Sweet Spring Water: Tea Culture and Water Ecologies in Yuan-Ming China
Dr. Henning von Mirbach 米翰寧
Assistant Professor of Early Modern Chinese Art Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge
英國劍橋大學藝術史系 近世中國藝術助理教授
2026年9月4日（五） 15:00-17:00
國立臺灣大學 樂學館205室
國立臺灣大學文學院、藝術史研究所
趨勢教育基金會
* Delivered in English 演講以英文進行 *
This paper reorients the history of tea culture in late Yuan and early Ming China around spring water as a material and ecological force. While scholarship on tea culture has emphasized changing drinking habits, ceramic production, connoisseurship, and social identity, this paper shifts attention to the role of spring water in shaping social and artistic worlds associated with tea drinking. Focusing on the celebrated spring water of Mount Hui in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, the paper argues that paintings, calligraphy, and material objects associated with the site register the dynamic entanglements of humans and spring water. Spring water materially shaped movement, sociability, and artistic production. The growing proliferation of visual and material engagements with famous springs reveals a historical moment in which particular waters became increasingly central to artistic and social life. By foregrounding the environmental conditions underlying literati tea culture, this paper proposes that water-related works of art articulate a relational world formed through the vitality and constraints of waters. In doing so, it repositions these works within the ecological histories of Jiangnan’s spring networks and hydric environments.