Gabrielle Niu

Areas of interest : Pre-Modern Chinese Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
Region: China
Gabrielle Niu is an art historian of pre-modern China. Her research interests include the art, architecture, and archaeology of the tenth to fourteenth centuries, with a focus on cultures and exchanges at China’s mutable borders. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania in 2018. Her dissertation, “Beyond Silk: A Re-evaluation of Jin Painting (1115 – 1234)”, explores Jin painting on silk, paper, temple and tomb walls and argues for regional frameworks for approaching 12th -13th century north Chinese painting cultures.

During her time at Yale, she will develop her new research project “Mapping Middle Period (10th – 14th c.) Chinese Tombs: Funerary Murals from the Liao, Northern Song, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties.” She will also teach a class in the spring on Chinese art and archaeology at the Yale University Art Gallery.

Courses
EAST 402, HSAR 477
Chinese Art and Archaeology at the Yale University Art Gallery
This course is a study of major works in Chinese art and archaeology, as well as an investigation into collection history at the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG). The course moves chronologically through major periods and sites of Chinese art and archaeology, with special attention paid to those represented by works in the YUAG. Classroom sessions are based on discussion and readings of primary texts in translation and secondary scholarship, while museum sessions involve close visual analysis and discussion of objects either in the galleries or object study classrooms (OSC). During museum sessions, students also examine the provenance of objects and associated archival materials. Students learn about the history of collecting Chinese objects throughout the 20th century and its relationship to the University.