"An archaeology of the spirit" – Louis le Brocquy’s Image of Bono (2003)

An essay on the Irish artist Louis le Brocquy's portrait-image of Bono, a reproduction of which was exhibited in the exhibition, Posing Questions, curated by Brian Durrans (British Museum, emeritus) and mounted at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London (21 Jan-23 Mar 2010)

The Flight of the Dragon: Modernism in China and Art at the Last Emperor’s Court-in-exile

After his expulsion from the Forbidden City in 1924, China's “last emperor,” Henry Puyi 溥儀 (1906–1967), settled in Tianjin, where he later presented parting gifts to his former English tutor, Reginald F. Johnston [Zhuang Shidun] 莊士敦 (1874–1938), among them an album by the Nanjing painter Chen Shu 陳舒 (active ca. 1649–ca. 1687) from the ex-Qing (1644–1911) imperial collection and an inscribed folding fan. These are now reunited in the library collection of SOAS University of London, where Johnston taught Chinese after his return to Britain in 1931. Together with Puyi's preface transcribed by courtier-calligrapher Zheng Xiaoxu 鄭孝胥 (1860–1938) for Johnston's memoir, Twilight in the Forbidden City (1934), these artworks pave the way for an investigation of the practice of connoisseurship at Puyi's court-in-exile in China's era of modernism, including Puyi's use of the imperial collection and his selection of these gifts even while he was shaping to become Japan's puppet emperor in Manchuria (r. 1934–1945). The study roams beyond the well-known network of Puyi and his court advisers among the yilao 遺老 (Qing “old guard”) to uncover an unexpected modernist connection with the progressive young artist, publisher, and tastemaker Zheng Wuchang 鄭午昌 (1894–1952), a leading actor in the reform of guohua 國畫 ink painting. This study rediscovers how Zheng Wuchang contributed the painting to an inscribed handscroll, Flight of the Dragon (or, A Storm and a Marvel 風異圖), which commemorated, for the court's inner circle, Puyi's dramatic escape from the Forbidden City amid the realities of a modern, Republican world

Hong Ling: A Retrospective

Catalogue of a retrospective exhibition of some 56 works, including early figural works and nudes as well as 'conceptual landscapes', by the contemporary Chinese artist Hong Ling (b. 1955), mounted at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London, from 15 July-24 September 2016. The exhibition features paintings in oil and ink, as well as watercolours, drawings and photographs by the artist, dating from 1979 to his student days in Beijing in the 1980s and up to 2016. The retrospective follows Hong Ling's retirement in 2015 from the faculty of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, where he had taught oil painting practice since his graduation in 1987

IL-21 and IL-6 Are Critical for Different Aspects of B Cell Immunity and Redundantly Induce Optimal Follicular Helper CD4 T Cell (Tfh) Differentiation

Cytokines are important modulators of lymphocytes, and both interleukin-21 (IL-21) and IL-6 have proposed roles in T follicular helper (Tfh) differentiation, and directly act on B cells. Here we investigated the absence of IL-6 alone, IL-21 alone, or the combined lack of IL-6 and IL-21 on Tfh differentiation and the development of B cell immunity in vivo. C57BL/6 or IL-21−/− mice were treated with a neutralizing monoclonal antibody against IL-6 throughout the course of an acute viral infection (lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, LCMV). The combined absence of IL-6 and IL-21 resulted in reduced Tfh differentiation and reduced Bcl6 protein expression. In addition, we observed that these cytokines had a large impact on antigen-specific B cell responses. IL-6 and IL-21 collaborate in the acute T-dependent antiviral antibody response (90% loss of circulating antiviral IgG in the absence of both cytokines). In contrast, we observed reduced germinal center formation only in the absence of IL-21. Absence of IL-6 had no impact on germinal centers, and combined absence of both IL-21 and IL-6 revealed no synergistic effect on germinal center B cell development. Studying CD4 T cells in vitro, we found that high IL-21 production was not associated with high Bcl6 or CXCR5 expression. TCR stimulation of purified naïve CD4 T cells in the presence of IL-6 also did not result in Tfh differentiation, as determined by Bcl6 or CXCR5 protein expression. Cumulatively, our data indicates that optimal Tfh formation requires IL-21 and IL-6, and that cytokines alone are insufficient to drive Tfh differentiation

The Overseeing Mother: Revisiting the Frontal-Pose Lady in the Wu Family Shrines in Second Century China

Located in present-day Jiaxiang in Shandong province, the Wu family shrines built during the second century in the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220) were among the best-known works in Chinese art history. Although for centuries scholars have exhaustively studied the pictorial programs, the frontal-pose female image situated on the second floor of the central pavilion carved at the rear wall of the shrines has remained a question. Beginning with the woman’s eyes, this article demonstrates that the image is more than a generic portrait (“hard motif ”), but rather represents “feminine overseeing from above” (“soft motif ”). This synthetic motif combines three different earlier motifs – the frontal-pose hostess enjoying entertainment, the elevated spectator, and the Queen Mother of the West. By creatively fusing the three motifs into one unity, the Jiaxiang artists lent to the frontal-pose lady a unique power: she not only dominated the center of the composition, but also, like a divine being, commanded a unified view of the surroundings on the lofty building, hence echoing the political reality of the empress mother’s “overseeing the court” in the second century during Eastern Han dynasty

Exemplary Complicity: The Pictorial Lives of Han Court Beauties in Two Narrative Handscrolls of Mid-Ming Suzhou

This study explores You Qiu’s visual narration in the handscroll format via two paintings in the Shanghai Museum, Lady Zhaojun Leaves China (Zhaojun chusai tu) of 1554 and Spring Morning in the Han Palace (Hangong chunxiao tu) of 1568. The first scroll, an extended mono-scenic rendition of figures in a landscape, describes the journey made by the Han palace lady Wang Zhaojun to marry a nomad chieftain, an act of self-sacrifice that ushered in a prolonged era of peace between Han China and the Xiongnu nomads. The second painting, in twelve discrete scenes, illustrates the life-story of two femmes fatales—Zhao Feiyan and her sister, Hede, favourites of the Han emperor Chengdi (r. 33–7 BC) whose conduct almost toppled the empire. The first scroll consists of You Qiu’s painting alone, whereas in the second, You Qiu’s painting is part of an assembly of related texts, one inscribed by Wen Zhengming. The study offers close readings of the paintings. It investigates and extrapolates the visual narrative techniques within, including how text is translated to image, and explores aesthetic choices in light of the historical position of the two artworks. It considers the social, political and artistic contexts of the paintings in the latter part of the Jiajing reign, and the ways in which such artworks could have functioned as veiled admonitions, even as paintings that were not to be seen at court but rather in Suzhou scholar society. The argument, concerning the visual imagination of a journeyman painter tasked with illustrating popular tales, relates to studies of an ‘obsessive’ model of selfhood and desire among Ming collector-connoisseurs as well as to studies on irony as an aesthetic mode in Ming culture. In sum, this essay aims to think beyond the fact that these picture-scrolls draw conventionally on historical precedents to provide illusions of similarity and historical parallelism, and to investigate elements of audience complicity in how they manipulate those precedents