Name: The Talented Convict Xu Wei
Start: 2024-09-20T06:30:00+08:00
Location: KU Department of Art History RM 211

Peter Sturman, Fall 2024 Franklin D. Murphy Professor and Lecturer
Professor, Departments of History of Art and Architecture, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies University of California, Santa Barbara
In 1566, the polymath scholar-artist Xu Wei (1521–1593), mentally unstable, was jailed for murder. He spent years in jail producing calligraphy that utilized a multifaceted artistic expression to cope with his perilous condition. Introducing this problematic artist and his talent as a calligrapher in the context of sixteenth-century artistic practice prompts questions. How was talent defined in Ming-dynasty China? How was it manifest through the scholarly arts?