Event 3: Ming and Qing Chinese Arts from the C. P. Lin Collection

In the Hong Kong Museum of Art, I also visited the exhibition of “Ming and Qing Chinese Arts from the C. P. Lin Collection”. The exhibition showcases 270 items including porcelains, jades, ivories and others. Most of them are objects exclusively made for the palace. All those items with extremely high historical and aesthetic value show the perfect connection of art and other things like chemistry, politics and economy.

The following pair of dishes is considered as the most precious item of its collector C. P. Lin. It was made during the period of Yongzheng, Qing dynasty. One can easily see this from the mark below the dishes. Also, on the body of the dishes, there are drawing of bamboos, poems and seals. Because bamboo is empty inside and it endures the coldness of winter, Chinese scholars in ancient time always considered it as the symbol of modesty and toughness. This pair of dishes is considered as the perfect combination of multiple forms of art, including porcelain, painting, poetry, calligraphy and seal cutting.

The porcelain-making process is the perfect example of the combination of art and science. Ancient artisans were good at using glazes that contains different chemical ingredients. After heated, those glazes would change into different colors according to their ingredients. Glazes with iron would change into blue or green and those with copper would change into pink or red. Those artisans adjusted the color of the porcelain through changing of the thickness of the glazes and the temperature in the kilns. In this exhibition, lots of porcelains with single color are showed, including blue porcelains with color and texture that look like jade and sky, and blush color porcelain with beautiful peony on it. I am so regretted that I couldn’t take pictures of them.

The following item is a jade screen with scenes based on a poem called “Ode to the Red Cliff”. It shows the extreme craftsmanship in ancient China. The sculptor makes use of the natural flaws on this piece of jade to create the mountains. He also differentiates the thickness to present the trees, mountains, and the waves of the water. It’s also worth mentioning that two sides of the jade are sculpted with different scene from the same poem.

In this exhibition, I was attracted by an ivory sculpture of Child-sending Guanyin, who is the goodness of mercy in Chinese Buddhism. On the first sight, I was shocked by how different it looks from the other Child-sending Guanyin I’ve seen before. Though this sculpture is also holding a baby, her gesture reminds me a lot of Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. Such kind of sculpture of Guanyin is called Maria Kannon, which is a Japanese word for some historical reasons I will mention later. It first emerged at late Qing dynasty, when China was starting to accept orders from foreign merchants. Westerners request statues of Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus in porcelain and ivory. However, the Chinese artisans had never seen Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus before, so they made the statues base on Child-sending Guanyin. At the same time, Catholic was banned in Japan. So believers used Child-sending Guanyin to represent Blessed Virgin Mary.  

“Ming, Qing relics on show (28.5.2014)”. isdgovhk. Youtube. May 28, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0aoYmKeUU

“Pair of dishes decorated with bamboo and poem in falangcai enamels”. Hong Kong Museum of Art. Web. http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Arts/en_US/web/ma/exhibition.html

“Museum of Art to exhibit Ming and Qing Chinese artworks from the C. P. Lin Collection”. Hong Kong Government. May 2, 2014. Web. http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201405/02/P201404300746.htm

Event 2: Paris Chinese Painting: Legacy of the 20th Century Chinese Masters

On July 9^th, I visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art and saw the exhibition “Paris Chinese Painting: Legacy of the 20^th Century Chinese Masters”. This exhibition is one of the activities celebrating 50 years of China-France ties. Artworks from the Musee Cernuschi, Asian Arts Museum of Paris, the Hong Kong Museum of Art and several other major institutions in France are included in this exhibition. It shows about a hundred pieces of artworks of multiple forms by two generations of Chinese artists who have studied in Paris.

