhengyi Order’s duty, assigned by imperial decree, to recruit local spirits, harness their power, and unite them in the service of protecting the realm.
Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in San Diego
2019 NOV 24... more Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in San Diego
2019 NOV 24
ABSTRACT:
Carved statues of the gods, called spirit images (shenxiang 神像), remain in modern times a ubiquitous material dimension of what scholars have called Taiwan’s “popular religion.” Yet, despite their prevalence, and their central place in contemporary religion, neither these statues nor their surrounding liturgies have received adequate attention from scholars. This presentation therefore brings the sacred statues of contemporary Taiwanese religion into the spotlight, with an emphasis on rituals aimed at uniting these material objects with the divinities they visually represent. I focus on the consecration rite called “Embedding the Spirit” (rushen 入神), specifically as it is performed by professional sculptors, the very people who shape the statues in the first place. Based upon field observations and interviews across three workshops in Kaohsiung City, I argue that the ritual of “Embedding the Spirit” enhances the statue’s perceived potential for living agency, a quality that it gains, in the first place, by virtue of its likeness to the deity it comes to embody.
Presented at Critical Terms for Chinese Religious Studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in ... more Presented at Critical Terms for Chinese Religious Studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong (Invited)
2019 JUN 21
Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Denver
2018 NOV 18
... more Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Denver
2018 NOV 18
This presentation examines the relationship between external images (especially paintings) and internal visualizations in late imperial Thunder ritual. Despite this liturgy's focus on visualization, scholars only recently have started to explore the ways its practitioners develop and engage with rich internal worlds. One avenue into what this talk calls the "interwoven worlds" of late imperial Thunder ritual (perception and imagination) is through instructions for the visualization of deities. Several late imperial liturgical compendia have methods that introduce near their outset a section called the "Team of [Military] Commanders" (jiangban 將班), which provides detailed textual portrayals of the gods who preside over the ritual. By juxtaposing these instructions with paintings of Thunder pantheons from the late Song and Ming periods, this presentation argues that, for this form of Daoist ritual, iconographic details of deities serve as the primary bridge that links their external forms to their internal presences.
Presented at the Pacific Northwest meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), St. Mary's ... more Presented at the Pacific Northwest meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), St. Mary's University, Calgary
2017 MAY 5
Presented at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference "Bridging the Ga... more Presented at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference "Bridging the Gaps: Conceptualizing Asia through an Interdisciplinary Lens" at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
2017 MAR 23
Presented at the Ninth Annual International Conference on Daoist Studies, Boston College
2014 ... more Presented at the Ninth Annual International Conference on Daoist Studies, Boston College
2014 JUN 1
Presented at the Second Annual Trans-Asia Graduate Student Conference, University of Wisconsin–Ma... more Presented at the Second Annual Trans-Asia Graduate Student Conference, University of Wisconsin–Madison
2014 APR 6
ABSTRACT:
This presentation examines the two accounts of Daoist ritual in the Ming-dynasty novel Jin ping mei with specific interest in the said motives, descriptive details, and ultimate inefficacy of each performance. In viewing these aspects of the novel's plot as indirect didacticism, my perspective on Jin ping mei aligns with scholars who understand the work as having an underlying purgative agenda. Though some strands of traditional literary criticism as well as modern scholars of Chinese fiction have labeled Jin ping mei as a primarily erotic novel, a thorough analysis of its tacit messages suggest the author intended to warn readers against morally-questionable behavior. As part of this discourse, I posit that the purpose of including vivid descriptions of Daoist ritual services in the novel lies in the their very inefficacy. In a word, the notorious sexual deviance of protagonist Ximen Qing proves to be the root cause of his ritual impotence.
Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Baltimore
2013 NOV 23... more Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Baltimore
2013 NOV 23
ABSTRACT:
Prior to the ninth century, there is no mention of the Zhuangzi in extant painting texts from China. Yet, beginning in the mid-800s, several key art theorists turn to parables and concepts from this Daoist classic in order to articulate the creative practices of exemplary painters. By the Northern Song (960–1126), allusions to the Zhuangzi become ubiquitous within the genre of painting theory, appearing in nearly all important works written in the eleventh century. This essay examines the largely overlooked role of the Zhuangzi in the developing paradigm of literati painting (wenren hua 文人畫), a movement initiated by a group of eminent Confucian scholars who moved in the milieu of the influential literatus Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101). Through an exegetical presentation of literati writings on painting, I argue that salient aspects of literati painting theory find their ideological roots in the Zhuangzi, particularly its notions of harmonious artistic production and the origins of creative genius.
Presented at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Organization Conference “Cycles of Transforma... more Presented at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Organization Conference “Cycles of Transformation and Transformations of Cycles” at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
2012 MAR 3
ABSTRACT:
During a procession, or raojing 遶境, temple volunteers temporarily remove the statues of the gods from the temple, place these statues into their respective chariots (one per statue), and vivaciously carry them through the streets. A myriad of performance troupes—musicians, stilt-walkers, martial artists, dragon dancers, and more—join in the procession as it parades past homes in carnivalesque fashion, leaving piles of firecracker paper in its wake, all in an effort to entertain and enliven the gods, and in turn, the community itself. That the people seem to treat the images of the gods as living beings presents us with several interesting questions. How do participants of the procession understand and relate to these statues? Do they regard them as embodiments of the gods themselves, as representations of the gods, or some conceptual blend of these paradigms? Through a presentation of my field experience observing a three-day procession in southern Taiwan in 2010, I argue that the popular understanding of these religious images exemplifies what art historian W.J.T. Mitchell has described as the "double consciousness" of images. This concept seeks to explain a seemingly contradictory aspect of human response to images: that images are representational on the one hand, and independent, living entities on the other. Viewed in this light, we can better understand how procession participants view images of their gods.
Presented at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Organization Conference “Space, Place, and th... more Presented at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Organization Conference “Space, Place, and the Production of Knowledge” at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
2011 APR 8
Presented at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference “Crossing Border... more Presented at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference “Crossing Borders: Emerging Trends in Pacific and Asian Studies” at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
2011 APR 4
Invited Talks by Aaron K. Reich
Presented in Chinese at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library in Taipei,... more Presented in Chinese at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library in Taipei, Taiwan
2019 JUL 30
ABSTRACT:
在中國明清朝代，當地的社區能透過「道封」這個儀式，把當地的神仙納入到正式道教之神譜。在正史記載上，這個儀式鮮少被提及。透過一條十七世紀初的手卷，讓我們有機會一窺在這個時代下的宗教生活。這個長達30英尺的手卷紀錄了一尊在江西省當地神仙的道封，該手卷目前存放於美國紐約市的大都會藝術博物館。在針對文字及圖畫上進行更深入的研究後，冉安仁博士準備發表手卷上紀錄的道封儀式。 透過這件道封儀式的細節，讓我們理解當地社區與道教制度的合作，而思考道教建立神聖帝國的目標。
During China’s late imperial dynasties, communities could promote their local gods into the sanctioned Daoist pantheon through a ritual process called canonization (daofeng 道封). While this process remains largely unmentioned in official histories, one unusual handscroll painting from the early seventeenth century offers a rare glimpse into precisely this segment of late imperial religious life. Currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the 30-foot handscroll documents and illustrates the canonization of a specific local god from the Jiangxi Province. In a close study of both the textual and pictorial components of this handscroll, Dr. Aaron Reich presents the first comprehensive account of the canonization ritual it records. The details of this single account provide new insights into how local communities established ties to the Daoist institution and its sacred empire.
