RA Magazine Autumn 2013

Issue Number: 120

Masterpieces of Chinese Painting at the V&A

Given the fragility and rarity of the works on loan, the V&A’s exhibition of 1,200 years of Chinese painting is a curatorial triumph, writes Frances Wood

Recent exhibitions of Chinese paintings in London and Europe have shown items from a single collection like that of the British Museum, or paintings from a single period, such as the RA’s exhibition ‘China: The Three Emperors’ in 2005, which showed Qing paintings from the Forbidden City in Beijing. At the V&A show, visitors can see treasures from the Tang dynasty (618-907) to the Qing (1644-1911) – from major museums in China, America, Japan and Europe – all of which are rarely displayed and known even to most specialists only through reproductions. It is a curatorial tour de force for Hongxing Zhang, senior curator at the V&A, and the culmination of years of research and patient negotiation.

_{Qiu Ying, 'Saying Farewell at Xunyang' (detail), c.1500-50. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City/ Photo John Lamberton.}

The chronological arrangement of the exhibition traces the major developments in the history of painting in China. The first section, ‘Objects of Devotion’, concentrates on the Tang dynasty silk paintings and banners from the Buddhist centre of Dunhuang, and also reveals the cosmological interests of the period. Although landscape dominates in subsequent sections, the inventiveness and playfulness of the painters is also demonstrated in characterful depictions of horses, doves, flycatchers, roosters, monkeys and dragons.

One can also note the shift towards a more monochrome aesthetic from 950, a style that came to dominate until the late 19th century. Despite this shift, one of the ‘Four Great Masters’ of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Qiu Ying, reveals a more playful approach by his unexpected use of colour in the hand-scroll Saying Farewell at Xunyang (c.1500-50). In a painting about intellectual friendship, a classic subject of Chinese poetry, instead of the traditional monochrome landscape style, the artist employs a startlingly brilliant green and blue reminiscent of the earliest landscapes of the Tang. The final sections of the show cover the impressive artistic achievements of the Ming period – one of wealth, confidence and urban sophistication – as well as later artists’ explorations both of China’s past and an increasing awareness of the West. The country’s painting and calligraphy reached new heights that were inspired and extraordinarily creative.

• Masterpieces of Chinese Painting: 700–1900 is at the V&A until 19 January 2014

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