By staff reporters LIAO ZENGBAO & HUO JIANYING Chinatoday
NEW Year woodblock engraving
NEW Year woodblock engraving, a type of watercolor block printing, is a folk art that dates back hundreds of years. The whole process includes drawing, block cutting, printing and color processing. Woodblock engravings became popular in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and were an integral feature of Chinese New Year celebrations.
By staff reporter HUO JIANYING Chinatoday 2008-9
A few years ago, Beijing’s Summer Palace put together a unique exhibition that featured neither the precious antiques and works of art collected by successive imperial families, nor the sumptuous knick-knacks and everyday utensils used by the emperors and their empresses. On display, rather, were clay figurines usually identified as “folk art” — that is, art made by and for the lower classes. However, these particular clay artifacts were unique in that their collector was none other than Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908), the last of China’s absolute imperial rulers (excluding the “Last Emperor,” Pu Yi).
By staff reporter HUO JIANYING Chinatoday 2008-7
THE Goddess Nüwa is said to have created human beings by molding men and women out of clay and breathing life into them, making her, in a sense, the first Chinese clay artist. It is a creation myth that can be found in historical manuscripts going back some 2,000 years, and it speaks of Nüwa’s loneliness in a world without people. To ease her solitude, she fashioned the human race out of common clay and became the Mother of Humankind.
By staff reporter ZHANG XUEYING Chinatoday 2008-4
IN 2007, Chinese artists held a number of retrospective exhibitions, such as the Retrospective Exhibition of the No Name Group (1979), the Exhibition of 1985 Avant-garde Fine Art, the Retrospective Exhibition of the Star Art Group of 30 Years Ago, and the Exhibition of the Qingdao Dream of Modern Artists in the 1980s. Thirty years ago, however, many of the works now openly displayed were exhibited unofficially, and some were even banned by the government. Conventional wisdom holds that China’s contemporary art can be divided into four periods – the first being the post-“cultural revolution” period of 1976-1984, the second lasting from 1985 to 1989, the third from 1990 to 1999, and the fourth from 1999 to the present.