Presented at the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University in Philad... more Presented at the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University in Philadelphia
2019 APR 10
ABSTRACT:
In China’s fifth century, painters and connoisseurs started to compile and circulate texts that classified famous painters according to a traditional ranking system. This system divided painters into three primary classes (pin 品), and further divided these classes into three grades (deng 等). Known as the Three Classes and Nine Grades classification system, it remained in place with only nominal changes until the ninth century, when a certain art theorist, Zhu Jingxuan 朱景玄, established an entirely new class of painters. He called this the yipin 逸品, conventionally translated as the “untrammeled class.” These artists, Zhu Jingxuan asserted, “did not adhere to the usual methods” (buju changfa 不拘常法), and lie “outside the ranks” (gewai 格外) of ordinary painters. One of the three yipin painters, Zhang Zhihe 張志和, was a well-known and prolific Daoist priest; meanwhile, available biographies of the two other yipin painters, Wang Mo 王墨 and Li Lingsheng 李靈昇, suggest that they, too, had close ties to Daoism.
Despite these clear connections to the Daoist tradition, scholars have yet to address the role that contemporaneous Daoist ideas and practices had in the formation of this “untrammeled class” of painters. In this presentation, I argue that the ninth-century art theorist Zhu Jingxuan and his contemporaries conceived of the “untrammeled class” as a predominantly Daoist classification and held the painter Zhang Zhihe as the standard. Because later art theorists active in the eleventh century would ultimately elevate the yipin from its position “outside the ranks” and redefine it as the most superlative category of painters, we stand to gain from a clearer picture of how the “untrammeled class” took shape in the first place. By examining painting texts together with sources from the Daoist canon, I show that the yipin aesthetic had its basis in central tenets of Daoism, such as, for example, the notion that skilled painters can access and channel the inexhaustible, generative potency of the Dao.
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Article by Aaron K. Reich
Dissertation by Aaron K. Reich
This dissertation offers a new interpretation of Canonization Scroll that aims to elevate its historical significance. Not only is the handscroll the only illustrated record of canonization to survive, but it furthermore introduces the notion of a representative, by-proxy liturgical procedure—where a local priest self-consciously assumes the authority of the hereditary patriarch of the Zhengyi Order. By allowing local communities to canonize gods at a distance from the Dragon-Tiger Mountains, the Zhengyi Daoist institution could more easily bring unity to what it perceived as heterodox local cults. With painted icons of the gods at the heart of this particular case, questions emerge as to the role images had in articulating ritual ties between local cults and the Daoist institution. What kind of document is this handscroll, and why is it illustrated? In the first comprehensive study of Canonization Scroll to date, I argue that the handscroll serves as an official certificate for a special form of canonization—namely a canonization by proxy—and its painted icons work to reinforce the sacred reality of the ritual event it records.
Draft by Aaron K. Reich
Reviews by Aaron K. Reich
Conference Presentations by Aaron K. Reich
2022 NOV 19
ABSTRACT:
In China’s sixth century, painters and connoisseurs started to compile and circulate texts that classified painters according to a traditional ranking system. This system divided painters into three primary classes (pin 品) and further divided these classes into three grades (deng 等). In the ninth century, a certain art theorist, Zhu Jingxuan 朱景玄, established an entirely new class of painters. He called this the yipin 逸品, conventionally translated as the “untrammeled class,” and he placed into this category three painters from the Tang period (618–907). These artists, he asserted, “did not adhere to the usual methods” and lie “outside the standard” of ordinary painters. By studying the biographies of the first yipin painters, this paper argues that Zhu Jingxuan and his contemporaries recognized these painters as having especial proficiency in Daoist techniques for entering into and producing images from a state of union with the Dao.
