Most of Gong Xian’s (1619-1789) long landscape handscrolls were originally produced as accordion albums, as indicated by the evenly distributed creases on the paper surface and the scores of bookworm holes penetrating the once folded works. How were these landscapes conceived with and enacted by the folds, and what can we make of their format metamorphosis during circulation? This talk probes into these questions and discusses them with the increasing ekphrasis in the treatises and catalogues of painting compiled in early modern and modern China to foreground the issues of medium and format in the study of traditional Chinese painting.

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