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Monday, August 4, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
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
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Event 2: Paris Chinese Painting: Legacy of the 20th Century Chinese Masters
On July 9th, I visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art and saw
the exhibition “Paris Chinese Painting: Legacy of the 20th 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 20th 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.
Monday, July 28, 2014
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
Saturday, July 26, 2014
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
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