An Everlasting Spring: The Art of Painting and Calligraphy in Shanghai

Date:2021-06-22 - 2021-09-21
Location:Chinese Painting Gallery, Chinese Calligraphy Gallery, 3F

Overview

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Shanghai Museum hosts the special exhibition, "An Everlasting Spring: The Art of Painting and Calligraphy in Shanghai." The exhibition is also a key move in response to the call of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and the Shanghai Municipal Government to highlight the brand of "Shanghai Culture" and to safeguard and promote the Red culture, Shanghai style culture, and Jiangnan culture. For this reason, following the successful exhibitions of "Collection and Connoisseurship of Painting and Calligraphy of Wu Hufan" in 2015 and "The Ferryman of Ink World: Dong Qichang's Calligraphy and Painting Art" in 2018, the Museum has curated this event to complete its Trilogy of Shanghai, a series of monographic research on calligraphy and painting.

As the first academic attempt to systematically sort and study Shanghai calligraphy and painting of the past generations, the exhibition selects 146 pieces (or sets) of art work created over the more than one thousand years since the Three Kingdoms period. They are thematically categorised into four parts: (1) "Tradition: The Artistic Accomplishments," (2) "Civilisation: The Regional Interactions," (3) "Collection: The Artistic Influence," and (4) "Innovation: The Shanghai Charm." The exhibition intends to chronologically review and summarise the accomplishments of Shanghai calligraphy and painting in a comprehensive and systematic manner to examine their status in and influence over art history. It also explores the artistic features of Shanghai calligraphy and painting of the past one thousand years, in terms of profundity, purity, inclusiveness, and creativity, to help understand the urban vibe and humanistic fabric of the cosmopolis.

"I have travelled all over the tranquil and beautiful Jiangnan, where Huzhou is the only inhabitable place." ("Huzhou" by Dai Biaoyuan of the Yuan) "There's no need to speak of the dream city of Yangzhou in inscriptions. Why not paint Yunjian on a scroll?" (inscription on the handscroll of Zhang Wo's A Cottage to the West of the Bamboo Grove by Yang Yu of the Yuan) These verses show that, to some extent, the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting is also the convergence of the histories of art across the nation. Shanghai is one of the cultural centres in Jiangnan as well as in the Lake Tai basin. To grasp the evolution of Chinese painting and its aesthetic, it is especially essential to unscramble and understand the city's artistic accomplishments over the more than a thousand years and to examine its position and influence in the history of painting. It is believed that this exhibition and the research it entails will serve as a starting point for further studies in the history of Chinese art.

Highlights
Improvisation in a Hurry in Clerical Cursive Script, album leaf rubbings
Wild Ducks and Gulls by an Autumn Lake, hanging scroll
Portraits of Lu Ji and Lu Yun, leaf
Cotton Roses and Mandarin Ducks, hanging scroll
A Letter to Daozu in Running Script, handscroll
Poetic Sentiments amid Dusk Clouds, hanging scroll
Landscapes in the Manner of Old Masters, album leaf
Seeing Off a Friend by the Dian Lake, handscroll
An Essay on Raising Funds for the Monastery of the True Mirror in Running Script, handscroll
Greenness in Cool Dusk, leaf
The Garden of the Winding Stream, handscroll
Excerpt of Four Maxims on Non-exhaustion in Clerical Script, leaf
A Complement to the Letter in Reply to Xie Minshi by Su Shi of the Northern Song Dynasty in Running Script, handscroll
Landscape of the Outskirts of the Capital, handscroll
On the Northern and Southern Dialects in Cursive Script, leaf
On the Hall of Blessed Longevity in Running Regular Script, handscroll
Inventory of the Calligraphy and Painting Collection in Running Script (on Fourteen Pages), album leaf
Pang Yuanji Holding a Rabbit, hanging scroll
Congratulations on China’s Successful Detonation of the First Atomic Bomb, hanging scroll
An Everlasting Spring, hanging scroll
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