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Figures with Ink and Brushes: the Emotions and Atmospheric Effects in Figure Paintings of Ming and Qing Dynasty

  • show time：2017-08-25 to 2017-11-19
  • Organizer：Palace Museum,Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Museum, Tianjin Museum, Beijing Fine Art Academy
  • venue：Beijing Fine Art Academy
    Beijing Academy of Fine Arts will be hosting the grand opening of “Writing Seven-feet Figures with Ink and Brushes: the Emotion and Atmospheric Effects in Figure Paintings of Ming and Qing Dynasty” on August 25th, 2017. This exhibition is an initiative jointly sponsored by the Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Museum, Tianjin Museum, and Beijing Academy of Fine Arts. It brings together 62 sets of figure paintings from the collections of four major museums of China for the visitors to understand and appreciate the development of figure paintings in Ming and Qing dynasty. 
 
    The theme of figure paintings of Ming and Qing dynasty is not a newly developed subject for exhibition. In recent years, visitors have been frequently had opportunities to see exhibitions of relevant subjects. As a theme that had always been in focus, it is our emphasis to curate the displayed objects with creativity. The title of this exhibition “Writing Seven-feet Figures with Ink and Brushes” is a line extracted from the preface of Self-Portrait by the Qing dynasty painter Hua Yan. Differed from the previous portraits, which only recorded the descriptive facial features of the figure, literati painters of Ming and Qing dynasty presented figures with simplistic lines and made figures to rhyme with the surrounding objects. It transformed the serious “portraits” into “selfies” filled with literati’s thoughtful insights. Thus, this exhibition mainly focuses on “the emotions and atmospheric effects” in figure paintings of Ming and Qing dynasty, 
 
     through which visitors will get an insight of literati’s spiritual world. Based on the different subjects of paintings, the exhibition is divided into four sections: “Activities of Elegance,” “Realistic Portrait,“ “The Beauty,” and “Daoism Expression.” It is especially noteworthy that in “The Beauty” section, the exhibition presents female artists in Ming and Qing dynasty, as well as the paintings of female figures. The painting Court Lady Playing the Flute by Xue Susu from the collection of Nanjing Museum is one of the representative painting of a female artist depicting a female figure. Though there are abundant female artists in Chinese art history, there are not many before Ming and Qing dynasty. It is during Ming and Qing dynasty that female artists started to emerge as a special group of artists that catch attention.
 
     In the organization of display objects, we selected the most representative figure paintings from the collection of four major museums in China. In the exhibition, visitors will see Springtime in Wuling by Wu Wei and Listen to the Music of Zither by Chen Hongshou from the collection of the Palace Museum; Pounding Clothes Scene by Qiu Ying and The Portrait of Gu Mengyou by Zeng Jing from the collection of Nanjing Museum; Finger-painted Figure by Gao Qipei and A Drunk Zhongkui by Luo Pin from the collection of Shanghai Museum; A Scholar in Landscape of Pine Tree and Rocks by Wen Zhengming and A Buddha Figure by Jin Nong from the collection of Tianjin Museum. This exhibition presents the well-chosen artworks for the visitors to see figure paintings from the collections of four major museums and understand the fictional characters of Ming and Qing Dynasty.

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