L’ÉCOLE DE SHANGHAI (1840-1920)

Peintures et calligraphies du musée de Shanghai

From 8 March to 30 June 2013, the Musée Cernuschi will be continuing its exploration of Chinese painting with “The School of Shanghai 1840-1920,” after “Six Centuries of Chinese Painting” in 2009 and “Chinese Artists in Paris” in 2011.

The exhibition gathers exceptional items loaned by the Museum of Shanghai, and enabling to “discover a key period of Chinese art history, when painters and calligraphers settled in Shanghai created the new Modernity,” in the 19^th century, under the Qing dynasty. In the 1840s, the Jiangnan region, in Southern Central China, was troubled by conflicts in the towns of Nankin, Yangzhou and Hangzhou. Subsequently, a brilliant artistic community, present since the 18^th century, decided to settle in Shanghai. “Historical upheavals provoked a deep cultural change, but also a true renewal of the arts, characterised by free lines and the irruption of colour” as explains the museum’s website.

The exhibition presents firstly the heritage of Jiangnan, and then highlights some of the major figures that influenced the stylistic evolution, before eventually observing how the transfer of calligraphic models to the pictorial field crowned the expressive power of lines, especially with the “birds and flowers” category.