Chinese artist Wen Zhengming’s Red Cliff of 1558—a hanging scroll combining painting and calligraphy, now in the Detroit Institute of Arts—is one of his last works. The Red Cliff was a site along the middle stretch of the Yangzi River in central China, where fierce wars once took place. During the 1550s, Wen frequently created works on the subject of Red Cliff, inspired by the two rhapsodies written by poet and scholar Su Shi (1037–1101).

Lihong Liu, the Sally Michaelson Davidson Professor of Chinese Arts and Cultures and Assistant Professor in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will situate the DIA’s Red Cliff within this context and unfold the intricate stories surrounding it.