The Associated Press, September 30, 2005
Smithsonian exhibit deals with traditional Chinese link between music and government
By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer

Thousands of years ago, Chinese emperors held ceremonial concerts with elaborately crafted musical instruments to equate musical harmony with good government. But some philosophers worried about too much harmony, causing lewdness and depravity, if men and women played in an orchestra together.

An exhibit that opens Saturday at the Freer Gallery of Art, part of the Smithsonian, shows the bells, drums, zithers and other instruments - but leaves open the question of whether orchestras then allowed for a musical mixing of the sexes.

The show, called "Virtue and Entertainment," coincides with the Kennedy Center opening a month's festival of Chinese music and other performing arts. The Freer has brought out 36 rare objects from its vast store of Chinese art and linked its exhibit to the Kennedy Center festival.

On view at the Freer are pictures of all-women ensembles and heavenly maidens playing music in the skies, but no illustration of men and women playing together. Jan Stuart, a Freer assistant curator Chinese art, said such images have survived but this show does not have an example.

One of its handsomest pictures is a life-size portrait on silk of two courtesans, a younger one playing a long flute and an older one holding a rose.

"It's a come-hither gesture," she said. "In those days educated men were expected to pay visits to the pleasure quar-ters."

A label next to the picture explains:

"An interlude with a courtesan was a time to shake off official duties and Confucian responsibilities, and they enjoyed being entertained by witty and artistically talented women who played chess, wrote poetry, danced and knew music."

The role of music in promoting civic virtue got a boost from the philosopher Confucius, who was reported to be an expert performer 2,500 years ago on the qin - a seven-string lute with a distinguished history in China. For centuries an important talent of any respected gentleman and scholar was the ability to play the qin. Ambitious men owned one, whether they could play or not. The exhibit includes several qins, whose owners gave them poetic names like "Spring Breeze" and 'Dragon's Moan."

The traditional connection between good government and music was carried on in 1997, according to assistant cu-rator Joseph Chang. The handover of Hong Kong by Britain to China was celebrated, he said, when Hong Kong composer Tan Dun created a work to mark the occasion.

The Freer, part of the Smithsonian's Asian art museum, makes a bow to Taiwan - seen in Beijing as a renegade province - by including on its program the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe. Portuguese sailors who saw Taiwan more than 400 years ago called it Ilha Formosa - "beautiful island" in their language. Until recent years "Formosa" was the name usually given it on western maps.

*************************

South China Morning Post, September 27, 2005
Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy Collection
Jade Lee-Duffy

The collection's 100 ink-on-paper and calligraphy works reveal that there's a lot more to Chinese painting than traditional styles. The works, from the 1950s to the present day, are by 77 former students of the academy.

The collection is a joy to see. At each corner hang large and medium-sized pieces, sumptuous paintings worth an estimated $ 100 million. The Long March Series - Life (2004) by Shi Dawei, in haunting shades of grey, has Mao Zedong in his prime as the central figure. Surrounding him are shadowy glimpses of faces with varying expressions of anguish and happiness. White paint drips down like blood.

Another political piece is Han Shuo's life-sized Patriotism (1999), of the so-called Seven Gentlemen (one of whom was a woman), who were arrested after fighting for the release of political prisoners during the Sino-Japanese war.

In contrast, there are light-hearted pieces such as Zhang Guiming's Lotus (2000). It has a Miro-like quality, with lively defined shapes in primary colours and grey.

Of the more traditional works, Cheng Shifa's Fan Li and Xi Shi (1981) portrays tranquillity and the intimacy of a couple enjoying each other's company in a boat, as the viewer peers through tree branches.

Overall, the show is an exceptional collection of Chinese art that exemplifies the mastery and individuality of the academy's artists.

************************

China Post, September 14, 2005
RETROSPECTIVE ART EXHIBITION REFLECTS ON CHINESE TRADITION

Prof. Hu Hung-shu is presenting his seventy-year retrospective art exhibition at the National Museum of History until October 2, opening daily except Mondays.

The exhibition entitled "The Unity of Heaven and Man" is a unique collection of art, with each painting in black and white oil on canvas. He chose a single Chinese character for the title of each painting, including "dian" (the peak of a hill), "di" (the earth), "feng" (wind), "sha" (sand), "piao" (float), "nu" (running river). The subjects are taken from nature re-flecting Chinese tradition.

Prof. Hu is not only an artist, but also a designer via architectural training. Born in Shanghai in 1935, he moved to Taiwan as a teenager with his scholar father Hu Soong-pin. He received his bachelor's degree in architecture from the National Cheng Kung University. After graduating, he taught architecture at Chung Yuan Christian University and at Tung Hai University.

From 1964 to 1966, he studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art in the U. S. and earned his M.F.A. in design. Then, he began to teach design and art history at the School of Art, University of Iowa. There he has cultivated many promising young artists, architects, and designers. He said proudly that one of his top students and teaching assistants Jason Lamb graduated from the Taipei American School.

Hu's interests were not limited to the design or architecture, but extended to sculpture, installation art, public art, packaging design, and the design of furniture and toys. Photographs of his works have been published in many interna-tional magazines. He won awards in Japan and the United States for his design and architectural works.

He pointed out that Chinese painting is the art of ink, and the nature of Chinese art is the relationship between ink, brush, and paper. Hu's paintings challenge this concept and use the Western artistic medium of oil on canvas, but create the effect of Chinese ink paintings. He uses only dark color with abstract forms to create an impression like that of Chinese ink paintings.

This exhibition featuring 80 of his paintings including some of his early works. Hu's art presents new ideas about Chinese painting, and he has evolved these concepts into a mature style of his own.

 

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is
available at:
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html
For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm