#  How to Fill a Circle: Design in Warring States Bronze, Jade, Lacquer, and Silk 

 





October 14, 2025

 

 

The Harvard Asian Archaeology Seminar will be hosting a lecture titled "How to Fill a Circle: Design in Warring States Bronze, Jade, Lacquer, and Silk" on Wednesday, October 15 at 12:00pm in CGISSouth S050 (Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room). Read more about the event below:

> **Abstract:** New developments in the lacquer and silk workshops posed significant challenges to other medium, causing a complete change of aesthetic during the Warring States period (5th-3rd century BC). Moreover, because fine examples of lacquer and silk have actually survived from that time, we can see what other materials copied from them. But the only reason we can recognize borrowings is that each material has a character of its own. The lecture will explore this two-sided phenomenon—the individual character of each workshop tradition and the exchanges between workshops—by looking at inlaid bronzes, mirrors, jades, lacquers, and silks, using the problem of designing for a circular space as a case study to infer the thinking of designers working in each medium.

Speaker: Wang Haicheng, Mary and Cheney Cowles Endowed Professor, University of Washington



 

 

 



 

 

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