2022 MAR 25
ABSTRACT:
Over thirty feet in length, a late Ming handscroll titled The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong depicts a local god standing in audience before the celestial court of the Daoist pantheon. Its pictorial and textual portions respectively illustrate and describe a process known as daofeng, literally “conferral of the Way,” typically translated in current scholarship as canonization. The term denotes the liturgical promotion of a local god into the authorized pantheon of the largest Daoist institution at the time, the Zhengyi Order of the Dragon-Tiger Mountains. Although scholars have recognized the handscroll’s value as the most detailed document on the procedures involved in late-imperial canonizations, questions remain regarding the place of Thunder rites and their pantheons in the liturgy that the handscroll describes. High-ranking supreme gods of Thunder stand at the center of document’s celestial court scene; meanwhile, the accompanying written certificate of canonization announces the local god’s promotion to the position of Minister in a Daoist celestial-bureaucratic body known as the Department of Thunder. What do these details suggest about Ming canonizations more broadly? Through a close analysis of the document alongside contemporaneous religious and historical texts, this paper argues that the canonization of local gods during the Ming period amounted precisely to an expansion of the Department of Thunder, an expansion that was part and parcel of what scholars have shown to be the Zhengyi Order’s duty, assigned by imperial decree, to recruit local spirits, harness their power, and unite them in the service of protecting the realm.
2019 NOV 24
ABSTRACT:
Carved statues of the gods, called spirit images (shenxiang 神像), remain in modern times a ubiquitous material dimension of what scholars have called Taiwan’s “popular religion.” Yet, despite their prevalence, and their central place in contemporary religion, neither these statues nor their surrounding liturgies have received adequate attention from scholars. This presentation therefore brings the sacred statues of contemporary Taiwanese religion into the spotlight, with an emphasis on rituals aimed at uniting these material objects with the divinities they visually represent. I focus on the consecration rite called “Embedding the Spirit” (rushen 入神), specifically as it is performed by professional sculptors, the very people who shape the statues in the first place. Based upon field observations and interviews across three workshops in Kaohsiung City, I argue that the ritual of “Embedding the Spirit” enhances the statue’s perceived potential for living agency, a quality that it gains, in the first place, by virtue of its likeness to the deity it comes to embody.
2019 JUN 21
2018 NOV 18
This presentation examines the relationship between external images (especially paintings) and internal visualizations in late imperial Thunder ritual. Despite this liturgy's focus on visualization, scholars only recently have started to explore the ways its practitioners develop and engage with rich internal worlds. One avenue into what this talk calls the "interwoven worlds" of late imperial Thunder ritual (perception and imagination) is through instructions for the visualization of deities. Several late imperial liturgical compendia have methods that introduce near their outset a section called the "Team of [Military] Commanders" (jiangban 將班), which provides detailed textual portrayals of the gods who preside over the ritual. By juxtaposing these instructions with paintings of Thunder pantheons from the late Song and Ming periods, this presentation argues that, for this form of Daoist ritual, iconographic details of deities serve as the primary bridge that links their external forms to their internal presences.
2017 MAY 5
2017 MAR 23
2014 JUN 1
2014 APR 6
ABSTRACT:
This presentation examines the two accounts of Daoist ritual in the Ming-dynasty novel Jin ping mei with specific interest in the said motives, descriptive details, and ultimate inefficacy of each performance. In viewing these aspects of the novel's plot as indirect didacticism, my perspective on Jin ping mei aligns with scholars who understand the work as having an underlying purgative agenda. Though some strands of traditional literary criticism as well as modern scholars of Chinese fiction have labeled Jin ping mei as a primarily erotic novel, a thorough analysis of its tacit messages suggest the author intended to warn readers against morally-questionable behavior. As part of this discourse, I posit that the purpose of including vivid descriptions of Daoist ritual services in the novel lies in the their very inefficacy. In a word, the notorious sexual deviance of protagonist Ximen Qing proves to be the root cause of his ritual impotence.
