Dr. Hou-mei 后楣 Sung 宋: Educating Cincinnati on East Asian art and discovering a ‘magic mirror’
Dr. Hou-mei 后楣 Sung 宋 knows the challenge of overseeing an East Asian collection in a Western art museum. The collection, housed in a wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum, consists of pottery, paintings on scrolls, statues, plates, knives, armor – and one very special mirror – having arrived at the museum as gifts, donations, or on loan. Throughout our time together on a cold February afternoon, Dr. Sung emphasized the importance of art education in breaking down cultural and language barriers. Dr. Sung talks of the prevalence of shifting perspectives in East Asian painting – there is no vanishing point, no one way to look at a painting correctly – in fact, there are many ways to look at it.
Perhaps this shifting perspective should be applied to how we view art as a whole. Shifting your perspective to understand a new art form, a new way of looking at the world, understanding a new culture, and opening your mind and heart to let it all in.
Interview by Olivia Taylor. Photography by Heather Colley.
Tell us about your role at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
I'm the curator of East Asian art – China, Japan, Korea. I organize exhibitions. Most exhibitions come with catalogs, and we do research for the collection. We do publications, and we do conservation. We do education programming and give lectures. We work with outside visitors. We also work with graduate students when they are doing a dissertation or if they want to know about our collection.
I work with communities like the Asian Art Society, which is independent from the museum. I was surprised because I used to be in teaching, and I realized this is different. It's still teaching but far broader. When organizing an exhibition, you have to start with planning, budgeting, borrowing items. You have to maintain the donated works and donated gifts. You have to keep them in good shape. So conservation is a major part of it, and we have to apply for grants as well.
How did you get into the field of art history and museum studies?
It is a long story! When I started, I was in Taiwan, and there was no art history field at that time. I was studying literature and history. This is a little political – China was closed after World War II because the communists rose in China. During the war, the Palace Museum in Beijing was afraid of bombing by the Japanese army, so they moved part of their collection to ships circling along the Chinese coast. Because of the communists, instead of returning to Beijing, they shipped part of the collection to Taiwan. So the Imperial art collection is still split between Beijing and Taiwan at the National Palace Museum.
My first job after my undergrad was at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. I really enjoyed it. I would give tours, work for the magazine, and also work for the director. So, that developed interest, but there was no Asian art studies or art history studies. There’s National Taiwan University, and then you have the National Palace Museum with the collection, but there's no field to study Chinese art history.
The Asia Foundation Fellowship for Chinese Art History gave out five scholarships for study. They funded you for three years. I applied, and I got it.
I started to study and still worked at the museum. You study Chinese history in the history department and then study art history with museum curators. After that, there were no more programs, but I still wanted to learn more. In the U.S., there are Ph.D. programs for art history. So I came to the U.S., and I went to Case Western Reserve University to study art history, mainly because they gave me a full scholarship! [Laughs] It was really exciting. So after that, I worked in the Cleveland Museum of Art for two years, and I started teaching. Then this job came up 20 years ago, and I’ve been here 20 years.
What has changed since you earned your Ph.D.?
Starting from the first Chinese art history program, now National Taiwan University has the biggest program. They have many professors now, and they have better coursework. As a first generation, we were struggling. I think what I've learned the most is to look at the actual artwork. These are not only authentic – these are the highest quality Imperial collections. So the best of Chinese ceramics, the best of Chinese paintings, it trains your eyes. And all this coursework really helped me to build a foundation to come here and study theories and take classes.
A major change from studying Chinese art history to art history study in the U.S. is that it is much broader. You cannot study only Chinese art – you have to go into Asian art history. I had to take Japanese art history and Indian art history. You have to study Western art history in order to get the degree, so it really broadens.
Not only that, coming out of your own culture and your own world –with all kinds of challenges – it helps to see even my own culture and art differently because you have explained it to foreign people who don't know, and you have to know better in order to explain it. So all this ends up being the biggest challenge of the language. When I first came here, I already finished my master's. To learn a new language – not just take a course in English – you have to speak and compete in it. That was a major challenge for me. I remember that when I had to write an article and publish it, I was so frustrated because I had things to say, but I could not present it the way I wanted!
