December 2012 News and Events

History and Memory in the Manchu Imperial Park of Bishu Shanzhuang

Lisa Wainwright — 2012-12-10T20:13:30Z

Constructed, neglected, rebuilt and expanded over the course of nearly a century, the Qing imperial park of Bishu shanzhuang played a central, but constantly changing, role in the history of the Manchu dynasty for nearly two centuries. Scholars of the site have focused on its final form at the end of the eighteenth century, taking a single vision of its design and use as descriptive of its entire history. In this talk, Stephen Whiteman explored the park’s early history under the Kanxi emperor, from its original conception as an imperial retreat to its representation through text and image—especially in the famed 36 Views, poems and illustrations of the park that were the first depictions of Chinese gardens to reach Europe—and considered the legacy of this history not only in the later iterations of the landscape, but also in collective memories of the rise and fall of the dynasty itself.

Stephen Whiteman is the 2012–2014 A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. His current research explores the imagination and creation of cultural and political landscapes in the early Qing court, particularly through garden-building, image-making and textual inscription. A former junior fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, he received his doctorate in Art History from Stanford University and has taught the history of East Asian art and architecture at Middlebury College and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Click here to view the lecture flyer.

Staff Accolades

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:31Z

Last month saw the publication of the Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, edited by Scott Johnson, Dumbarton Oaks Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Greek at Georgetown University. Five years in the making, the Handbook contains thirty-seven chapters on all aspects of Late Antiquity, a period that has become increasingly central to the study of Byzantium and the medieval West. However, the geographical scope of this book is unparalleled among comparable surveys of the period: it includes, among others, chapters on the Balkans, Armenia, Ethiopia and Arabia, and Central Asia.

A Ninth-Century Greek-Arabic Palimpsest

Lisa Wainwright — 2012-12-10T20:13:29Z

On November 16 Father Justin Sinaites and Professor Jack Tannous gave an informal talk at Dumbarton Oaks. They spoke to a capacity crowd in the Founders’ Room, and were still fielding questions two and a half hours after the talk began. Father Justin has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times and the National Geographic as "the icon of the icons" and "a rock-star monk"; he is a very familiar figure in the American and European Byzantine community because of his frequent visits as courier to major exhibitions, but also because of his learned and helpful hospitality at the monastery of St. Catherine’s, where he is librarian. He was brought up in El Paso, educated at the University of Texas at Austin, and entered the monastery of the holy Transfiguration at Brookline before entering St. Catherine’s in 1996. He is now deeply involved in a five-year project, the Sinai Palimpsest Project, to bring multi-spectral imaging to bear on 125 palimpsest manuscripts. Jack Tannous, another Texan, was brought up in Houston, was also educated at Austin, Texas, then completed his MPhil in Eastern Christian Studies at Oxford, and moved to History at Princeton to work on his PhD under Peter Brown. He held the Dumbarton Oaks Teaching Fellowship in Byzantine History at George Washington University, creating with Scott Johnson the DO Syriac Resources web page, before moving back to succeed Peter Brown at Princeton. Their paper concerned a manuscript from the New Finds (discovered in 1975) at Sinai, a ninth-century bilingual Greek-Arabic Lectionary, written in uncials over an erased lower layer, which has only recently been made legible. This includes an as yet unidentified text concerning John Chrysostom, thePandects of Antiochos, and text from prophetic books including Jeremiah. Father Justin began by discussing the Greek text of the epistles, which contains non-standard Byzantine readings. Jack Tannous then spoke about the Arabic New Testament and the social context for bilingual copying in the early centuries of Islam, establishing that the Arabic version of the epistles was translated from Syriac rather than from Greek. Finally, Father Justin showed what can now be seen of the under-layer, and identified the texts concerned. Some members of the audience working on Chrysostom were directly affected by the discovery; Syriac and Arabic scholars found another piece in the story of the languages of the eastern Mediterranean; everyone, including undergraduates from Georgetown, realized how privileged we were to share in this spectacular scholarly advance.