Among all those Chinese artists in this exhibition, Xu Beihong is one of the most well known artists in China. He is famous for his horse painting. Horse painting is an important genre of Chinese traditional painting. After studying in Paris, Xu Beihong dedicated to the reform of Chinese painting. His painting “Horse” is considered as traditional Chinese painting on the first sight because it is drawn in ink on paper with techniques that are prevalent in traditional paintings. However, the angle of representation of the horse and the movement of the horse shows his understanding of space, moving and anatomy, which come from his study of western paintings. Looking at the painting, one can easily feel the beauty of the horse, which comes from its healthy skin, muscle and hair. Also, the energy of the brush stokes and the shades of ink make the horse energetic and living. His paintings of horse that combine the best of both worlds are loved by Chinese authority and people considering horse always represents the power of the nation in Chinese tradition. Also, he is more respected as an artist than other artists of his time with similar background considering realism was more accepted than romanticism due to the political background and ideology of 20^th century China. This painting reminds me of another horse painting I saw in another exhibition of the Hong Kong Museum of Art. “The Lone Horse” is painted in Qing Dynasty of China. After seeing Xu Beihong’s “Horse”, this painting seems to be pretty funny considering the anatomical structure of the horse is wrong and no motion is expressed. The horse in this ancient painting looks lifeless and unreal.

After the first generation of Chinese artists in Paris like Xu Beihong came back to China and started the reform in art education in China, their students became the second generation of Chinese artists in Paris. While the first generation met the prevalence of realism, romanticism and impressionism in the west, the second-generation artists eye witted the birth of abstractionism. The influence of both traditional Chinese painting and a wide verity of western schools of painting can be seen in the paintings of those second-generation artists.

Among those second-generation artists, Chu Teh-chun and Zao Wou-ki are well known in the international realm of art. Their oil on canvas paintings is the perfect combination of abstractionism, impressionism and Chinese landscape painting. Zao Wou-ki’s oil on canvas painting “10.9.73” is a great example of such kind of combination. The mountains and trees in this painting are presented with techniques of impressionism. At the same time, the brush strokes of the mountains are the legacy of traditional Chinese landscape painting. Also, the water and sky are presented using the blank-leaving technique, which is highly valued in Chinese ink on paper painting. Due to those combinations, his paintings are praised as “landscape in the dream”.

Comparing to other second-generation artists, Wu Guanzhong is most famous nationwide in China because he went back to China when People’s Republic of China was established. Also, his artworks are more acceptable and understandable to Chinese people. He dedicated to modernize Chinese painting and localize oil on canvas painting. The techniques and themes of his oil on canvas paintings are pretty similar to those of traditional landscape paintings. However, he created his unique technique by adding spots of colors to his paintings. His paintings always remind people of the carefree life of areas south of the Yangtze River, which brings up the nostalgia of the whole nation.

Jin Nong. The Lone Horse. 1761. Hanging scroll, ink on paper. Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Xu Beihong. Horse. 1947. Ink on paper. Mesee Cernuschi, Museum of the Asian Arts of Paris. http://www.cernuschi.paris.fr/en/collections/horse-1

Wu Guanzhong. Waterway of a Village. 1997. Oil on canvas. Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Event 1: 1600 Pandas World Tour in Hong Kong: Creativity Meets Conservation

Right after I saw the news about this activity with photos of those paper-made pandas coming off a plane, I was attracted by this event and decided to see it if I got the chance to visit Hong Kong. After those pandas got off the plane, they visited 10 famous landmarks of Hong Kong. During my trip in Hong Kong, I visited the final stop of the activity “1600 Pandas World Tour in Hong Kong: Creativity Meets Conservation” in PMQ.

Before landing in Hong Kong, those 1600 pandas have already been to France, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Taiwan. This activity is a cooperation of WWF and artist Paulo Grangeon, who is good at making paper mache animals. He made 1600 paper mache animals out of recycled materials. It’s worth mentioning that 1600 is the number of living pandas in the wild. This activity aims to promote the harmonious coexistence between humans and our environment. At the same time, donations are accepted to help WWF with natural conservation and sustainable development.

Those papier-mache pandas are made with recycled newspapers to accompany the theme of protecting environment and endangered animals.

The artist, Paulo Grangeon, was known as a wood sculptor. In 1997, he was fascinated by the Thai craft of papier-mache and dedicated to making papier-mache animals in his papier-mache workshop called “Matiere Premiere”. Besides making paper-mache pandas for this event, he is also the cooperator of several other activities that aim to protect the environment and promote about endangered animals. For example, he made 120 papier-mache whales for the Overseas Ministry of France and 200 papier-mache black bears for Taiwan.

