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