Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
Arts Two Exhibits by David Katz Two excellent special exhibits have opened recently, one in New York and one in Cleveland. China, Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD will run until January 23, 2005 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Dukes and Angels, Art from the Court of Burgundy (1364-1419) is at the Cleveland Museum of Art until January 9. Both are extraordinary, well-mounted exhibits that illuminate two periods of flowering of human artistic endeavor. The China exhibit covers the later Han through Tang dynasties, when Chinese civilization and culture expanded and flowered as never before. The Burgundy exhibit represents the period when the Dukes of Burgundy rivaled the King of France in power and influence, and outshone him in art and culture.
What both of these exhibits have in common, besides the extraordinary quality of the work displayed, is the commentary that makes clear the relationship between cultured, enlightened noble patrons and the scope and quality of the art they commissioned and engendered, and the impact of contact with a broader world. China, during its Golden Age, was expanding and changing through contact with Northern and Western Asian peoples; Burgundy, which had absorbed areas now part of Belgium and the Netherlands, benefitted from the extraordinary work of Low Country artists and artisans. In both cases, the impact of these other groups stimulated local artists and changed artistic tastes in the center of the realm, as well as providing a pool of talent from the periphery.
In both exhibits, sculpture predominates. In the case of the Chinese exhibit, this is because sculpture is more durable, and many of the objects are actually grave goods or religious objects. In the case of the Burgundy exhibit, this is also partly because of the durability of sculpture, but mostly because these breathtaking works far outshine any of the other art forms of that time and place. Nevertheless, Chinese scroll paintings and Burgundian illuminated manuscripts have a significant place, and reward the viewer not only by their visual appeal, but also by the contributions these paintings and manuscripts make to telling a fuller story of their period.
The New York exhibit covers over five centuries of Chinese history. During that period, dynasties fell, parts of China came under foreign occupation and rulership, and new native dynasties arose. The exhibition is divided thematically into five sections: the fall of an empire (Han China, AD 220), represented by architectural models, miniatures of attendants and guards, stone and ceramic chimeras, jade cups and other pieces; the coming of the Xianbei and other nomads (through the late 6th Century), represented by earthenware figures, hat ornaments, and horse furniture such as saddle plates and ornaments; the Silk Road, China's trade route to the West, represented by complexly patterned wall hangings and other textile goods, and decorative household implements; North and South (late 5th-6th Centuries), with the divided empire represented by earthenware statuary, terra cotta figurines, decorated bricks, mural rubbings and pottery in fantastic shapes; and Reunification (6th-8th Centuries), the Sui and Tang dynasties that oversaw China during one of its peak periods of expansion and prosperity, represented by strong yet delicate stone, wood and ceramic statuary, jewelry, paintings and sarcophagi.
Such a broad temporal reach allows the mounters of this exhibition to trace artistic, cultural and political developments and show both evolutionary and revolutionary changes in the world's oldest and most culturally enduring civilization.
The Cleveland Burgundian exhibit, restricted as it is to the period from Philip the Bold through Charles the Bold, covers a mere 113 years in the political life of Northern France and the Low Countries, and is thus unable to show the sweep of history in quite the same way as the New York presentation, but it is able to focus more closely on the religious, architectural and scholarly life of the times. The Dukes of Burgundy, descendants of the Royal House of Valois, took the arts of statecraft and war seriously. Nowhere is this more beautifully illustrated than in a remarkable illuminated manuscript, Teachings or Ordinances for a Lord Who Must Govern While Away at War. Our current vision of illuminated manuscripts has monks laboring their lives away recopying and adorning religious works; in Burgundy, while there was no shortage of rich religious manuscripts, illuminated books in this exhibit also include Aristotle's Ethics, the collected works of Christine de Pisan, an independent woman who wrote City of Women and other works interpreted today as being proto-feminist, Legends of the Holy Grail incorporating Arthurian tales, The Book of King Practice and Queen Theory (A Treatise on Hunting), The Romance of the Castellan of Concy, a gory tale of marital betrayal and revenge, and numerous other books of statecraft, music, and religious explication. The workmanship is sublime, but the content speaks volumes about the intelligence and world view of Burgundy's rulers.
Some paintings and tapestries are on display, but it the sculpture that is the star of the show. The tomb sculpture of Philip the Bold, executed by low countries artists Claus Sluter and his nephew Claus De Werve, contains, in addition to the effigy of the Duke, a series of mourning statuettes, called pleurants, that are marvels of design and execution. In all the sculpture of the period, from larger-than-life to miniature, stone has been carved so cleverly that draperies seem to flow, and personalities shine from the eyes of the figures. Larger pieces, such as the Moses from the Chartreuse de Champmol, have a majesty and integrity rarely achieved in any era. The smaller works, like the funerary miniatures, lack nothing in fluidity or personality they are jewels, every one.
These exhibits will only be on display for a few weeks more. If you are in New York or Cleveland, don't miss them.
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