China summer

Post Conservation Mural, Ink and colors on paper, © Palace Museum, Beijing.

Last week four of us took a break from the heat and spent the day immersed in Chinese art and culture at the Milwaukee Art Museum's (MAM) blockbuster exhibit "CHINA: 3,000 years of Chinese Art / Five Exhibitions / One Summer." It's all part of a year-long celebration honoring the ten-year anniversary of the Museum’s Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion. If by chance you haven't been to the museum to experience the wings of the Burke Brise Soleil, that alone is worth a trip — as you can see from this little video.

 

The centerpiece of the exhibitions is "The Emperor's Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City," an assortment of 90 works ranging from cloisonne and clocks to carved furniture, screens and scrolls and huge architectural and garden elements. This is being shown in only three cities and Milwaukee is one of the stops. All the items are from the Qianlong Garden, a two-acre complex within the Forbidden City that was built as a retirement home for the Qianlong Emperor and included 4 courtyards, 5 rockeries, and 27 buildings and pavilions. All the structures and gardens were named, and I was so taken with them that I had to write them all down:

• The Gate of Spreading Auspiciousness
• Pavilion of Properity
• Pavilion of Picking Fragrance (a reference to cut flowers perhaps?)
• Studio of Self-Restraint
• Pavilion of Soaring Beauty
• Three Friends Bower (the three friends are bamboo, pine and plum trees)
• Building for Enjoying Lush Scenery
• Belvedere of Viewing Achievements 
• Pavilion of the Purification Ceremony
• Pavilion of Brilliant Dawn
• Bower of Ancient Catalpa 
• Terrace for Collecting Morning Dew 
• Hall of Fulfilling Original Wishes
• Building of Extending Delight
• Supreme Chamber for Cultivating Harmony
• Building of Luminous Clouds
• Bower of Purest Jade
• Lodge of Bamboo Fragrance
• Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service 

Hanging panel with niches, © Palace Museum, Beijing.

The Qianlong Emperor was a calligrapher, poet and art collector with a taste that embraced Western as well as Eastern objects and imagery. Mark's favorite quote by the Emperor:

"I want to be called a person with nothing to do."

Mark believes that he himself has reached this stage of life but I have not! He's probably right given that I am sitting here blogging at 7 a.m.

Comments

[Lisa at Greenbow]

All of those names are interesting. I really like the one of 'studio of self restraint'. It appears to me to be an empty room since there was no restraint any place else. tee hee. I wonder if the last one is just a fancy name for bedroom. ?? You will never be a person with nothing to do. ha What a thought. Perhaps that was the way he wanted to say he was too busy.

[Altoon]

Thanks for all those incredible names; their poetry is marvelous. I found the work displayed too ornate for my sensibility so didn't pay attention to the titles.

[LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD]

Altoon —

We would agree with you on the ornateness of it all; interesting but mostly too over the top for us as well.

Our favorite things were all the "peripheral" exhibits: the Chinoiserie, the contemporary scrolls (many very abstract expressionist from the 1960s), and the marvelous collection of ceramics from the Han, Tang and Ming dynasties. Many large pieces including a couple of Han horses, a marvelous terra cotta mastiff (very large but not quite life size), and a captivating trio of musicians.

[Jeanne Heuer]

We recently saw the show as well and enjoyed it. That was Curt's favorite quote s well. And we think all retired State employees should be provided with a "Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service."