ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

James Cahill's Digital Lecture Series Expands Access to Chinese Painting Scholarship

digital · 2026-04-22

James Cahill, an 85-year-old expert in Chinese and Japanese art, has introduced "A Pure and Remote View," a digital initiative featuring more than forty hours of lectures along with thousands of images from his extensive slide collection. This project is available on jamescahill.info and the U.C. Berkeley Institute of East Asian Studies website, with the inaugural lecture already garnering over three thousand views. A follow-up series titled "Gazing Into the Past" is currently being developed. Cahill, who retired from Berkeley in 1995 and worked at the Freer Gallery of Art until 1965, has written twelve books, including those published under his Chinese name Gao Juhan. The Tang Research Foundation supports this endeavor, which aims to reach a global audience, including access in China through Tudou.

Key facts

  • James Cahill is an 85-year-old historian of Chinese and Japanese art
  • He launched a free online lecture series titled 'A Pure and Remote View'
  • The series contains over forty hours of content with thousands of images
  • Lectures are hosted on jamescahill.info and U.C. Berkeley's Institute of East Asian Studies site
  • A second series called 'Gazing Into the Past' is in development
  • The project is funded by the Tang Research Foundation and developed by Rand Chatterjee
  • Cahill's books published under the name Gao Juhan sell tens of thousands in China
  • Lectures are accessible in China via the Tudou website despite censorship

Entities

Artists

  • James Cahill
  • David Carrier
  • Xia Gui
  • Picasso
  • Degas
  • van Gogh
  • Rembrandt
  • Vermeer
  • Titian
  • Botticelli
  • Ernst Gombrich
  • Rand Chatterjee

Institutions

  • artcritical
  • Freer Gallery of Art
  • College Art Association
  • Harvard
  • Columbia University
  • University of Kansas
  • University of Southern California
  • Institute of East Asian Studies at U.C. Berkeley
  • Tang Research Foundation
  • Tudou
  • YouTube

Locations

  • Washington DC
  • United States
  • Berkeley
  • China
  • Japan

Sources