Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The larger American museums are so eager to be all inclusive that many of their collections appear so obligatory and so minor as to seem hardly worth the time needed to create galleries for them or to visit them. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art this appears to be especially true in The Chinese Collection. Compared to the Chicago Art Institute with it magnificent collection of Tang Dynasty tomb figures and Chinese ceramics, or the Minneapolis Art Institute’s Asian ceramics, or the Portland Museum’s Han Dynasty tomb figures and stellar Asian Ceramics, the Metropolitan shows us merely a sampler.

Furthermore, not all of those samples are shown to their best advantage: the Asian Ceramics are displayed in virtines on two sides of the mezzanine of the Great Hall, on only three or four shelves, up against the wall and but one thin aisle distant from the tables and chairs that have been crowded into that space for a makeshift lunchroom. They continue on the other two sides of the mezzanine in passageways from other collections to other collections. The great open space of this floor is filled with the hubbub from the visitor’s entry on the main floor. This seems to me a rather disrespectful and indifferent presentation.

There are likely any number of reasons for this, the lack of space being one of them, but another conclusion that can be made is that the management of the Met has little interest in the Asian Arts and would like visitors to share their indifference.

Having given some time and study to China these past few years I have been absolutely perplexed that calligraphy is considered the highest Chinese art form. I do know that for the Chinese calligraphy is understood to be not just the making of ideograms, but any drawing done by hand. While I can appreciate the drawing, I do not understand why a sheet of characters has the high esteem it enjoys. Seeing this exhibition listed, “Anatomy of a Masterpiece”, I was hoping that it would enlighten me.

I would think that the western and the eastern art lovers look at these works from a completely different perspective. I know, in fact, that while we look at these objects in museum settings wherein we glide by without stopping too long in order to get through the gallery and on to the next, for the Chinese, and especially in the earlier periods, these objects were contemplated in the silence and privacy of the home: the Philadelphia Museum has a beautiful reconstructed Scholars Study that creates the perfect imagine for us of that environment. And rather than seeing them spread in a vitrine they were studied and enjoyed on a desk top or in a special installation, such as Frank Lloyd Wright made for himself at Taliesin. But aside from the how they are viewed, I am more interested in the way, in the sense of the cultural way, they are viewed: how does the Chinese scholar begin to read these works?

There are thirty six works shown in this exhibition and there are photographic blow ups of details from almost all of them bringing our attention to particular passages. There is ample discussion about the details and subject matter within the works, but from the anecdotal and western rather than the eastern point of view.

There is some explanation as to how these were made and how the tools and materials were manipulated to achieve various effects. But despite the fine scholarship of the interpretation this seemed to have a focus on the trees but not the forest. Most disappointing for me was that there was no interpretation of why the Chinese have maintained their high regard for these works for over a thousand years.

Some of these works are spectacular. “Shining White Light” is a magnificent example of form, the horse, used as expressive form. “Leaves and Finches” is pure visual delight. And in a long scroll, “16 Lohans”, there is a marvel of vegetation surrounding the activities of very thinly drawn persons. I especially like it that the Chinese calligraphers generally isolate the subject on the ground and dispense with a suggested or minutely depicted surround. But most impressive is the display of a profound mastery of draftsmanship: it seems incredible that a person with a pen or a brush can sit before a sheet of blank paper or silk and freely draw out something so expressive of his profound interest…especially when that drawing sometimes continues along a route that is ultimately 30 feet long! There is no sense in these works that the artist periodically stepped back to assess the progress of his work: this drawing appears to flow in one continuous movement from his pen.

While I admire what we would consider the drawing, as it regards the sheets of ideograms the works have little if any power to move me, even though some Asians have attempted to broaden my understanding. But show me a Sung dynasty bowl with a rabbit fur glaze and I can go into a rapture.

Many of the works in this exhibition display wonderful charm, wit, and an ebullient good humor. The sense of using what is seen to make two dimensional designs is inspiring.

I was hoping that this exhibition would be a seminal moment in that it would give me an even greater understanding and appreciation of this culture. It did not. While I might have a better understanding of certain passages, I continue to not understand calligraphy and the mind that esteems it. I continue to feel that I stand outside a tradition I will never understand.

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={9870D849-9235-4458-BC8C-E9C74CB7D18A}