Follow UK Investment Immigration and Life in the UK: Starting from the end of October this year, the famous Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A Museum) in London has launched a major exhibition of ancient Chinese paintings—Masterpieces of Chinese Painting: 700-1900, featuring many rare and exquisite Chinese artworks.
The exhibition will run for 12 weeks until mid-January next year, showcasing over 70 paintings collected from museums in China, the United States, Japan, Europe, and other regions, some of which are being exhibited in Europe for the first time.
Curator Zhang Hongxing stated that the Western art world has long lacked research and exhibitions on Chinese painting, and it has been his dream for many years to help Western audiences better understand Chinese art. He also hopes to place the history of Chinese painting into the mainstream narrative of world art history through this exhibition. According to him, this is the first major exhibition of Chinese painting held in the UK since 1935, when the Royal Academy of Arts held a large-scale exhibition of Chinese art.
Promoting Chinese Painting to the West
“Europe already has a set system for viewing and evaluating art. As for Chinese art, it is painted on paper and silk, which are precisely the more marginal media in the European art tradition. They refer to Chinese painting as watercolor, and watercolor is considered a minor genre, an auxiliary medium that cannot produce works by master artists,” said Zhang Hongxing.
Zhang believes that viewing Chinese painting as watercolor only considers the form of the art, while the greatness of Chinese painting lies in its ability to help Chinese artists express their profound emotions. He hopes this exhibition can correct Western misconceptions about Chinese painting and that, in the future, the history of Chinese art can be placed in its proper position within world art history.
“For example, the rise of landscape painting is very important in Western art because, in art theory, the discovery of nature and the discovery of external objects as themes represent the awakening of humanity. China discovered landscape painting far earlier than Europe—by several hundred years,” he said.
“Another example is the use of ink and wash, the very free method of expressing inspiration, and the way of using brushstrokes to convey thoughts and emotions, which were only discovered in the West in the 20th century. Before that, Western painting tended to simulate nature, and it was only after the invention of photography that painters began to express themselves. In China, this approach has had a long history.”
Zhang Hongxing has lived in the UK for 20 years and has worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum for 10 years after completing his doctorate. He said that after coming to the UK, he encountered many classic books and materials in the art world, including E.H. Gombrich's 1950 work The Story of Art and the 1969 BBC documentary Civilisation. He believes that Chinese painting has an equally glorious history and should also be recorded in such works.
Six Major Themes Showcasing Artistic Styles
The Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition of Chinese masterpieces is divided into six themes in chronological order, showcasing evolving artistic styles and painting subjects. It begins with silk paintings unearthed from temples dating from the Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties, most of which come from Dunhuang in the remote northwest of China. Among them, a double-sided standing Bodhisattva portrait is displayed in its original banner form, allowing visitors to appreciate the sacred and solemn image of the Bodhisattva in robes from both the front and back.
The second part showcases Song Dynasty landscape paintings. During this period, painters' interest in natural landscapes grew, and landscape painting began to flourish. Whether it was magnificent mountains and waters or vivid birds and travelers, all were recorded in the world of painting, such as Yan Wengui's River Mountains and Pavilions scroll and Chen Rong's Nine Dragons scroll, the latter of which is considered one of the earliest paintings depicting dragons leaping and soaring.
Between the late 13th century and the Song-Yuan transition, some literati and monks created more intimate works to express their inner emotions. Works from this period no longer pursued realism, shifting instead toward more literary approaches, rich in literary, philosophical, and personal significance. The plum blossoms that once heralded the arrival of spring are covered by frost and snow in Wang Mian's Ink Plum scroll, symbolizing perseverance and purity in adversity.
By the Ming Dynasty, a stable government and a booming economy led to a rapid increase in demand for aesthetically pleasing paintings across all social strata. Painters once again used expensive pigments to paint on silk. Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Suzhou in the Jiangnan region successively became new gathering places for painters. The subjects of painting during this period were also extremely broad, including historical figures, famous scenic spots, pavilions and towers, rare birds and beasts, and exotic flowers and plants.
The final part of the exhibition, covering 1600-1900, shows intense competition among painting schools. In addition to competing with contemporary painters, surpassing the ancients was also one of the goals of painters at the time. At the same time, European painting techniques had a greater influence on the Chinese art scene. Court painters learned Western perspective and chiaroscuro techniques, integrating them into the local tradition.
The Preparation Process Was Quite Challenging
Zhang Hongxing said that the biggest challenge in preparing for this exhibition was borrowing masterpieces from museums around the world. Because works on paper and silk are particularly fragile, museums possessing these treasures do not easily exhibit them due to the need for cultural preservation.
Furthermore, museums in different places have different conservation regulations. For example, in some Japanese museums, Song and Yuan paintings are only allowed to be exhibited for six weeks at a time and must rest for two years afterward. Some American museums allow exhibitions for two to three months at a time, but they must rest for five years afterward.
“How to integrate and coordinate, so that it meets the conservation needs of each museum while still being able to borrow the works that should be borrowed to tell such a story, is a challenge,” he said.
To help the audience better appreciate and understand Chinese painting, the museum has also specially arranged many activities related to Chinese art during the exhibition, including music, performances, painting demonstrations, and craft workshops. The museum shop also sells a variety of souvenirs related to the exhibition, including silk scarves designed by a modern Chinese art brand using elements from the paintings.