Interpreting Byzantine Dream Narratives

Lisa Wainwright — 2012-12-10T20:13:29Z

From 8-10 November Byzantine Studies held a workshop on the (mis)interpretation of Byzantine dream narratives. The study of dreaming in Byzantium is in its infancy. There exists a corpus of dream-books, and studies on dream treatises, but the study of dream narratives has hardly begun, despite the ground-breaking database initiative of the Institute of Byzantine Studies in Athens.

In different societies, dreams can be many things: a view into the future, a manifestation of the past, a means of approaching the divine, a mechanism for healing, a plot device, a medieval cinema, a complex means of communication, or an alternative plane of existence. We have simply not determined which of these are pertinent to Byzantium. We invited a sleep-scientist, a psychoanalyst, an anthropologist, the directors of the database, and experts in phantasia, dreams and prophecy, and Byzantine dream-theory. We did not ask them to give papers (though some explained their methodology), but to respond to dream narratives presented by philologists, historians and art historians in the audience. In fact there was no audience, since almost everyone presented a dream as well as responding to dreams brought by others. We read an amazing array of dreams, visions, fantasies in histories, letters, saints’ lives, miracle collections, manuscript illuminations and monumental art. We compared the narratives with ascetic theory and with alien abduction accounts. We saw dreams as homosocial communication, as plot devices, as releasers of emotion, as validation for political acts, as pointers to court allegiances. Debates raged on Freudian and other approaches, on terminology, and on the relationship between dreams and the text. We decided that we were at the beginning, rather than the end, of something and hope to draw others into our discussion, which we shall carry out on the web. Watch our website for the appearance of the dream-narratives!

Maria Sibylla Merian

Lisa Wainwright — 2012-12-10T20:13:30Z

In 2012 the Dumbarton Oaks Rare Book Collection participated in a project, organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, to celebrate works by great women artists in Washington, DC museums. The artist we selected is the naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), and specifically her 1719 publication Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (first published in 1705).

To accompany Dumbarton Oaks’ participation in the NMWA exhibition, the Rare Book Collection presents an online exhibit featuring information about the artist and images from, among other sources, Merian’s Metamorphosis.

DO at Digital Cultural Heritage DC Meetups

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:31Z

On November 15, 2012, Dumbarton Oaks staff attended the Digital Cultural Heritage DC meetup organized by staff from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in the Office of Strategic Initiatives (http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation) at the Library of Congress.

The meetups occur the third Thursday of every month and consist of lightning talks followed by discussion among the attendees, who are all involved in acquiring, preserving, stewarding, providing access to, exhibiting, and interpreting digital cultural heritage. Dumbarton Oaks staff made a strong showing during the September and October events, outnumbering attendees from larger institutions in the DC-area. This led to an invitation from the organizers for Dumbarton Oaks to present a lightning talk at the November meetup. Shalimar Fojas White, Manager of ICFA, gave a short presentation entitled “Connecting the Home of the Humanities to the Internet: Digital Initiatives at Dumbarton Oaks.” For background, Fojas White provided a brief overview of Dumbarton Oaks to the 45 attendees, many of whom had visited the Gardens and Museum, but were unaware of DO’s digital initiatives. She also shared highlights of the current digital projects in the Library, Museum, ICFA, DO Archives, and Publications, both those already completed and those still in development. Based on the questions received during the ensuing discussion, the audience was interested in learning more about Dumbarton Oaks as an institution, as well as specific digital projects such as the Byzantine seals online catalog and ICFA’s online inventory. The DO lightning talk was followed by a presentation on the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) by Bob Horton, Associate Deputy Director for Library Services, Institute of Museum and Library Services , a recent visitor to Dumbarton Oaks. In addition to Fojas White, DO staff and interns in attendance included: Beth Bayley, Deborah Brown, Jessica Hollingshead, Alison Miner and Anne-Marie Viola.

The Byzantine Emperors on Coins

Lisa Wainwright — 2012-12-10T20:13:30Z

The Byzantine Emperors on Coins exhibit provides high-resolution images of one hundred and twenty seven coins drawn from the Dumbarton Oaks coin collection, which numbers twelve thousand coins and includes all Byzantine rules and denominations. The selection featured here, with one coin from each reign, provides a portrait gallery of all the emperors and usurpers that governed Byzantium over the eleven centuries of its existence. At the same time, the selection suggests major changes that affected the Byzantine coinage, both in numismatic and iconographic terms (for example, the growing presence of Christian themes and symbols).

