Lecture: "Fragments and traces — destroying, restoring, and interpreting the Buddhist Caves of Longmen"
The Department of Art, Art History & Design and the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies presents a lecture by Fletcher Coleman, joint-fellow for the study of Asian art at Notre Dame.
This talk explores the removal, restoration, and subsequent interpretation of Chinese Buddhist sculpture from the Longmen Grottoes at the turn of the 20th century. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Longmen Grottoes were “rediscovered” for the West in the 1890s. Uniquely positioned as a site of study, collecting, and teaching in Asia and the West, the Longmen Grottoes offer a distinctive lens on the birth of the discipline of East Asian art history.