On January 28th, "Colorful Colors - 400 Years of Chinese Chromatic Printmaking Art" was launched at the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, a public welfare cultural and artistic institution donated by Minsheng Bank. As a New Year's Eve exhibition launched by the art museum during the Spring Festival, the exhibition exhibits a total of more than 120 kinds of color prints and independent works that began in the Ming Dynasty and ended in 2020, spanning more than 400 years, showing the charm of traditional Chinese printing techniques and presenting the flow of different eras of Chinese chromatic printmaking art.
In ancient Chinese philosophy, Lao Tzu had the saying that "five colors are blinding", and the prosperity of ink painting since the Yuan Dynasty seems to have verified this warning and view from one side. However, from the perspective of the etiquette system of "the east is called green, the south is red, the west is called white, the north is called black, the sky is called Xuan, and the earth is called yellow" ("Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji"), to the verse "half of the river is half red", to the many common words of green silk haoshou, green face red face, wine green light red, all of them present the colors of ancient China.
Ming Cheng's Ink Garden
Ming Ten Bamboo Painting Notation
Qing Ten Bamboo Zhai color prints
China is also the inventor of chromatic printing, which allows all the colorful things in the world - mountains and rivers, birds, insects and fish, chess and piano calligraphy and painting - to remain in the shadows and spread the world. The discovery of the Ming Dynasty's "Luoxuan Changing Ancient Notes" shocked the world, the maturity of its technology is breathtaking, and the subtle lightness of art is even more unprecedented, and the inheritance lasts for four hundred years.
Gu Su prints Wax turn spring back Ding Liang first made
Gusu prints Snow scenes
After 1949, the talents and beauties in the art of chromatic printmaking and Katsugen Koyama were replaced by the lives of laborers and a new world in full swing, and chromatic prints were greatly broadened in subject matter.
Since the 1990s, avant-garde artists have no longer stuck to the scrutiny and indulgence of chromatic technology, and the huge size and variety of tools have made artists more free in expressing themselves, more impactful in display effects, and more suitable for today's grand art museums - unconsciously, the color set has also jumped from personal private small spaces, small-scale book illustrations used or enjoyed by relatives and friends, independent art works, jumping into public art spaces, competing with the art of other media. Not only that, as the source of japanese ukiyo-e painting, which has had an important impact on the development of modern art in Europe and the United States, Chinese chromatic prints are also an indispensable part of global art history.
Chen Qi Tianren Occasion 2019 240x120cm watermark print
Fang Lijun 1996.18 1996 244x366cm woodblock print
Liu Wei Monkey 2008 200x200cm silkscreen prints Hand-drawn
Su Xinping Wasteland No. 3 2017 300x200cm copper engraving
Wei Jia Shan Gao Shui Long 2019 105.5x71.5cm lithograph edition
Structurally, the exhibition is divided into five sections: "The Birth of Chromaticism", "The Technique and Art of Chromaticism", "The Meaning of Images and the Influence of Chromaticism", "Gusu Edition", and "The New Development of Chromaticism - A Way of Pioneering Art". These precious exhibits gradually appear with the new concepts and styles of different eras, they not only constitute different sections of this exhibition, but also are precious components in the development process of Chinese art history, printing history, publishing history, and book history, and touch the rushing pulse of the times with their vivid vitality.
On the opening day of the exhibition, an online roundtable discussion on "Five Colors - 400 Years of Chinese Chromatic Printmaking Art" was held. During the exhibition, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum will hold a variety of public education activities, including a series of lectures, workshops, children's aesthetic education, etc., to better show the historical value and contemporary charm of Chinese chromatic prints to the public.
The exhibition will run until April 30.
Showroom site:
Nandu reporter Huang Qian