Chinese Archealogy Exhibit at the National Gallery of Art 10/1999
Walter Lee
http://yp.washingtonpost.com/E/E/WASDC/0001/13/95/cs1.html
excerpts....
China's Timeless Treasures
'Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology' Sheds New Light on an Ancient Culture
By Paul Richard Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 17, 1999; Page C01
Not since the King Tut show has Washington been offered works of ancient
art as shiveringly fabulous as those in "The Golden Age of Chinese
Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries From the People's Republic of China,"
which goes on view Sunday at the National Gallery of Art, and is, as was the
pharaoh's show, a glimpse into the tomb.
Gold gleams in the shadows, and snakes as swift as flames swarm over its
bronzes, and bold, shape-shifting spirits, whose eyes are always on us,
whose names we do not know, stare out of its ivories, its turquoises and
jades, and nothing here is trivial, and everything is old.
In car-honking America, where early Beanie Babies are valued as antiques,
these objects carry with them the silent, dreadful weight of vastnesses of
time.
The Chinese show begins more than 6,000 years ago, centuries before the
building of the pyramids at Giza. The most amazing object in it--an uncanny
standing figure almost nine feet tall whose enormous hands once wrapped
around the tusk of a huge elephant--was cast of molten bronze in the period
of the Trojan Wars, which means it is as old as the shield of Achilles. The
newest of the grave goods shown--a charming all-girl orchestra in painted
stone relief--was already old when our millennium began.
Washington museum-goers may think they know China from the porcelains
and hand scrolls at the Sackler and Freer galleries, but we do not know this
China.
When President Nixon flew to Beijing to meet with Chairman Mao, no one
living did. As part of detente, China sent to Washington "The Exhibition of
Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China." When that show
opened here in 1974, two-thirds of the objects in the present exhibition--the
gold seal of Emperor Wen, the Tuskman of Sanxingdui, the lacquered inner
coffin of the Marquis Yi, and Emperor Shihuangdi's terra-cotta army--were still
buried.
Gravediggers have been plundering China's past for centuries, but recent
years have proved a golden age for scientific archaeology there.
The new discoveries surveyed here rewrite China's past.
When the 7,000-strong army-for-the-afterlife of Emperor Shihuangdi was
unearthed in his necropolis in 1976, everybody recognized those charioteers
and archers and foot soldiers and generals as the oldest life-size statues in
all of Chinese art. But everyone was wrong.
The army was interred in 210 B.C. The Tuskman of Sanxingdui is more than
1,000 years older. He was buried with his soldiers (their heads of bronze, not
fired clay, were sometimes sheathed in gold) circa 1,300 B.C. Beside him
was a metal mask, smiling and ferocious and as big as a large kettledrum.
The Tuskman and his masks are utterly enigmatic. There is nothing else
quite like them in all of Chinese art.
Not so very long ago, the Xia and the Shang, legendary dynasties of the
distant past, were regarded by most scholars as pleasing, misty fantasies,
as sweetly insubstantial as Camelot or Shangri-La. Not anymore. A small
turquoise plaque made 3,800 years ago by the culture known as Erlitou is
now thought to be a Xia piece. And the exhibit's catalogue suggests that the
Tuskman and his gold-leafed troops are works of the Late Shang. Both
legendary dynasties have proved real after all.
Long-accepted patterns of Chinese cultural dispersal have also been undone
by the grave goods at the gallery. It used to be accepted that China's
material culture--like the orders of her emperors and those of Chairman
Mao--had radiated outward from the center to the provinces like ripples from a
pebble thrown into a pond. But no one thinks so now.
That very different Chinese cultures rose at different times in far-flung
regions
of the country--from Xin'gan in the south to Jianping in Mongolia, from Datong
in the west to Linqu near the Yellow Sea--is demonstrated clearly by the
recently found objects in this grave-by-grave display.
[snip]
"The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology" has been beautifully installed by
the gallery's design staff, Mark Leithauser in charge, and beautifully lit, too,
by the gallery's Gordon Anson. The show, arranged in cooperation with
China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage and Art Exhibitions, was
co-organized by the gallery and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and
urated by Xiaoneng Yang of that Kansas City institution. The Federal
Council on the Arts and the Humanities provided an indemnity, the Henry
Luce Foundation funded the research, and the E. Rhodes and Leona B.
Carpenter Foundation helped pay for the catalogue. Eastman Kodak
sponsored the exhibition here.
It is good that it's on view next door to the Capitol. American politicians
intent
on chiding China ought to see it. Perhaps they'll understand why China,
immense China, pays them slight attention. Our country, though a great one,
seems a sort of pipsqueak, a new kid of a nation when viewed against the
immensity of history, and the immensity of Chinaness, revealed by this
show.
"The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the
People's Republic of China" will travel to Houston and San Francisco after
closing in the National Gallery's East Building on Jan. 2.
Hugh Bonney
: see http://yp.washingtonpost.com/E/E/WASDC/0001/13/95/cs1.html
: excerpts....
: the gold seal of Emperor Wen, the Tuskman of Sanxingdui, the lacquered
: inner coffin of the Marquis Yi, and Emperor Shihuangdi's terra-cotta army
: were still buried.
: [snip]
--------------------
: It is good that it's on view next door to the Capitol. American politicians
: intent
: on chiding China ought to see it. Perhaps they'll understand why China,
: immense China, pays them slight attention. Our country, though a great one,
: seems a sort of pipsqueak, a new kid of a nation when viewed against the
: immensity of history, and the immensity of Chinaness, revealed by this
: show.
Well, China has been reviving from a Dark Age as debilitating as
the Dark Ages were in Europe. When Admiral Zheng's great fleet
was purposely burned, China was the largest, strongest country in
the world with technology equal to or better than anywhere else.
After it was burned, China turned in on itself and whithered. As
time went on it was overrun, this time by Europeans. So now that
it is reviving, will it become a major contributer to civilization
again or will it prove to be a T-Rex reborn and lumbering out of
Jurassic Park?
--------------------
:
: "The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the
: People's Republic of China" will travel to Houston and San Francisco after
: closing in the National Gallery's East Building on Jan. 2.
Thanks for the posting. Is there a date for SF?
Walter Lee
Hugh Bonney wrote:
>
> Walter Lee <dry...@nospam.erols.com> wrote:
> : see http://yp.washingtonpost.com/E/E/WASDC/0001/13/95/cs1.html
> : excerpts....
>
> : China's Timeless Treasures
> : 'Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology' Sheds New Light on an Ancient Culture
>
> : By Paul Richard Washington Post Staff Writer
> : Friday, September 17, 1999; Page C01
[snip]
> : "The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the
> : People's Republic of China" will travel to Houston and San Francisco after
> : closing in the National Gallery's East Building on Jan. 2.
>
> Thanks for the posting. Is there a date for SF?
from...
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/exhibits.htm#china
Schedule
========
National Gallery of Art,Washington DC 19 September 1999 - 02 January 2000
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX 13 February 2000 - 07 May 2000
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco,CA 17 June 2000 - 11 September 2000
eot