Art historian Hsun Chiang is a public intellectual and Taiwan’s most prominent advocate of aesthetics. He has written extensively on art history and published a beloved collection of lectures on solitude, taste and life. Everyone from college students and entrepreneurs to celebrities and truck drivers is drawn to Chiang’s literary charms.

Much of his work is devoted to reviving Eastern art and “regaining the right to dictate our own narrative”. In recent years, he has made his work more accessible through audiobook recordings where he takes on the tone of a soothing preacher as he discusses classic literature.

A descendant of Chinese nobility on his mother’s side, Chiang grew up in Taiwan after his family fled China when he was two years old. As a university student, Chiang studied art and history in China and Western Philosophy in Paris. He returned to Taiwan in 1976 and eventually established the Department of Fine Arts at Tunghai University.

Also an artist, Chiang makes oil paintings of still life, calligraphic texts of poetry and ink wash paintings of scenes in nature. Lin Hwai-min of Cloud Gate Dance Theater has noted that Chiang paints for himself and not for the market, following the tradition of ancient gentlemen scholars who practised calligraphy and literati painting.

A collection of Chiang’s artworks, manuscripts and recordings were exhibited at Christie's in Shanghai in 2018, the first time the work of the academic was shown on the mainland.