Chinese art is not just the ink on the bronzes or scrolls in the museum. It is more like a dark river, flowing from 5000 years ago and still flowing under your feet today. I mean, as long as you know where to turn, you can touch the painted pottery of the Neolithic Age, the Ru kiln of the Song Dynasty, the graffiti wall of the post-90s, and even the NFT ink in the metauniverse. This article simply takes “Chinese art” as a detachable live map, and takes foreign friends to walk along the four routes according to time, region, material and experience. Visa, air ticket and appointment code are all marked for you, and you can book directly after reading.
Glimpse Of Chinese Art Time: Compress The Dynasty Into A Seven Day Journey
- Day 1: Beijing the Imperial Palace + National Museum, let the bronze Taotie and white jade Buddha give you “visual tie”.
- Day 2: Luoyang Longmen Grottoes, the 1,800 stone carving from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, can be seen in a day.
- Day 3: the forest of Steles in Xi’an regards calligraphy as a three-dimensional “the Great Wall of words”.
- Day 4: the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, special caves need to be booked on the official website one month in advance (https://www.mgk.org.cn).
- Day 5: Hangzhou The China Academy of Art, let’s see how the contemporary ink and wash “tide” up.
- Day 6: Shanghai West Coast Art Museum, pompilo × Chinese contemporary art joint exhibition is often free.
- Day 7: in Chengdu, after visiting IFS giant panda, I went to boring palladium street to see graffiti – yes, it’s also Chinese art.
In such a rolling seven day period, you can see the continuity of Chinese art with your naked eye: it’s almost never broken. In other words, other ancient civilizations may have left midway through, while Chinese craftsmen, literati, courts and villages have always been relay.
Chinese Art Regional Eggs: Why Is Jingdezhen Only The Second Place?
Most people went straight to Jingdezhen. In fact, Dehua white porcelain, Tongchuan Yaozhou kiln and Yuzhou Jun kiln are the local people’s private collections.
Transportation tips:
- Jingdezhen HSR Station to the Ming and Qing Dynasties garden pottery street, a taxi 15 yuan, the residential charged kiln can be burned that night.
- 1 bus at Dehua Quanzhou railway station, a bowl of salty rice at the night market of “porcelain Gang” in the pedestrian street is only 8 yuan.
- Yaozhou kiln got off at the “Jinghe new town” station of Xi’an Metro Line 10, and took a taxi for 10 yuan to arrive at the site park. There were few tourists, who could pull the blanks by hand.
By the way, some travelers thought that “Jiangnan = ink and wash”, but in fact, the fish skin clothes of the Hezhe ethnic group in the northeast and the tin embroidery of the Miao ethnic group in Qiandongnan still belong to the Chinese art system. It’s only when they are packaged that they are truly “global.”.
Chinese Art And “Material” List: Can’t Take Away, But Can Punch In
- Jade: the construction started at 5 o’clock in the morning market of Xiuyan, Liaoning, and the original stone jumped at 10 US dollars.
- Bamboo: Anji Zhuli workshop learned to split bamboo, two hours experience $40, including mailing finished products.
- Rice Paper: Wuxi, Jingxian County, Anhui Province, the ancient law workshop is open to the outside world, and “ten year old paper” can be bought on site.
- Zisha: take a taxi from Yixing HSR Station to master village for 20 yuan. Remember to see the “bottom seal” to identify the truth.
- NFT ink: in the “landscape on the chain” exhibition hall of Beijing 798, you can scan the code and save a dynamic “Fuchun Mountain Residence” into your wallet – Chinese art can also live forever on the chain.
Experience Calendar of Chinese Art : When The Season Is Right, Creation Is The Beginning
- Spring — on the first day of the opening ceremony of Hebei Wuqiang Wood-cut New Year Painting, the apprentice can develop a door god for free.
- Dragon Boat Festival – watch the “Dragon Boat depiction” by the Miluo River in Xiangxi, and the bow wood carving color painting is on the battlefield in real time.