2013 NOV 23
ABSTRACT:
Prior to the ninth century, there is no mention of the Zhuangzi in extant painting texts from China. Yet, beginning in the mid-800s, several key art theorists turn to parables and concepts from this Daoist classic in order to articulate the creative practices of exemplary painters. By the Northern Song (960–1126), allusions to the Zhuangzi become ubiquitous within the genre of painting theory, appearing in nearly all important works written in the eleventh century. This essay examines the largely overlooked role of the Zhuangzi in the developing paradigm of literati painting (wenren hua 文人畫), a movement initiated by a group of eminent Confucian scholars who moved in the milieu of the influential literatus Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101). Through an exegetical presentation of literati writings on painting, I argue that salient aspects of literati painting theory find their ideological roots in the Zhuangzi, particularly its notions of harmonious artistic production and the origins of creative genius.
2012 MAR 3
ABSTRACT:
During a procession, or raojing 遶境, temple volunteers temporarily remove the statues of the gods from the temple, place these statues into their respective chariots (one per statue), and vivaciously carry them through the streets. A myriad of performance troupes—musicians, stilt-walkers, martial artists, dragon dancers, and more—join in the procession as it parades past homes in carnivalesque fashion, leaving piles of firecracker paper in its wake, all in an effort to entertain and enliven the gods, and in turn, the community itself. That the people seem to treat the images of the gods as living beings presents us with several interesting questions. How do participants of the procession understand and relate to these statues? Do they regard them as embodiments of the gods themselves, as representations of the gods, or some conceptual blend of these paradigms? Through a presentation of my field experience observing a three-day procession in southern Taiwan in 2010, I argue that the popular understanding of these religious images exemplifies what art historian W.J.T. Mitchell has described as the "double consciousness" of images. This concept seeks to explain a seemingly contradictory aspect of human response to images: that images are representational on the one hand, and independent, living entities on the other. Viewed in this light, we can better understand how procession participants view images of their gods.
2011 APR 8
2011 APR 4
Invited Talks by Aaron K. Reich
2019 JUL 30
ABSTRACT:
在中國明清朝代，當地的社區能透過「道封」這個儀式，把當地的神仙納入到正式道教之神譜。在正史記載上，這個儀式鮮少被提及。透過一條十七世紀初的手卷，讓我們有機會一窺在這個時代下的宗教生活。這個長達30英尺的手卷紀錄了一尊在江西省當地神仙的道封，該手卷目前存放於美國紐約市的大都會藝術博物館。在針對文字及圖畫上進行更深入的研究後，冉安仁博士準備發表手卷上紀錄的道封儀式。 透過這件道封儀式的細節，讓我們理解當地社區與道教制度的合作，而思考道教建立神聖帝國的目標。
During China’s late imperial dynasties, communities could promote their local gods into the sanctioned Daoist pantheon through a ritual process called canonization (daofeng 道封). While this process remains largely unmentioned in official histories, one unusual handscroll painting from the early seventeenth century offers a rare glimpse into precisely this segment of late imperial religious life. Currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the 30-foot handscroll documents and illustrates the canonization of a specific local god from the Jiangxi Province. In a close study of both the textual and pictorial components of this handscroll, Dr. Aaron Reich presents the first comprehensive account of the canonization ritual it records. The details of this single account provide new insights into how local communities established ties to the Daoist institution and its sacred empire.
2019 APR 10
ABSTRACT:
In China’s fifth century, painters and connoisseurs started to compile and circulate texts that classified famous painters according to a traditional ranking system. This system divided painters into three primary classes (pin 品), and further divided these classes into three grades (deng 等). Known as the Three Classes and Nine Grades classification system, it remained in place with only nominal changes until the ninth century, when a certain art theorist, Zhu Jingxuan 朱景玄, established an entirely new class of painters. He called this the yipin 逸品, conventionally translated as the “untrammeled class.” These artists, Zhu Jingxuan asserted, “did not adhere to the usual methods” (buju changfa 不拘常法), and lie “outside the ranks” (gewai 格外) of ordinary painters. One of the three yipin painters, Zhang Zhihe 張志和, was a well-known and prolific Daoist priest; meanwhile, available biographies of the two other yipin painters, Wang Mo 王墨 and Li Lingsheng 李靈昇, suggest that they, too, had close ties to Daoism.
