The 2011 Year-End Review of Fine Arts: Calligraphy and Painting Edition
In 2011, the world of Chinese calligraphy and painting [bulk art supply] saw many enthusiasts feeling that the impact of certain major events had surpassed the art itself. Of course, these influences could be both positive and negative, much like a river that sometimes nurtures humanity and at other times causes harm to people. The pace of global harmonious development and the progress of human civilization struggle forward amidst such conflicts.
**The "Spiritual Reunion" of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains**
In March 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his hope during the press conference of the "Two Sessions" for the two parts of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, separately housed in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum and the National Palace Museum in Taipei, to be reunited as one painting sooner rather than later. His remark, "If this is true for paintings, how much more so for people," touched countless compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Just a year later, on June 1, 2011, the special exhibition "Landscape Reunited: Huang Gongwang and Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" opened at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Created by the great Yuan dynasty painter Huang Gongwang, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is also the pinnacle of ancient Chinese ink landscape painting. Due to having been burned in a fire, the painting was eventually split into two sections; the first part, housed in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, is known as The Remaining Mountain Scroll, while the latter section, housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, is called The Useless Master Scroll. For decades, this masterpiece that bore witness to the blood ties and joys and sorrows of compatriots on both sides of the strait could only gaze across the sea. The reunion of this classic work not only transcended time and space but also became a shared wish of compatriots on both sides. In this exhibition, although the two parts of the painting could not yet be physically joined together, the organizers specially created an electronic composite output image on the background wall, preliminarily presenting the scene after the two scrolls were reunited. Some commentators noted that the significance of this "reunion" had long since surpassed the realm of calligraphy and painting art, becoming a "spiritual appointment" for compatriots on both sides in terms of history, culture, and ethnicity.
**Expansion of Art Museums: Space and Standards**
Public art museums offering free admission have already allowed ordinary citizens to enter the halls of art, while renovations and expansions of national and local art museums have made the environment, management, and preservation of collections more modern and intelligent. A cluster of museums including the new China Art Museum, the China Arts and Crafts Museum, and four other "state-level" museums has already begun construction in Beijing's Olympic Park. The new China Art Museum and the China Arts and Crafts Museum are expected to be completed in 2015 and 2014 respectively. The new China Art Museum will cover an area ten times larger than the old museum. It is understood that due to spatial limitations, many treasures in the old museum could only be exhibited once every few years. The increase in space will not only expand the collection capacity but also allow people to appreciate more masterpieces of calligraphy and painting. Additionally, the Shanghai Art Museum, Tianjin Art Museum, Guangdong Art Museum, and others are also under construction or expansion. An insider in the industry once remarked that the quality of an art museum does not depend on its size but rather on whether its architecture has style and character, and more importantly, on the academic standards and quantity of its collection. This indicates that during the large-scale renovation and expansion of art museums, we have fully recognized and paid attention to various aspects such as architectural style, functionality, aesthetic appeal, and national spirit. Perhaps the architectural malaise of "a thousand buildings looking the same" can be broken first in the art world.
**Thefts, Damages, and Forgeries Expose Many Problems**
If you ask which place was the most "unfortunate" in 2011, it would undoubtedly be the Palace Museum in Beijing. First, exhibits from the Two Yi Cang Museum in Hong Kong were stolen during an exhibition at the Palace Museum. Although the police quickly solved the case, the banner given by the Palace Museum to the Beijing Public Security Bureau contained a misspelled word, making this cultural institution appear quite uncultured and losing face. That wasn't all; within the same month, the Palace Museum also faced accusations regarding "club gate" and "auction gate." Although the administration strongly denied these accusations, the subsequent damage to a representative work of Song dynasty Ge Kiln, the Celadon Dish with a Sunflower-Shaped Mouth, left them speechless. The various "incidents" that occurred at the Palace Museum in this year clearly exposed serious problems in management as well as the professional knowledge and skills of its staff. In fact, the "loopholes" of the Palace Museum exist in many similar institutions, such as the "gold-threaded jade suit loan fraud case," which happened under the eyes of so-called experts who "misspoke." In September 2011, some students from the first session of the Central Academy of Fine Arts' oil painting department research class published an open letter in a newspaper. The letter claimed that the so-called "Xu Beihong oil painting" titled "Nude·Ms. Jiang Biwei," sold for 72.8 million yuan by Beijing Jiu Ge International Auction Co., Ltd. in the spring auction, should actually be a classroom exercise by one of the students from the research class. Once this statement was made, it immediately shocked public opinion, showing that the trend of profit-seeking at the expense of righteousness has infiltrated all fields and severely tarnished the sanctity and dignity of art.
**Controversy Over the "National Exhibition" Calligraphy Performance**
In November 2011, the Tenth National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Works Exhibition (Guangxi Zone) opened in Nanning, with a thousand people participating in a calligraphy performance. From the very beginning, this exhibition was questioned from all sides. Of course, the focus of the questions was not the "national exhibition" itself, but rather the participants. Some people pointed out that some current participants are too utilitarian, always creating for the judges, for exhibitions, and essentially for fame and fortune. There are now very few people who regard calligraphy as a spiritual pursuit like the ancients did. Therefore, the works displayed must necessarily follow trends, lack individuality, and have extremely rare masterpieces. However, the most controversial aspect was the "thousand-person calligraphy performance." An insider in the industry stated that many significant activities in the current calligraphy world focus on promotion and popularization, lacking in-depth professional thinking. These activities may help calligraphy move from a niche audience to the masses, but tendencies towards non-professionalism and vulgarity are also increasingly evident.
By Zhou Fan Kai. This article was originally published on [Art Supply·Xianyunxuan] http://www.xyx-gy.com. [Art Supply·Xianyunxuan] specializes in the creation of calligraphy and painting crafts, operating bulk calligraphy and painting supplies, bulk Buddhist beads, Buddhist bead bracelets, landscape paintings, bulk Chinese paintings, Chinese calligraphy, brush calligraphy, and other high-quality artworks and hand-carved wooden items. Professional quality, trustworthy, welcome to discuss cooperation. For more details, please visit the official website: http://www.xyx-gy.com!
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