INSPIRING ARTISTS AND FANS

An ongoing exhibition at the National Museum of China showcases works from the French Revolution to the early 20th century.

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. Clockwise from top:

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 and 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 and “exuded an Bellegarde.

She says the collection now holds more than 102,000 works, and it grows every year by acquiring two or three works representing different styles.

The first Chinese artwork that entered the CNAP collection was a painting depicting Luxembourg in the snow by painter Liu Haisu (1896-1994), in 1931.

Liu was then traveling in Europe and had held a solo exhibition in Paris.

In 1952, CNAP purchased Qiantang River, a landscape by Chinese artist Fang Junbi, which is exhibited at the ongoing event.

Fang was admitted to Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1919, becoming the first Chinese woman to study at the academy.

CNAP does not have a regular venue for display but loans its works to museums and institutions.

Bellegarde says around 2,000 artworks from this collection are shown in France and around the world, while others decorate public spaces including the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French president.

Artworks from CNAP’s collection at the Academy and Salon exhibition come from different museums and exhibition venues all over France.

And they include the city hall of Chinon where Eugene Delacroix’s Portrait of Rabelais has been on display since 1834; the Calvet Museum in Avignon that has featured Camille Corot’s Site of Italy since 1842 and the Rouen Museum of Fine Arts where Jules-Alexandre Grun’s 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. artistic life”, says

Paul Landowski’s sculpture David Prepares to Launch a Sling; Artists in France in 1933; and Nursery School by Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy. artist Xu Beihong (front left) and other members of the Association of Chinese

if not fatal, consequences if hadn’t executed them correctly.

“I have to take risks and try new challenges. The most dangerous things are usually unseen, such as the bacteria that carry diseases,” he says.

So far, Rolfe has taken his performance art shows to more than 40 countries across the world. He produces about 20 art pieces every year, as much of his time is taken up by teaching.

As one of the few performing artists to still practice the art at an elderly stage, he admits that he won’t do many of the things he used to in the past just to avoid injury. But he still enjoys the process of performing.

He loves to use colored flour, which brings back childhood memories of helping his mother make desserts in his hometown on the Isle of Wight in England. He loves the phrase from the Bible that says: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

“It’s about life and death, transformation,” Rolfe says.

Talking about his near half-century in performance art, Stampe says that Rolfe’s works have always been about “right now”, and so every time he performs, he is marking a turning point during a period of uncertainty.

And it has been these uncertainties that have driven Rolfe to continue performing throughout his life. he

10 am-5:30 pm, through Feb 25. Red Brick Art Museum, Shunbai Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-84576669.

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