Despite these clear connections to the Daoist tradition, scholars have yet to address the role that contemporaneous Daoist ideas and practices had in the formation of this “untrammeled class” of painters. In this presentation, I argue that the ninth-century art theorist Zhu Jingxuan and his contemporaries conceived of the “untrammeled class” as a predominantly Daoist classification and held the painter Zhang Zhihe as the standard. Because later art theorists active in the eleventh century would ultimately elevate the yipin from its position “outside the ranks” and redefine it as the most superlative category of painters, we stand to gain from a clearer picture of how the “untrammeled class” took shape in the first place. By examining painting texts together with sources from the Daoist canon, I show that the yipin aesthetic had its basis in central tenets of Daoism, such as, for example, the notion that skilled painters can access and channel the inexhaustible, generative potency of the Dao.
This dissertation offers a new interpretation of Canonization Scroll that aims to elevate its historical significance. Not only is the handscroll the only illustrated record of canonization to survive, but it furthermore introduces the notion of a representative, by-proxy liturgical procedure—where a local priest self-consciously assumes the authority of the hereditary patriarch of the Zhengyi Order. By allowing local communities to canonize gods at a distance from the Dragon-Tiger Mountains, the Zhengyi Daoist institution could more easily bring unity to what it perceived as heterodox local cults. With painted icons of the gods at the heart of this particular case, questions emerge as to the role images had in articulating ritual ties between local cults and the Daoist institution. What kind of document is this handscroll, and why is it illustrated? In the first comprehensive study of Canonization Scroll to date, I argue that the handscroll serves as an official certificate for a special form of canonization—namely a canonization by proxy—and its painted icons work to reinforce the sacred reality of the ritual event it records.
2022 NOV 19
ABSTRACT:
In China’s sixth century, painters and connoisseurs started to compile and circulate texts that classified painters according to a traditional ranking system. This system divided painters into three primary classes (pin 品) and further divided these classes into three grades (deng 等). In the ninth century, a certain art theorist, Zhu Jingxuan 朱景玄, established an entirely new class of painters. He called this the yipin 逸品, conventionally translated as the “untrammeled class,” and he placed into this category three painters from the Tang period (618–907). These artists, he asserted, “did not adhere to the usual methods” and lie “outside the standard” of ordinary painters. By studying the biographies of the first yipin painters, this paper argues that Zhu Jingxuan and his contemporaries recognized these painters as having especial proficiency in Daoist techniques for entering into and producing images from a state of union with the Dao.
2022 MAR 25
ABSTRACT:
Over thirty feet in length, a late Ming handscroll titled The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong depicts a local god standing in audience before the celestial court of the Daoist pantheon. Its pictorial and textual portions respectively illustrate and describe a process known as daofeng, literally “conferral of the Way,” typically translated in current scholarship as canonization. The term denotes the liturgical promotion of a local god into the authorized pantheon of the largest Daoist institution at the time, the Zhengyi Order of the Dragon-Tiger Mountains. Although scholars have recognized the handscroll’s value as the most detailed document on the procedures involved in late-imperial canonizations, questions remain regarding the place of Thunder rites and their pantheons in the liturgy that the handscroll describes. High-ranking supreme gods of Thunder stand at the center of document’s celestial court scene; meanwhile, the accompanying written certificate of canonization announces the local god’s promotion to the position of Minister in a Daoist celestial-bureaucratic body known as the Department of Thunder. What do these details suggest about Ming canonizations more broadly? Through a close analysis of the document alongside contemporaneous religious and historical texts, this paper argues that the canonization of local gods during the Ming period amounted precisely to an expansion of the Department of Thunder, an expansion that was part and parcel of what scholars have shown to be the Zhengyi Order’s duty, assigned by imperial decree, to recruit local spirits, harness their power, and unite them in the service of protecting the realm.
