Monday Morning Tea: Hutong tour…"Cute Japanese"…The return of stolen relics…Central Asian influences during the Qin

I spent yesterday cruising around the hutongs with a group of my students as well as our program director and Fang Laoshi, a descendant of Manchu bannermen and a real Beijing history buff. Fang Laoshi was a treasure trove of information as we wound our way down Chang’an Dajie, through Tiananmen, up to Houhai and Xihai and then back to our home campus. I think the students found it a little long–five hours of lecture while cycling can be rough on a Sunday morning, but YJ and I had a good time.

We did however attract some unwanted attention. Our stops in front of Zhongnanhai and Tiananmen were both cut short by plain clothes PSB officers who felt that foreign students learning about Chinese culture on bicycle were a danger to national security. Prior to that, Fang Laoshi’s take on Chinese history–he is frank in his opinions of both the good and the bad of China’s recent past–angered an old fellow who wandered by during one of Professor Fang’s explanations and lectured the lecturer that Professor Fang ought only tell foreigners good things lest the Chinese people lose face. Ah yes, objective history–that horrible, horrible threat to precious self-worth.

On

September 16th, 2007

"Qingming Shanghe Tu" (Along the River During the Qingming Festival) to be displayed in Hong Kong

One of China’s most famous and priceless paintings, “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” (qingming shanghe tu 清明上河图) is now on display at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. The painting is on loan from the Beijing government as part of the celebration for the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return.

The NYT has a great article neatly summarizing the sometimes wild history of the painting:

“Qingming Festival” has been famous since the 14th century, when forgeries began to circulate, said Tang Hing-sun, an assistant curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art who helped organize the exhibition here.

Forgers could pass off their copies as the original partly because the original was repeatedly stolen or misappropriated from the imperial collection, starting as early as the 1340s. It kept showing up in the hands of wealthy, influential families, from whom emperors repeatedly recovered it when they confiscated estates during disputes.

Qiu Ying, a 16th-century artist, established a reputation for painting beautiful copies of “Qingming Festival,” prompting forgers even to begin producing forgeries of his copies.

The Nationalists moved the cream of the imperial collection to Taiwan shortly before losing the civil war to the

July 2nd, 2007

Animated Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in 3D

Simply stunning animation of a traditional Chinese painting that’s making the rounds on the Internet. The video was produced by the Shenzhen branch of the Institute of Digital Media Technology (IDMT), which is associated with Global Digital Creations (GDC). (h/t China Digital Times)

July 1st, 2007

Craig Clunas named chair of Art History at Oxford

Ming dynasty historian Craig Clunas, author of the classic Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Ming China, has been named chair of the Art History department at Oxford University. Clunas’ work explores the intersection between material and social culture, most notably in his application of Bourdieu’s theories of ‘social capital’ to describe elite strategies to define and perpetuate their status in times of social or economic upheavel. Two of his other books are also highly recommended, Elegant Debts: The Social art of Wen Zhengming and Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming China. (If you’ve noticed a trend/formula to his titles, you’re not alone.) He is also the author of the forthcoming Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Culture of Ming China, 1368-1644.—————-painting on right, Wen Zhengming, “Garden of an Unsuccessful Politician,” 1551

May 7th, 2007

How Now Mao?: The Chairman’s annual face lift

Perhaps I’m the only one, but whenever I’m standing in Tiαnαnmen square, one thing I always wonder–after A) could I outrun a tank and B) No, I don’t want to see your special student art exhibit for foreign friends–is just how do they keep the giant portrait of Mao so shiny and new?

Now we know. It’s the work of a team of painters, their identities and methods once considered state secrets, who are responsible for touching up, repainting, and replacing the portrait of Mao, each September, in the small hours of the morning.

The LA Times has an interview with one of oldest surviving members of the team, 76-year-old Wang Guodong. (“Mao is their canvas”, LAT, 9/14/06) From 1964-1976, Wang worked in a nondescript all-metal studio without windows or doors just outside of the Forbidden City. Two paintings existed. One hanging in the square. The other in the shop where it could be retouched or, if needed, completely repainted.

For as timeless as Mao’s benevolent Mona-Lisa-on-acid gaze may seem to the Tiananmen tourists and touts, the portrait does in fact sometimes change slightly and even the most subtle changes could lead to major repercussions. Wang was attacked by the

September 17th, 2006
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