Chinese Painting: Beauties and Plum: Featuring Works of Late Qing
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Plum Trees and Crane (detail), By Song Baochun, Qing dynasty, dated 1793 (Gift of Mr. Takashima Kikujiro)
Asian Gallery (Toyokan) Room 8
May 16, 2017 (Tue) - June 18, 2017 (Sun)In China, images of beautiful women and plum trees overlap with one another. The flower petals, together with the elegant branches, were poetically described as, “skin of ice and bones of jade,” which were also words of praise for women. In a tale of the plum fairy at Mount Luofu, a man spends a night with a beautiful woman, only to find in the morning that she was just a plum tree. Legends also note the Northern Song-dynasty literatus Lin Hejing, who adored plum blossoms so much that the plum came to be reputed as his wife, along with the crane as his child. This exhibition features the aesthetics represented by beauties and plum trees, from the turbulent times of the late 19th century, when the Qing dynasty declined and the Republic period began.
Current exhibit includes:
Plum Trees and Crane, By Song Baochun, Qing dynasty, dated 1793 (Gift of Mr. Takashima Kikujiro)
Lady under Plum Blossom, By Tang Luming, Qing dynasty, dated 1843 (Private collection)
Dreaming under Plum Blossom, By Yu Ming, Republic period, 20th century (Private collection)
Figures and Landscape, By Huang Shen, Qing dynasty, dated 1727(Gift of Mr. Takashima Kikujiro)