: Solidus of Romanos II (959-963), Constantinople. Gold. BZC.1948.17.3117

The high-resolution photographs, in combination with a state-of-the-art zooming tool, offer an extremely detailed view of each specimen, a viewing experience unattainable in traditional on-site exhibitions of coins. In order to maintain accurate relative sizes all the coins are shown on a single scale. A cm-scale accompanies all the images.

The online presentation of the coins is broken into six sections that follow the chronological unfolding of imperial rule and the various governing dynasties. In each section the coins are placed in a sliding bar; clicking on the image gives the viewer information about the coin and activates the zoom feature. The slider serial view renders immediately apparent the similarities and dissimilarities among coins, as best seen in significant numismatic changes that affected the coinage over its course. Each coin is accompanied by information about its issuing and properties. More content will be added in the future.

Good Ink

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:31Z

Cecelia Porter recently reviewed the concert by Alessio Bax at Dumbarton Oaks, part of the Friends of Music concert series.

Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks, ed. by Joanne Pillsbury, Miriam Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara-Brito, and Alexandre Tokovinine, is one of two 2013 finalists for the College Art Association Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award.

From the Archives

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:31Z

1938 was a momentous year for Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss. On April 14, they celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Nearly a month later, on May 8, Nadia Boulanger conducted in their Music Room the world premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks Concerto, which the Blisses had commissioned in celebration of their anniversary. In June, their close friend Royall Tyler visited them at Dumbarton Oaks for the first time and saw the Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and other artworks that he had helped them collect. 1938 was also the year that the Blisses decided to give their home, gardens, and collections to Harvard University within their lifetimes rather than at the time of their deaths. To this end, they engaged the architect Thomas T. Waterman to design the Byzantine Collection pavilions, which were constructed the following year. For their 1938 Christmas card (seen at the right), they chose an informal image of themselves wistfully gazing at the flowering herbaceous border in the gardens. This image is all the more poignant as it records one of the very few times that the Blisses were photographed at Dumbarton Oaks. This Christmas card is retained in the Dumbarton Oaks Archives (AR.OB.Misc.021).

Friends Of Music

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:32Z

The Friends of Music presented pianist Alessio Bax in a pair of stunning recitals on November 4 and 5, which received standing ovations. Mr. Bax performed Johannes Brahms' Four Ballades, opus 10; Sergei Rachmaninov's transcriptions of Fritz Kreisler's beloved violin pieces Liebesleid and Liebesfreud; a selection of five preludes by Rachmaninov; and Variations on a Theme by Paganini, by Brahms. The concert on November 5 was recorded by Classical WETA for future broadcast on Front Row Washington, a program of classical music performances in local venues.

In December, the all-male a cappella ensemble, Cantus, makes its Dumbarton Oaks debut with an international program in the Music Room, including selections of seasonal works.

Tyler Fellows in Residence

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:31Z

This year, two of the four Tyler Fellows in residence are working on the preliminary stages of making two outstanding Pre-Columbian archives accessible to researchers at Dumbarton Oaks. Dylan Clark (Anthropology, Harvard) will be inventorying the Maya Vase Archive assembled by Justin and Barbara Kerr, in preparation for this promised gift’s eventual acquisition by Dumbarton Oaks. Lisa Trever (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard) will focus on an assessment of Christopher Donnan’s Moche Archive, which will facilitate the future archival processing of this recently acquired collection and its eventual availability for scholarly study. Both fellows will be supervised by the Pre-Columbian Studies Department and the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives during their residential fellowship year, 2012-2013.

