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Last glance at Spring Festival, plus new photo show
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IF you stayed in China during the Spring Festival you could have seen local customs like colorful New Year paintings and red couplets used to decorate doorways of houses. To understand the significance and history of the unique holiday culture, some ongoing exhibitions are here to help.
At the gallery of the China Academy of Art, two exhibitions explain the tradition of Chinese New Year painting (nianhua), while at Zhejiang Art Museum a spring couplet (chunlian) exhibition invited 60 local calligraphers to write their wishes for the Year of the Rooster. Meanwhile, with the holiday now over, other galleries and museums have already rolled out new exhibitions.
New Year painting exhibitions
New Year pictures known as nianhua are colored woodblock prints used for decoration during Spring Festival.
These pictures often feature strong contrasts of primary colors. Their subjects are mostly gods, babies and ordinary people celebrating. Sometimes these images feature well-known Chinese stories.
Though a very typical form of Chinese folk art, in the 18th and 19th centuries, nianhua produced in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, were influenced by Western arts and started to feature concepts such as perspective and scale.
At the Suzhou Nianhua Exhibition, now underway at the Gallery of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, people can see how East met West in 13 woodblock prints made during the mid Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). These prints depict ordinary life and city scenes in Suzhou. The exhibition in total showcases over 90 paintings. It is organized by Suzhou Public Culture Center.
A parallel exhibition is underway at the same gallery, which includes over 100 nianhua, including a selection from the China Academy of Art, and modern works by students of the prestigious institution.
In ancient times, nianhua were mass-produced and displayed for those who could not read, and thus they were usually printed with simple lines and bright, warm colors.
Despite the fact that the faces of people in nianhua are drawn with just a few lines, the costumes, accessories and the landscape as well as other subjects can be extremely detailed and complicated.
Date: Suzhou Nianhua Exhibition will end on February 28, and the other one will end on March 5 (closed on Mondays), 9am-4:30pm
Address: 218 Nanshan Rd
Admission: Free
New Year couplets exhibition
To decorate home doorways, Chinese people not only use nianhua but also chunlian (spring couplets), with text often expressing their best wishes.
Though the festival is over, an exhibition of chunlian will last until this weekend at Zhejiang Art Museum, not far from the nianhua exhibition. The museum invited over 60 artists in Zhejiang Province to create works for the exhibition.
For foreigners who can’t read Chinese characters, the art of Chinese calligraphy may be difficult to enjoy. However, “it is not necessary to first understand each character to appreciate the art,” said Si Shunwei, the director of the museum.
“The point is to observe its composition, balance, and the flow of the brush,” Si added.
Also held at the museum is the Collection Exhibition of Art Museums in Zhejiang Province, which exhibits 100 selected pieces from 27 museums in the province.
Date: Through February 9, 9am-4:30pm
Address: 138 Nanshan Rd
Admission: Free
Huan Xiang exhibition
Photographer Wang Fei is the subject of a solo photography show titled “Huan Xiang” (or “Awake Images”) at the Light Gallery in Hangzhou.
Some works rose out of Wang’s sympathy with the nature. A picture of a tree with around 50 crows perching upon and underneath it was taken the moment the photographer saw the scene. All the birds immediately flew away after he pressed the shutter.
A group of photos of the Karakoram mountains have unusual green, yellow and yellowish hues.
“I did not modify colors,” claimed Wang. “This is the tint of nature. I just wait and observe light till I feel it is time to press the shutter.”
Another interesting group includes dozens of photos of yellow arrows Wang shot during his 33-day walking trip through “The Way of St James” in Europe.
“There are always marks leading you, from trees, poles, in corners and bushes, as if signals from heaven.”
Date: Through February 28 (closed on Mondays), 9am-5pm
Address: 1/F, B Mansion, 415 Chengye Rd
Admission: Free
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