INSPIRING ARTISTS AND FANS
An ongoing exhibition at the National Museum of China showcases works from the French Revolution to the early 20th century. Lin Qi reports.
The Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts has had far-reaching influence on the 20th-century Chinese art. The 370-year-old Parisian national art school nurtured China’s first generation of oil painters and sculptors, some of whom later became headmasters and professors at China’s prestigious art schools, such as Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian. There were also former director of the national art museum, Liu Kaiqu, and renowned artists such as Wu Guanzhong.
The Chinese alumni of the school, also called Beaux-Arts de Paris, also included Chang Shuhong and his first wife and sculptor, Chen Zhixiu, who lived in Paris in the 1930s.
Chang is often called the “patron saint of Dunhuang” for his 50 years’ devotion to the preservation of Dunhuang artworks in Gansu province.
Chang, who gave up the prospect of being an oil painter, won many awards at salon exhibitions in Paris when he was a student there.
A painting in which Chang depicts a sick Chen Zhixiu was purchased by France’s Centre national des arts plastiques, or the National Centre for Visual Arts, also called CNAP, in 1935.
Since then, the painting titled Feverishly Sick has been on display at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon.
Now, the portrait is being shown in the country where its creator was born.
Feverishly Sick is among more than 40 artworks from CNAP’s collection, which are displayed at Academy and Salon, an exhibition through May 6 at the National Museum of China. The show concentrates on art and social development in France from the French Revolution to the early 20th century.
The exhibition also features around 60 paintings and sculptures from Chang’s alma mater BeauxArts de Paris, which has collected more than 450,000 artworks since it was founded in 1648 by Louis XIV.
Pan Qing, a senior curator of the National Museum of China, says the ongoing show is the inclusive display of art from Beaux-Arts de Paris’ collection in the country.
The exhibition will travel to Kunming, Yunnan province, and be there from June 8 to Sept 9.
Philippe Cinquini, the exhibition’s French curator, says it is rare for two Parisian institutions to come together for an event like this.
The exhibition also marks the China debut of three important paintings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) — Male Torso, The Envoys of Agamemnon Jupiter and Thetis.
Ingres, a French neoclassic painter, is famed for painting portraits, especially nudes.
The first two pieces are from Beaux-Arts de Paris’ collection and were both exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris. while the third one is from CNAP and has been on display since 1835 at the Musee Granet in the southern city-commune Aix-en-Provence.
In another significant departure from the norm where paintings at exhibitions are typically displayed separately, the ongoing show has some of the works placed unevenly in two or three decks, which Cinquini says was the way that paintings were arranged in salons of 19th-century Paris. It is still how works are exhibited at the Beaux-Arts de Paris today.
Cinquini also says important artists of the 19th-century like Ingres are at the heart of this exhibition.
“The 19th century was a century of art,” Cinquini says. “Also it was a century of advancing science and democracy, which was mirrored in artistic creation.”
Among the other significant works on show is Andre Brouillet’s A Clinical Lesson at the Salpetriere Hospital from the CNAP collection.
The work is a tableau portrait of a neurologist giving a demonstration.
The piece is widely considered one of the best known artistic depictions of medicine, and Cinquini says it shows the interaction between science and art, as among the participants in the lesson is Paul Richer, an anatomist and sculptor.
Ricer was a professor of artistic anatomy at Beaux-Arts de Paris whose class was attended by Chang Shuhong.
The exhibition also focuses on how art academies, competitions and public collections piloted creation and supported artists, by showcasing works which were winners of the Grand Prix de Roma.
The prize and scholarship established in the 17th century allowed promising artists to stay in Rome for three to five years at state expense.
The exhibition also highlights the role of CNAP in collecting art.
Anne-Sophie de Bellegarde, general secretary of CNAP, says the institution was founded in 1791 during the French Revolution, when France established a system of public purchase and collection of art.
She says CNAP manages a holding of artworks that is “without a fence”.
CNAP first bought works of living French artists and then, in the 19th century, it started to include foreign artists who lived in France
If you go If you go
Friday at French Artists’ Salon has been on display since 1932.
Pan from the National Museum of China says several of the paintings are huge and created difficulties in transportation.
Grun’s Friday at French Artists’ Salon stands at 3.6 meters and extends to 6 meters. The painting had to be removed from its original frame and rolled up for transportation. It was put back into its frame after arriving in Beijing.
The CNAP had a restoration expert working in Beijing to oversee the re-framing process.
Bellegarde says the tour has extended the influence of CNAP, and they hope to bring its works to more Chinese museums in the future.