Lisa Trever

As a Tyler fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies in residence at Dumbarton Oaks for the academic year, I am looking forward to the final stages of writing my dissertation on the late Moche (c. 600–850 CE) mural paintings of Pañamarca, Peru. This year I am also collaborating with Dumbarton Oaks staff to process the Moche Archive, which has recently been given to the institute by Christopher B. Donnan, professor emeritus at UCLA. My project involves researching the photographic archive’s history, assessing its physical needs, and working toward the creation of a finding aid to assist researchers interested in this incomparable resource on ancient Andean art. The combination of this particular institutional project with my own research is particularly harmonious. Familiarity with the Moche Archive will inform my analyses of the iconography, style, and composition of the Pañamarca mural paintings and—vice versa—my background in Moche art and archaeology will facilitate this important first phase of work with the Moche Archive at Dumbarton Oaks.

Dylan Clark

I am a doctoral candidate in Mesoamerican Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. This year, I have the privilege of being in residence at Dumbarton Oaks as a William R. Tyler Fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies (2011-2013). My dissertation project, entitled Living on the Edge, explores the daily life, social organization and community dynamics of an ancient Maya coastal port through the archaeological excavation of domestic spaces. This site is called Isla Cerritos and is located on a small island in the Gulf of Mexico just off the north coast of Yucatán, Mexico.

This year I also have the opportunity to assist with a fascinating project involving a new addition to the Dumbarton Oaks archival collection. In 1972, photographer Justin Kerr revolutionized the study of Maya pottery by modifying existing camera technology to more easily take rollout photographs of cylindrical objects. This allowed scholars to study Maya polychrome painting and incising styles, images, colors, and hieroglyphic texts on the surface of ceramic vessels in more detail because their scenes and designs could be viewed as one would a horizontal panoramic photograph. For many years, Justin and Barbara Kerr traveled widely, visually documenting pre-Columbian art, artifacts, and sites through photography, making these images and, whenever possible, scholarly analysis of them available to all researchers through Mayavase.com. Last year, the Kerrs donated their archive to Dumbarton Oaks, and I am very excited to be assisting with the transition of this important collection to its new home here in Washington, D.C. over the course of the next several months.

Meeting of the Harvard Bilingual Libraries

Noah Mlotek — 2012-12-10T20:13:32Z

The first meeting of the newly minted Harvard Bilingual Libraries took place at Dumbarton Oaks on November 2. Director Jan Ziolkowski represented the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library and welcomed editors of the four other bilingual series published by Harvard University Press: Jeffrey Henderson and Richard Thomas of the Loeb Classical Library; James Hankins of the I Tatti Renaissance Library; Aviad Kleinberg of the Hackmey Hebrew Classical Library; and Sheldon Pollock of the Murty Classical Library of India. During the morning discussion, the editors shared strategies for tackling the unique editorial challenges posed by bilingual publications. Veteran bilingual series editors Ziolkowski, Henderson, Thomas, and Hankins offered advice to Kleinberg and Pollock, who are launching their respective series. They reflected on the circumstances that historically paved the way for their series, and identified factors that contribute to the continuing success of each. In the afternoon, the editors were joined by members of Harvard University Press. Director William Sisler, Editor-in-Chief Susan Boehmer, Executive Editor-at-Large Sharmila Sen, and Assistant Editor in the Humanities Ian Stevenson contributed valuable insights from the publisher’s perspective. They addressed questions and concerns outlined in the morning session, and helped formulate plans for branding and marketing the series individually and in tandem. A central theme was, predictably, how such series will translate to digital platforms.

The editors officially adopted the name “Harvard Bilingual Libraries” in an effort to make explicit what was only implicit until now, namely that Harvard University Press boasts an impressive and prestigious array of bilingual series. Their shared format, with the original language text on the left page, and a corresponding English translation on the right, is unusual in the book market. Conversation throughout the day often returned to the recognition that Harvard University Press produces high-quality bilingual editions with a deliberately long-range view. Their effect is cumulative over decades, as every new publication enhances the value of the series and its companions. As English is used more and more in teaching, translations are becoming essential to the survival of language-based humanities; the Harvard Bilingual Libraries cover a large portion of pre-modern literature, and thus constitute vitally important cultural capital. The strong sense of shared experience among the editors, along with their dedication to bilingual editions and the humanities, convinced the group that all five series stood to gain much from future exchanges and collaborations.