At Truro College
Dr Susan Whitfield is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveller of the Silk Roads. During 25 years curating the collections of over 50,000 medieval manuscripts from central Asia at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed an international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Roads.
She has lectured and written widely on the history and arts of the Silk Roads. Her latest book, Silk Roads: Peoples, Culture and Landscapes, was published by Thames & Hudson in October 2019 and translated into six languages. She has also curated several major exhibitions and organised field trips to archaeological sites in the Taklamakan desert.
Through her lecture we will learn about the opening of trade routes across Eurasia by land and sea which enabled the movement of people, along with their cultures, arts, beliefs, technical skills and aesthetics. This was to have a profound influence on the arts of China, introducing new designs and materials along with the craftsmen to pass on their skills. There will be several examples of masterpieces of art from China in the first millennium A.D. to illustrate this influence and show how the arts of China were greatly enriched by its Silk Road links.
