On view through August 26, 2007
The theme of journeys, both real and imagined, will be presented in Journeys: Mapping the Earth and Mind in Chinese Art, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 10. Featuring more than 60 works of art in various pictorial formats - hanging scroll, handscroll, album, fan, book, and photograph - the exhibition will explore the rich symbolic meanings and cultural significance of journeys as embodied in works of art dating from the 11th century to the present. The exhibition will be organized thematically: emotional partings and returns, roaming the wilderness, escapist visions and garden retreats, dream journeys, travelers, scenic sites and landmarks, and topographic paintings and maps. Highlights of the exhibition will include a brilliantly colored 42-foot-long map entitled Ten Thousand Miles Along the Yellow River (late 17th-early 18th century), a rare deerskin map of Forts Zeelandia and Provintia and the City of Tainan (18th century), as well as a striking series of eight photographs, The North: Bicycle Rider, by contemporary artist Hai Bo (born 1962). Approximately one-third of the works are to be shown for the first time at the Museum, including 16 loans and three new acquisitions.
"Instead of presenting works of art in a strictly chronological progression, the exhibition is organized into a series of discrete themes, so that the visitor will have an opportunity to see the connections between paintings of vastly different dates," said Maxwell K. Hearn, Curator in the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Asian Art. "Such comparisons demonstrate how later artists might draw upon earlier pictorial expressions to find their own voice. In Room 3, for example, the theme of Returning to Nature through a Reclusive Life juxtaposes a painting created by Yu Peng (b. 1955) in 1996 with a group of the 14th-century landscapes. By studying them carefully, the viewer can see that Yu Peng clearly found those old masters' brush idiom and reclusive mindset inspiring," he continued.
Want to see what 24 hours of creative awesomeness look like? Click here.
This news message is supported by The Creative Finder, an online platform for photographers, illustrators, designers, and art directors to promote their portfolios towards new clients and collaborators. Creatives who wish to sign up for an account can save 10% off annual fees with promo code 'designtaxi'.
