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THE MAGAZINE EXHIBITIONS
Paris Shanghai on the road to modernity
The Shanghai Museum is lending a large
selection of paintings and calligraphies to
the Musée Cernuschi for an exhibition dedicated
to the Shanghai School. This belonged
to a very troubled period in Chinese history:
the end of the Opium War. In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking
gave Westerners access to ports like Canton and Shanghai.
A number of artists, antique dealers and historians
settled there, and their contact with a cosmopolitan
society brought about a new interpretation of the
Empire's cultural history, paving the way to modernity.
Classical painting subtly changed through the use of
various techniques like stamping, archaic calligraphy
and seal engraving, and eventually new media like
photography (which had many enthusiasts in Shanghai),
all of which contributed ideas like relief, trompe-l'œil and
a more powerful line, particularly evident in the work of
Zhao Ziqian. This poet, calligrapher, seal engraver and
flower painter followed a tradition going back to the
Yuan dynasty, and passed down through the great Ming
dynasty painter Shen Zhou, who favoured the use of
brush and ink. The painters of the Shanghai School
sought this powerful impulse while adopting the use of
Western colours. One of its chief proponents was Ren
Xiong (1823-1857), a member of the "Four Rens" family
from Xiaoshan, a region south of Shanghai. The young
Xiong studied the art of the portrait with a village
teacher. But he rebelled against the orthodox rules of
painting early on, and in 1846 left his native village for
Hangzhou, where he met the collector Zhou Xian. He
spent a number of years with him, copying the ancient
Museum
Ren Xiong (1823-1857), "La Chaumière du lac Fan" (detail),
ink and colours on paper, 39.7 x 705.4 cm.
Shanghai ©
88 GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL I N° 23
HD