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Chinese exhibition of paintings:
Stirred souls, touched hearts
Charmaine Fernando
A Chinese Exhibition of Paintings was declared open at the National
Art Gallery, Colombo 7 at on July 9 under the auspices of Mr. Xin Weijun,
Deputy Chief of the District Congress who flew down for the event with a
6 member government delegation.
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Geese in flight
Pictures by Sulochana Gamage |
Chinese Cherry Blossoms |
Mysterious mountains |
Birds and fruits |
The exhibition was presented by the Yangpu District, Shanghai in
collaboration with the Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China in Sri
Lanka and the Ministry of National Heritage and Cultural Affairs of Sri
Lanka. The exhibition was held from 9th to the 12th of July 2010 and the
purpose of the show was to introduce the traditional culture of China to
the Sri Lankan people strengthening close ties of unity and improve
cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Forty seven masterpieces from twenty four professional painters of
china on show here were essentially beautiful landscapes, both
imaginative and natural environment.
It was evident that most paintings had blacks and grays dominating
the scenes. When queried whether it’s the artist’s mood or technique
that made it grey, I was explained that the paintings used the ink
sketch technique in black ink typical of Chinese art. This is an age old
technique where most often they had very fine pale yellow backdrops in
contrast.
The paintings were mostly landscapes of rolling mountains and
waterfalls, green gardens or real life studies of plant life. Reddish
pink Chinese Cherry Blossoms were a striking element in most of the
paintings. In most instances more than real life landscape sketches the
artist had his personal impressions of fantasy combined with it
reminding the onlooker the mysterious and mythical element ever present
in the Far-Eastern creative impressions.
The deep shadows, powerful swirls and black and brown boulders
dominated the mysterious looking mountain scenes that lift the viewer to
the next realm of imagination. Every painting had an untold story behind
it.
The paintings were done on a canvas like material and was hung like a
tapestry. It must be mentioned that the contemporary artists in China
does not make it a necessary element to depict people in their work. Of
course there were one or two exceptions among the forty seven paintings.
What I noticed was that despite the fact that modernity has touched the
Chinese society and industry the Chinese soul still held close to their
beliefs in mysteries and mythical powers and more than anything else
their traditional technique of expression. Every painting was a
fascinating exotic experience. |
