Jin Xu

(Jane and Leopold Swergold Associate Professor of Chinese Art History, Columbia University)

Faces of Glory on Roof Tiles: Imperial Architecture of the Western Xia Kingdom (1038–1227)

Friday, October 17, 4:10 PM – 6:10 PM

951 Schermerhorn Extension

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Abstract

The Western Xia kingdom (1038–1227), a multiethnic state established by the Tangut people in Northwest China, played a significant role in both Chinese and world history. Its resistance to the Mongol conquest contributed to the death of Genghis Khan, while its promotion of Tibetan Buddhism shaped the religious policies of the Mongol empire and subsequent Chinese dynasties. In July 2025, the Western Xia imperial mausoleums near Yinchuan, Ningxia, were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Focusing on bestial-face decorations on roof tile ends excavated from the mausoleums and nearby temples, this talk will demonstrate some distinctive features of Western Xia architecture in comparison with its Song, Liao, and Jin neighbors. It will also explore the cultural, religious, and ecological conditions that informed the emergence of Tangut architectural forms.

Bio

Jin Xu specializes in pre-modern Chinese art history, with a particular interest in art and architecture during the imperial period (221 BCE–1911 CE). His research focuses on the artistic expressions of migrants and their communities, including both non-Chinese immigrants in China and Chinese emigrants in border regions. He seeks to understand how the experience of migration shaped perceptions of art and how art, in turn, helped individuals make sense of their migratory lives and heritage. In his research, he also emphasizes the significance of material properties and technical processes in influencing the ways of seeing.

Over the years, he has been examining stone coffins and funerary couches from the Northern Dynasties (439–581), which saw an influx of Central Asian immigrants, notably the Iranian-speaking Sogdians from present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. His first book project is titled Beyond Boundaries: Sogdian Sarcophagi and the Art of an Immigrant Community in Sixth-Century China. It demonstrates the various ways (material, pictorial, and architectural) in which Sogdian immigrant leaders and their families expressed their multifaceted life experiences through mortuary stones.

He is currently working on a subsequent book, Miraculous Transformation: Pictorial Narratives in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534). This book centers on figural representations under the rule of the first major dynasty founded by nomadic immigrants in Chinese history. It covers a variety of artistic mediums—commissioned by people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds—and addresses some critical issues in Chinese art history, such as the aesthetics of natural stone, images of the deceased, the emergence of landscape paintings, women’s roles as patrons and viewers, and the interaction between Buddhist and indigenous Chinese artistic practices.

His teaching covers a wide range of topics, including inter-regional artistic exchanges within East Asia, religious and funerary art, the art of the Silk Road, artistic materials and techniques, objects study, images and texts, rubbings and prints, and architecture and gardens. Before joining Columbia, he taught in the Art Department at Vassar College.