Number Thirty Three

For Field this term, I got the choice to do either two five week projects or one eleven week project. I chose the eleven week project giving me the chance to spend two weeks in Rajasthan, Northern India. While I am there, I am to experience the culture and take my knowledge to produce an art piece.

Yesterday I went to the V&A in London to see the Asian exhibit. The tapestries were my favourite as they were absolutely beautiful.  They had so much detail and colour in them, I found it mesmerising. The paintings were so detailed; I couldn’t believe that they had been painted with (opaque) watercolour and every painting told a story.

While I was there, I saw the ‘Masters of Chinese Painting 700 – 1900’ which was fascinating. The amount of work a painting takes with all the layers is incredible. There are a lot of landscape paintings in the exhibit, marvelling the Chinese surroundings however, the landscape paintings were imagined, they did not record actual places. The later paintings looked less detailed with quick and bigger brush strokes but if you looked closely enough, you could see that each area of ink had many very fine brush strokes.

At the colleges, students studying painting were given lines of poetry in their exams and asked to turn them into subtle pictorial ideas. Students started painting subjects of the past to prove they were as good as the old masters that they admire. Most of the artists worked in seclusion, independently making personal paintings. Subject matter is filled with literacy , philosophical and political meaning. Through their work painting moved from imitation to expressing emotions and inner thoughts. Black ink on white paper became popular as it was the aesthetic of solitude.

Fa Ruozhen turned to beauty in the surroundings.

Chen Hongshou and Zheng Xie turned to theatre, popular woodblock prints and ancient stone engravings.

Shi Tao and Bada Shanren were influenced by their own lives.

Furthermore, I saw the ‘Jameel Prize 3’ exhibition. The Jameel Prize is an international award for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition. Its aim is to explore the relationship between Islamic traditions of art, craft and design and contemporary work as part of a wider debate about Islamic culture and its role today. My favourite piece was by Florie Salnot, she only used hot sand, simple tools and spray paint to transform discarded plastic bottles into exquisite necklaces and bracelets.

While I was there, I really wanted to go see the ‘Pearls’ exhibit but unfortunately the last viewing was after I left. I think I will go back to the V&A and see this exhibition and to explore the museum in more depth.