Prof. Katharine Burnett at a Buddhist temple outside of Lhasa, Tibet. Photograph©Bob Moustakas, 2006.

Every time I go to , the one thing I can count on is that something extraordinary will happen. Sometimes it comes in a conversation with a tea‐shop waitress on the side of a mountain in Sichuan (despite our many differences, we discovered we were “the same”); other times, from talking with arts specialists. (The last time, this kind of conversation enabled me to bring an important collection of Chinese propaganda poster art from to UC Davis for a major international exhibition, Visualizing Revolution: Propaganda Posters from the People’s Republic of China, 1949­1989, UCD Nelson Gallery, 2008.) This kind of engagement with China is something I want to share with my students.

Much of my research has focused on art of the 17th century. I have found that artists and critics of that time felt it was essential for important art (painting, calligraphy, and for that matter, ceramics) to express the value of originality. This, I believe, helps explain the extraordinary and idiosyncratic aesthetic common to art of the period.

We will be studying this kind of art, what went before it and what came after in Summer 2010. We will be based in the beautiful ancient city of , and fieldtrips will take us to important cultural sites and museums in , , County, , Shanghai, and . Join us!

LEFT Wu Bin (c. 1543‐c. 1626), CENTER Fu Shan (1607‐1684), RIGHT Black Elephant, Yixing On the Way to Shanyin, 1608, detail, Calligraphy hanging scroll, ware teapot, Yixing Ware Museum Shanghai Museum Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York