Bulletin Number Five 1984

dating, o f isotope, and so forth put things on a new level. These are great advantages for us. There is another feature which I find very en lightening. In the past, archaeological studies in China concentrated on the centre o f China, but in the last few years, you got so many studies o f the outer provinces. One has to be reading fiercely all the time to keep up w ith that amount o f information. Q, Which Chinese archaeologists amongst those you came into contact with, could you tell us ， have impressed you most? A. The three names that spring to mind are the people who bring together the new information in a compact form. They are Xia Nie ( 夏鼐） and Zhou Hang ( 鄒衡 ) of the older gener ation and Wang Ning-sheng ( 汪寧生）， an ar chaeologist from Yunnan. However, it is not really fair to ask somebody like myself to name individual archaeologist because the work is in fact done by thousands o f people in the prov inces, who do the excavating. It is a nation-wide effort and not something confined to specialists in the Institute o f Archaeology or in the Insti tutes o f M inority Peoples. Nowadays the whole organization is developing and the provinces have their local publications. Q. You held the Chair o f Chinese A r t and Archae ology at the School o f Oriental and African Studies fo r seventeen years and I think it is the only post in any British University fo r the teaching o f the history o f Chinese art. A. Yes. In Oxford, there is some teaching on the history o f art but it is done by the people in the Ashmolean Museum, not by members o f the University staff. The courses I taught were for the degree o f BA in Archaeology o f China. My professorship was the only one in the Western countries which was not specialized in painting. I am extremely interested in all aspects o f decorative art and my students studied the decorative arts, which covered bronzes, ceramics, jades, lacquers and Buddhist art, etc. Of course, they took a paper on Chinese painting as well. There is another thing which I think is worth mentioning. My students had to do half lan guage and half history o f art and archaeology. O f course, they were not able to study as much Chinese language as students who specialized in language. On the other hand, from the be ginning, they were using the Chinese they had learnt, using it positively to study the art. Since there was no one to teach the special language o f art and archaeology, I actually taught Chinese language as well, using texts which were specially relevant to art and archaeology, such as the History o f Chinese Painting published in the Tang Dynasty. Q. What were your responsibilities as Director o f the Percival David Foundation o f Chinese Art? A. The Chair at the University o f London is the only one in the world which is combined w ith the directorship o f an important collection o f ceramics. The purpose o f the Foundation is to support the teaching o f the art and culture of China and the surrounding regions. It is not intended that the Director should confine himself to pottery and porcelain, and under him, there is a Curator, who is a specialist on ceramics. The Collection was put together by David, who took advantage o f a situation that existed in Beijing in the twenties and early thirties when dealers had these marvellous things to sell, and has not been altered since he made the donation to the University. It has been there in a way as an inspiration to the holders o f the professorship to continue their studies o f Chinese culture and history o f Chinese art. In our studies, both my predecessor, Pro­ fessor Hansford, and myself made suitable reference to the ceramics. One o f the first things I did when I assumed the Directorship was to start a series o f colloquies and before I le ft, we have got to No. 12 and some o f them are directly concerned w ith China, others are concerned w ith the influence o f Chinese art outside China, or styles o f painting w ith the Chinese influence in Japan. We even had one colloquy on a formal Islamic art which contains Chinese elements, Q, Finally, could you tell us something about your plans after retirement? A. You know very well that in the academic world retirement is merely an administrative conveni ence. In fact, one's work goes on just the same. I am not teaching students now but there are many books I have to write and I am involved in London in all the Chinese affairs o f the British Museum, o f which I am a Trustee, and the British Academy. A t the moment, I am very much involved in the study o f relations, as shown by archaeological excavation and by the history o f art, between China and the Southeast Asian countries. 26 INTERVIEWS