2019 NOV 24
ABSTRACT:
Carved statues of the gods, called spirit images (shenxiang 神像), remain in modern times a ubiquitous material dimension of what scholars have called Taiwan’s “popular religion.” Yet, despite their prevalence, and their central place in contemporary religion, neither these statues nor their surrounding liturgies have received adequate attention from scholars. This presentation therefore brings the sacred statues of contemporary Taiwanese religion into the spotlight, with an emphasis on rituals aimed at uniting these material objects with the divinities they visually represent. I focus on the consecration rite called “Embedding the Spirit” (rushen 入神), specifically as it is performed by professional sculptors, the very people who shape the statues in the first place. Based upon field observations and interviews across three workshops in Kaohsiung City, I argue that the ritual of “Embedding the Spirit” enhances the statue’s perceived potential for living agency, a quality that it gains, in the first place, by virtue of its likeness to the deity it comes to embody.
2019 JUN 21
2018 NOV 18
This presentation examines the relationship between external images (especially paintings) and internal visualizations in late imperial Thunder ritual. Despite this liturgy's focus on visualization, scholars only recently have started to explore the ways its practitioners develop and engage with rich internal worlds. One avenue into what this talk calls the "interwoven worlds" of late imperial Thunder ritual (perception and imagination) is through instructions for the visualization of deities. Several late imperial liturgical compendia have methods that introduce near their outset a section called the "Team of [Military] Commanders" (jiangban 將班), which provides detailed textual portrayals of the gods who preside over the ritual. By juxtaposing these instructions with paintings of Thunder pantheons from the late Song and Ming periods, this presentation argues that, for this form of Daoist ritual, iconographic details of deities serve as the primary bridge that links their external forms to their internal presences.
2017 MAY 5
2017 MAR 23
2014 JUN 1
2014 APR 6
ABSTRACT:
This presentation examines the two accounts of Daoist ritual in the Ming-dynasty novel Jin ping mei with specific interest in the said motives, descriptive details, and ultimate inefficacy of each performance. In viewing these aspects of the novel's plot as indirect didacticism, my perspective on Jin ping mei aligns with scholars who understand the work as having an underlying purgative agenda. Though some strands of traditional literary criticism as well as modern scholars of Chinese fiction have labeled Jin ping mei as a primarily erotic novel, a thorough analysis of its tacit messages suggest the author intended to warn readers against morally-questionable behavior. As part of this discourse, I posit that the purpose of including vivid descriptions of Daoist ritual services in the novel lies in the their very inefficacy. In a word, the notorious sexual deviance of protagonist Ximen Qing proves to be the root cause of his ritual impotence.
2013 NOV 23
ABSTRACT:
Prior to the ninth century, there is no mention of the Zhuangzi in extant painting texts from China. Yet, beginning in the mid-800s, several key art theorists turn to parables and concepts from this Daoist classic in order to articulate the creative practices of exemplary painters. By the Northern Song (960–1126), allusions to the Zhuangzi become ubiquitous within the genre of painting theory, appearing in nearly all important works written in the eleventh century. This essay examines the largely overlooked role of the Zhuangzi in the developing paradigm of literati painting (wenren hua 文人畫), a movement initiated by a group of eminent Confucian scholars who moved in the milieu of the influential literatus Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101). Through an exegetical presentation of literati writings on painting, I argue that salient aspects of literati painting theory find their ideological roots in the Zhuangzi, particularly its notions of harmonious artistic production and the origins of creative genius.