- Mid Autumn Festival – night tour in Suzhou Wangshi garden, listen to Pingtan and describe a silk palace lamp at the same time.
- Winter Solstice – the day of drying books in Taipei the Imperial Palace (yes, they also recognize the subjectivity of Chinese Art), it can be seen that the original copy of “when it snows fast” is on a rolling Exhibition (it needs to be drawn on the official website).
Chinese Art Keywords Budget: How Much Can It Cost To “Enter The Pit”?
Minimum Cost Play
- The University Art Gallery is basically free, such as the Central Academy of art, the Chinese Academy of art, and Qinghua Art Museum.
- The two or three tier municipal museums usually do not charge tickets, only need ID cards.
- The youth hostel beds are 15 – 25 US dollars / night, and the subway + bike sharing is used for commuting.
Medium Budget
- The special caves and special exhibitions are about 30 to 50 US dollars per person, and the official tour guide will not hard sell.
- The one-day in-depth experience of ceramics / calligraphy is 80 to 120 US dollars, including materials and firing.
High Net Worth Players
- At night, the package caves at Dunhuang 220 caves +45 caves, the official price is 2,400 US dollars, limited to 10 people.
- The auction house Christie’s “Chinese art treasures” special session, raising the threshold of about $20,000.
The Rules Of Chinese Art “Bringing Goods”: Read The Policy Before Buying
There are three levels of cultural relics leaving the country, and all works before 1,949 need to be declared; Before 1,911, it was strictly forbidden to leave the country. Simple memory:
- Market stall to buy Contemporary Calligraphy fan → can be mailed;
- Porcelain of the Republic of China → it is necessary to issue the “temporary entry verification sheet of cultural relics”;
- The Ming Dynasty official kilns → think about it basically, unless you can prove that they were circulated overseas before 1,911 (almost impossible).
In a word: don’t rush to consign the goods after buying, and directly go to the window of the local cultural relics bureau to do the “exit paint seal”, saving time and money.
Chinese Art Digital Tools: “Plug-In” In Mobile Phones
- The “the Imperial Palace famous paintings” App, the 600 ultra Qing original works of the Imperial Palace can be magnified 20 times, and you can see the inscriptions and postscripts offline.
- “Travel around Dunhuang” small program, 360°cave ,cave panorama, support VR glasses.
- The WeChat small program “calligraphy dictionary” looks up the seal script and grass line at any time, and generates a dynamic picture in one second.
- “Guanamio · China” was launched by Google Arts and culture. The English version covers the Terracotta Army and Sanxingdui 3D models (Google Arts & Culture, 2,023).
In other words, you can even “Preview” in the cloud and directly advance to the site “two brush”.
Common Mistakes In Chinese Art: Don’t Let The Old Imagination Mislead You
- Some people think that Chinese art = “ancient + mysterious”. But in fact, 798 M50、The .The contemporary installations in Shunde and the art gallery are newer than those in Taite, London;
- Some people think that only “red envelopes” can jump in the queue to see caves. The truth is that the official website backup system is more reliable than cattle;
- Others feel that you must speak fluent Chinese to learn calligraphy, but many studios in Hangzhou and Chengdu have provided bilingual teaching, and half of the students in the junior class are with “0 Chinese” background.
In other words, Chinese art has been “out of the box” for a long time, only you are needed to refresh the filter.
References
- Google Arts & Culture. (2023). Meet Chinese Art https://artsandculture.google.com/project/chinese-art
- SOAS University of London. (2023). ‘Exchange Partnerships Retrieved from https://www.soas.ac.uk
- Tsinghua University. (2023). ‘Seal-Difusion: An AI Model for Chinese Seal Generation ‘Proceedings of the 36th CVPR , pp. 11421-11430.
- Shanghai Development And Reform Commission (2022). Shanghai Cultural Industry High Quality Development Three Year Action Plan (2022 – 2025). ‘Shanghai People’s Government Website Retrieved from https://www.shanghai.gov.cn
More Chinese culture: Culture
