The Awakening of Modern China at the Cernuschi Museum: The school Lingnan

(Exhibition from March 20 to June 28, 2015)

The birth and evolution of the last great school of traditional painting in the turbulent political context of China in the early twentieth century.

Last great school of traditional Chinese painting, the school of Lingnan was born in Guangdong (Canton current region), province long open to international trade and foreign influences.
In the early twentieth century, Chen Shuren and the two brothers Gao Gao Jianfu and Gao Qigeng, are concerned about the political and cultural slowdown in China. as many of their contemporary artists and thinkers, they then turn to Japan to rebuild a Chinese modernity. They are based on the Nihonga, renovating movement of traditional Japanese painting, and develop an original painting style.

The school Lingnan enriched naturalists issues specific to the Japanese sensibility. In addition, the themes inspired by contemporary events and other featuring the people in daily activities occupy a hitherto unprecedented in Chinese art. The rise of nationalism in response to the loss of authority of the Manchu state and against foreign interference, led these artists to question the social and political implications of their work and to address frontally the tragic events of history working.

Thanks to the rich collection of the Hong Kong Museum and the loan of Japanese works by European museums and private collectors, the Cernuschi museum traces the birth of this school and the complexity of its registration in a turbulent political context that gives it its artistic importance as historical.

Information here