What’s beautiful is that a piece of art can transcend languages and cultural barriers. However, looking at Western art is very different from looking at East Asian art. Can you talk about how you approach those barriers?
As a curator here, it's very challenging because we have to explain and help the general public understand a foreign culture. So when I do an exhibition, I first think, “How can I get people to break the barrier and be willing to come in?” For example, if I do a show and people look at a Chinese painting, I know it’s a challenge because I was teaching university students, and I realized that if I showed a Chinese landscape or portrait, they tend to think in comparison to Western painting. They don't see a vanishing point. They don't see perspective. Chinese painting is very flat. The basic difference is the Chinese do not paint based on the visual only. The Western painter – if they want to paint a mountain – sits in front of a mountain and paints only what they see. But the Chinese landscape, if you look at it, has multiple focuses. It's a shifting perspective. You can see the valley, you can see a path going around, so it's an accumulation of not just the visual image but also the mental, the memories. This concept for a person used to looking at only Western painting is a challenge. And from the beginning, Chinese cosmology is Yin 陰 and Yang 陽. So you find Yin and Yang – the balance – in paintings. The mountain is solid, and the mist is void, and how do they contrast, how do they balance. That's how they created their paintings in the beginning. So if you don’t know all these basic differences, it's like a language you cannot appreciate.
Through my teaching experience, I tried to think, “How do I create an exhibit that would appeal to the general public?” I realized the first step is to have a very interesting subject. That's why I created a show about animals. Because if you say this show is about tigers and dragons and fish and horses and birds, then people will at least come in, young or old. And then once they come in, you can ask them, “Why are the tiger and the dragon always together?” like in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Why are the tiger and dragon together? Because they are Yin and Yang. All these concepts were built in, even in how they define animals. I created this show to help people understand the stories in the paintings and the Yin and Yang concept expressed through painting.
Throughout my many years working in the museum and teaching, I've found the biggest joy is when I discover something new that nobody knows.
I think if people look at 10 paintings throughout Chinese history, they will learn what happened in history. In the 13th century, China was conquered by Mongolia, so the Chinese people started to use animals to symbolize the vicious attacker and conqueror, so they painted the tiger to become a vicious animal. Then they paint the skinny horse because the horse is a symbol of talent and Chinese scholars, and they were suffering under foreign rule, and they were discriminated against. So I thought, “Even if I bring people in, they can just look at one painting and learn something about the time and that history.” For example, there's a painting, “Tigers Crossing the River.” Kids will say, “Why is the tiger crossing the river?” Well, because that tiger is not just crossing the river – the tiger has a cub on its back. That is a story about the wise official rule and how the town was once roaming with tigers. So I was thinking of using this interesting subject to help people understand the culture, which is very challenging to understand. This is my approach to introducing a foreign culture or art in a museum because I do know if I just say, “This is a Chinese scholar,” nobody will come and see it because it's kind of boring if they don't know it.
Can you tell me more about the conservation side of your work?
That's another area that's challenging because, as a Western art museum, and traditionally, this museum is based in Western art, we have a conservator in the museum specialized in Western oil painting, but we do not have an Asian art conservator to remand or repair. We have a paper conservator to deal with Japanese prints but not mounting the handscroll. These are the formats of Asian painting. The handscrolls hang vertically, and it's mounted with a silk backing. Sometimes you have to take out the backing of the silk and put up a new one. So we don't have enough funds to provide for this. So I have to constantly go seeking either private or public funding for restoration because hanging scrolls after more than 10 years starts to show the stress and the damage. So you need to remount it, which is a very sophisticated art.
Sometimes it's repairing a tear on the surface – most Asian paintings were painted on silk or paper, depending on the time. Either way, they need conservation. So that is a challenge. Sometimes with our paper conservator, we drive to Michigan to pick up repaired objects or send them. It's in great need. But now I often give lectures to, for example, the Asian Art Society to let people know what we need so they can support us.
Can you tell me about the Buddhist Bronze Mirror?
