Jessica Rawson, a British art historian and curator specializing in ancient Chinese art, has been named this year’s winner of the Tang Prize in Sinology for “her gift and mastery of the craft of the visible to read the art and artifacts of Chinese civilization.”
Tang Prize selection committee for Sinology chairman David Wang (王德威), a Chinese literature academic and Academia Sinica academician, made the announcement at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
“By giving voice to the ancient world of objects, Jessica Rawson has taught generations how to see when they look at things, and her acuity and vast visual learning have given a new insight into the world of the lineages, transformations and migrations of mute things,” Wang said.
Photo: CNA
The 79-year-old British academic said she was “incredibly honored” to be awarded the prize.
Rawson is considered a leading art historian of ancient Chinese art, with a particular interest in the cosmology of the Chinese Han period and its relationship to tombs and their decorations.
She has written numerous books on topics such as Chinese jade, Chinese poets from the 7th to the 13th centuries and Chinese silver of the Tang Dynasty, and was a renowned keeper of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum.
After many years at the British Museum, Rawson was Warden of Merton College, University of Oxford, from 1994 until her retirement in 2010. She served as pro-vice chancellor at the university for five years from 2006.
She is currently an honorary research associate at the university’s School of Archaeology.
Her achievement in Chinese studies has also won her a number honors in China, among them an honorary professorship at Peking University.
“I started to be interested in China at a very, very young age when I was in primary school,” Rawson said after learning she had been awarded the prize.
She said her mother, who was interested in art and culture, introduced her to East Asian art, in particular the art of China and Japan, and that was when she fell in love with Chinese characters.
That interest evolved when she was a student at the University of Cambridge. While studying there, Rawson did her first major excavation in Jordan, where archeologists unearthed Chinese ceramics that had arrived through trade with the Middle East.
“I started to see archeology was the way to learn more about China,” she said.
The Tang Prize Foundation said that Rawson’s contributions show that “besides the written word, there is another talent, another craft, which, by reading the arts and artifacts of the world, allows us to interpret and understand distant and ancient societies, with their beliefs and interactions.”
Rawson also develops and promotes exchanges in the field of sinology to help the public better understand Chinese civilization with the exhibitions she curated at the British Museum, it said.
The Tang Prize is a biennial award established in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) to honor people who have made prominent contributions in four categories — sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology and rule of law.
The Tang Prize in Sinology recognizes the study of sinology, and awards are given for research on China and its related fields, such as Chinese thought, history, philology, linguistics, archeology, philosophy, religion, traditional canons, literature and art, excluding literary and art works.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
STAY COOL: The HPA recommended that people stay hydrated, use air-conditioning or fans while indoors, wear loose-fitting clothes and walk in the shade while outdoors Employers must implement measures such as installing cooling equipment, and providing drinking water and rest breaks for outdoor workers starting from Monday next week, the Taipei Department of Labor said on Sunday. Employers who fail to comply could face fines of NT$30,000 to NT$300,000 under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), the department said. Businesses in Taipei employing fewer than 100 workers, as well as registered self-employed workers with labor insurance coverage, could receive on-site assessments and guidance from occupational safety consultants to help them apply for central government subsidies to implement or improve heat-protection measures, it said. Under the Ministry of
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday briefed her party’s Central Standing Committee regarding her scheduled visit to the US between Monday next week and June 16, saying that her purpose would be to persuade the US that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution was a “one China” constitution that would foster stable and peaceful cross-strait relations. The ROC Constitution is the most important defense for all Taiwanese citizens, as it upholds our democracy and has contributed to our robust economy, which aligns with international and US interests, she said. “We would not be troublemakers and drag the US under,”
RSS