2012 MAR 3
ABSTRACT:
During a procession, or raojing 遶境, temple volunteers temporarily remove the statues of the gods from the temple, place these statues into their respective chariots (one per statue), and vivaciously carry them through the streets. A myriad of performance troupes—musicians, stilt-walkers, martial artists, dragon dancers, and more—join in the procession as it parades past homes in carnivalesque fashion, leaving piles of firecracker paper in its wake, all in an effort to entertain and enliven the gods, and in turn, the community itself. That the people seem to treat the images of the gods as living beings presents us with several interesting questions. How do participants of the procession understand and relate to these statues? Do they regard them as embodiments of the gods themselves, as representations of the gods, or some conceptual blend of these paradigms? Through a presentation of my field experience observing a three-day procession in southern Taiwan in 2010, I argue that the popular understanding of these religious images exemplifies what art historian W.J.T. Mitchell has described as the "double consciousness" of images. This concept seeks to explain a seemingly contradictory aspect of human response to images: that images are representational on the one hand, and independent, living entities on the other. Viewed in this light, we can better understand how procession participants view images of their gods.
2011 APR 8
2011 APR 4
2019 JUL 30
ABSTRACT:
在中國明清朝代，當地的社區能透過「道封」這個儀式，把當地的神仙納入到正式道教之神譜。在正史記載上，這個儀式鮮少被提及。透過一條十七世紀初的手卷，讓我們有機會一窺在這個時代下的宗教生活。這個長達30英尺的手卷紀錄了一尊在江西省當地神仙的道封，該手卷目前存放於美國紐約市的大都會藝術博物館。在針對文字及圖畫上進行更深入的研究後，冉安仁博士準備發表手卷上紀錄的道封儀式。 透過這件道封儀式的細節，讓我們理解當地社區與道教制度的合作，而思考道教建立神聖帝國的目標。
During China’s late imperial dynasties, communities could promote their local gods into the sanctioned Daoist pantheon through a ritual process called canonization (daofeng 道封). While this process remains largely unmentioned in official histories, one unusual handscroll painting from the early seventeenth century offers a rare glimpse into precisely this segment of late imperial religious life. Currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the 30-foot handscroll documents and illustrates the canonization of a specific local god from the Jiangxi Province. In a close study of both the textual and pictorial components of this handscroll, Dr. Aaron Reich presents the first comprehensive account of the canonization ritual it records. The details of this single account provide new insights into how local communities established ties to the Daoist institution and its sacred empire.
2019 APR 10
ABSTRACT:
In China’s fifth century, painters and connoisseurs started to compile and circulate texts that classified famous painters according to a traditional ranking system. This system divided painters into three primary classes (pin 品), and further divided these classes into three grades (deng 等). Known as the Three Classes and Nine Grades classification system, it remained in place with only nominal changes until the ninth century, when a certain art theorist, Zhu Jingxuan 朱景玄, established an entirely new class of painters. He called this the yipin 逸品, conventionally translated as the “untrammeled class.” These artists, Zhu Jingxuan asserted, “did not adhere to the usual methods” (buju changfa 不拘常法), and lie “outside the ranks” (gewai 格外) of ordinary painters. One of the three yipin painters, Zhang Zhihe 張志和, was a well-known and prolific Daoist priest; meanwhile, available biographies of the two other yipin painters, Wang Mo 王墨 and Li Lingsheng 李靈昇, suggest that they, too, had close ties to Daoism.
Despite these clear connections to the Daoist tradition, scholars have yet to address the role that contemporaneous Daoist ideas and practices had in the formation of this “untrammeled class” of painters. In this presentation, I argue that the ninth-century art theorist Zhu Jingxuan and his contemporaries conceived of the “untrammeled class” as a predominantly Daoist classification and held the painter Zhang Zhihe as the standard. Because later art theorists active in the eleventh century would ultimately elevate the yipin from its position “outside the ranks” and redefine it as the most superlative category of painters, we stand to gain from a clearer picture of how the “untrammeled class” took shape in the first place. By examining painting texts together with sources from the Daoist canon, I show that the yipin aesthetic had its basis in central tenets of Daoism, such as, for example, the notion that skilled painters can access and channel the inexhaustible, generative potency of the Dao.