Oh, the “magic mirror?”
Yes, the magic mirror! Can you talk about its significance and how you made this discovery?
Yes, that was the recent excitement in 2021. This mirror [Editor’s note: these mirrors were also known as “transparent mirror” or 透光鏡] looks very plain. Ancient people in China started to use bronze. They polish the bronze in the front, and you can see the reflection of your face. On the back of this mirror, it has six characters [南無阿彌陀佛] – a Buddhist prayer. It has been in the museum I don't know how long because it came in so early, and the museum didn't have an Asian art curator. There was no Asian art department. We don't know who gave it to us. It was sitting on the shelf, and we accessioned it in 1960, and people looked at it and think it’s very basic. They called it “the bronze disk” – they didn’t know what it is! [Laughs] And they didn’t know how to catalog it or how to accession it because in order to accession it, you have to say, “This is Chinese,” or “This is Japanese,” and they didn’t know what language is written on the back.
When I came here, I saw this mirror and displayed it once without knowing the magic quality. I thought, “This is a Buddhist mirror with a prayer on the back.” That's all I know. I started research because, as a curator, you need to provide the label and do some research. So I researched it and found similar mirrors have this magical quality – at least two of them. One is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and one is in the Tokyo National Museum.
I look at [objects], but I do not handle them – object conservation does that. So I called our conservator, Kelly [Rectenwald], and I said, “Why don't you go and get this mirror and shine a light on it to see if anything happens.” She probably had a lot of questions! [Laughs] But she did. Because its metal, it's harmless to shine light on it. So she used her cell phone flashlight, and you have to shine it a certain way. Oh, she was so excited! She told me, “Yes, we have a magic mirror!” And that's the beginning of the discovery.
The magic mirror has a long history in China. But the older non-Buddhist Chinese magic mirrors started in the second century B.C. At that time, they don't have electric light. This maker created a mirror that fascinated China because he polished the mirrors in such a magical secret way. If you shine against the sunlight, it projects the decoration on the back of the mirror. This is how the magic mirror started in China. And then, of course, the maker will keep and guard his secret, and he will not let anyone know how to polish it – and it’s not easy to polish and to make. Up to the twelfth century, this knowledge was lost because, at that time in China, you pass a family trade secret only to the sons, not to the daughters. It’s passed generations down, and eventually, if you don't have a son, it’s just lost but is rediscovered later.
The magic mirror we have is different. It's not projecting the decoration on the back, which is the prayer, the six characters. It's projecting a hidden image of a Buddha that you don't find anywhere on the outside. You can find it inside the mirror – it's hidden inside, so that is even more magic! I consulted a scientist and professor at U.C. and gave him some material, and he also did research on how it works. We know how it can be made, but it is still not easy because how you polish it affects how the light reflects in different ways at different levels on the surface. It is an art of the polisher. It's very rare.
Do you have any advice for people who want to follow their passion for art history as you did?
You have to love art history. You have to enjoy looking at art. That's number one. Because you have to do research on the artist and the background and how did the artists create this art. What the art tells you through the subject and the way the artist creates a unique expression. All those things fascinate me. And art history is not a money-making profession, so you really need to love it. You have to love explaining it to people – you have to love looking at it yourself. Throughout my many years working in the museum and teaching, I've found the biggest joy is when I discover something new that nobody knows. Like how I discovered a painting in our museum – a tiger painting – was attributed to an “orient” because nobody knew his name. I discovered who that person was because of my research. I pinned him to the Ming court, and he was famous – he was one of the favorite painters of the Emperor. That gives me so much joy! It's almost like detective work when you find something new. It's so exciting.
Who is an influential woman in your life?
Oh, there are many! My mother. When I was young, my mother was so enthusiastic to get me into the arts. We moved from China to Taiwan because of the Communists. We were very poor, but we would play music and sing and draw and send our drawings to the newspaper to see if we could get published in the children's work section. She would sing to us. To be exposed to art at that difficult time, I was very touched.
Of course, there are so many teachers, co-workers in the museum, my friends – I think women tend to share the arts with each other and share what they enjoy with each other.
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