The place where the event is hold is also pretty interesting. PMQ is a creative industry landmark of Hong Kong. Lots of brands of creative products are sold here. To accompany the 1600 pandas world tour, those brands also sell panda related products. PMQ also has its history. Due to the special historic background of Hong Kong as a colony, this place used to be the campus of the Central School, which was the first public school that provided western education. The building was severely damaged during the World War II. After that, it was rebuilt into the dormitory for married junior police officers. Nowadays, its building structure as a dormitory is skill kept.

The building structure shows its history as a dormitory for married police officers.

Though the weather was extremely hot the day I visited, there were lots of visitors. Actually, most of those visitors are not strictly art lover or environment lover. Almost all of them are attracted by the cuteness of those pandas. It’s pretty obvious that the culture of cuteness is extremely popular in Asia than other parts of the world. For example, the Rubber Duck designed by Florentijn Hofman has become a phenomenon in Asia for its cuteness ever since it was displayed in Hong Kong. Also, every city in Japan has its own cartoon character as a mascot. Among them, Kumamon is extremely popular as the mascot of Kumamoto prefecture. It is printed on lots of products from Kumamoto to promote the products. Also, it has its own office where it is treated as an officer of the local government and holds meeting with fans from all over the world. Except those cute animals, cuteness is also the pursuit of most Asian girls. Such kind of culture of cuteness is pretty rare in western culture.

The culture of cuteness is extremely influential in Asia. Here is the official music video of Kumanmon, the mascot of Kumamoto, Japan. 

   

“1600 Pandas World Tour in Hong Kong: Creativity Meets Conservation”. PMQ. Web. http://www.pmq.org.hk/event/1600-pandas-world-tour-in-hong-kong-creativity-meets-conservation/?lang=chps

“History of PMQ”. PMQ. Web. http://www.pmq.org.hk/heritage/history-of-pmq/

“"Kumamonmon" with English superimpose”. アップフロントチャンネル. Web. Sep 24, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwmeKHXYqzI

Week 5: Space + Art

The topic of space and art reminds me a lot of what we discussed before about robotics and art. Just like how artists’ imagination about robots and cyborgs leads to the development of science in that realm, people’s curiosity and imagination about space encourages the exploration of space. In Chinese mythology, the goddess of the Moon Chang’e is actually an “astronaut” from the earth. She accidentally swallowed an immortality elixir and float towards the Moon. Besides Change’e, it is said that there was an ancient Chinese official called Wan Hu, who wanted to fly to the Moon. He created a rocket by fastening 47 large firecrackers to a chair. Though the story is said to be apocryphal by Chinese scholars, it shows people’s wish to explore the universe.

While people are able to explore the space nowadays, the wild imagination of the existence of aliens becomes prevalent. Like cyborgs, aliens of all kinds are main characters in lots of sci-fi movies. While the different attitudes towards technology cause the different cyborgs in west and east, people’s attitude towards alien and space, which are mysterious and unknown, is pretty uniform. In both western and eastern movies, aliens can either be lovely friends or great heroes or evil monsters. It shows people’s expectation and fear about lives from the space. At the same time, the imagination is encouraging the scientists to search for lives all over the universe.

Besides the imagination, art also comes from the universe we’ve already explored. NASA released collection of records called “Symphonies of the Planets” about 20 years ago. The records contain “music” of the planets in the solar system. Those sounds were electromagnetic waves recorded by Voyager I and II. Those pieces of “music” are really mind-blowing since they do bring listeners to the space they have wondered about.

Ren Shuai Ying. “Chang’e Flying to the Moon”. Painting. 1955.

Admin. “Wan Who?”. Astronotes. Feb 10, 2012. Web. http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/wan-who.html

 “Top 10 Good Movie Aliens”. WatchMojo.com. Youtube. Web. Apr 28, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vyezsM9kEQ

“Top 10 Scariest Movie Aliens”. WatchMojo.com. Youtube. Web. Apr 18, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRa7KXxb4k

ritekid. “NASA Space Sounds”. Youtube. Web. Feb 10, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MmWeZHsQzs