Event

This paper explores the nature of religion in the rhetorical, built and embodied landscapes of the Qing imperial Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat, or Bishu shanzhuang. By considering the diverse array of cultural vocabularies at work in the garden palace and the variety of audiences at which the Qing emperors’ messages was aimed, the paper seeks not only to offer a more nuanced interpretation of religion’s place within the Qing court’s cultural practices, but to also raise questions about how we understand religion in the garden more broadly.

Specifically, this talk questions past interpretations of Bishu shanzhuang as a fundamentally Buddhist landscape by introducing new sources and audiences and emphasizing the transformation of the landscape over the course of the 18th century. In an effort to limit the scope of discussion, I will focus on Bishu shanzhuang under the Kangxi emperor (r. 1661-1722), for whom, I argue, the site was not explicitly or primarily Buddhist, but rather reflected a range of philosophical and religious influences in approaching diverse audiences. Reading Bishu shanzhuang as consisting of multiple landscapes that operate largely in concert, the paper explores the physical landscape and architecture of the garden-palace, depictions of the garden in image and verse, and first-hand accounts by visitors to the garden.
* CEAS Humanities Colloquium Series