Lecture | China Seminar

Surface Knowledge: the roles and purposes of ink rubbings in- and outside China

Oliver Moore

Date: Wednesday 12 February 2025
Time: 15:00 - 17:00
Series: LIAS China Seminar
Location: Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden
Room: 0.30

Rubbing (undated) taken from a stone surface engraved during 1746-1753, located near Weifang, Shandong, featuring art and an inscription by Zheng Xie (1693-1766). Published ca. 1980 by Weifang Research Institute for Arts and Crafts in Idem, ed., Banqiao shuhua tapianji (n.p., n.d.).

Abstract

Taken via a means of wet impress, paper/ink rubbings of live rock surfaces and other hard objects have long enabled visual and textual knowledge throughout (and from) China. Yet their formation, uses and marketing have been generally minimized in several dismissive arguments: rubbings arise from a secondary technique that disqualifies them as art; their purposes are only referential; their technical process is divorced from a ‘mainstream’ of art theory that prefers to discuss other printing categories as more truly creative. This talk revisits conditions around rubbings’ higher complexity, revealing neglected relationships with several categories of art in China, and arguing even for a new imagination of rubbings as another art form. It redirects scholars and casual viewers towards an art history less prejudicially engaged with notions of the original, the copy and other descriptions whose applicability across cultures risks missing opportunities of deeper theorizing in local conditions.