The Paper learned from a press conference held by Suzhou Museum today that the museum's largest garden-themed special exhibition, "From Humble Administrator's Garden to Monet's Garden," will open to the public on July 15. The exhibition brings together 13 public institutions at home and abroad and more than 160 treasures. Famous Chinese art historians Zhao Mengfu and Wen Zhengming will "meet" Impressionist artist Claude Monet in Suzhou.
The press conference also announced that the Suzhou Folk Museum will open on June 28 after upgrading and renovation. The museum is located in the back four courtyards of the Lion Grove, a world cultural heritage site (formerly the Bei Family Ancestral Hall). It was once the first special museum in my country whose main content was to display urban folk customs.
"From Humble Administrator's Garden to Monet's Garden" Special Exhibition
Suzhou is a famous "City of a Hundred Gardens". Nine Suzhou gardens, represented by the Humble Administrator's Garden, have been included in the World Cultural Heritage List. In July, the Suzhou Museum's main building and the West Building will jointly launch two garden-themed special exhibitions, "From the Humble Administrator's Garden to Monet's Garden" and "From the Humble Administrator's Garden to The Changwuzhi", linking Eastern and Western cultures, the two museums, and the cultural relics exhibition and the education exhibition, to jointly present Suzhou's largest garden-themed special exhibition.
Gardens in the Paintings of Shen Zhou in the Ming Dynasty
This special exhibition is the third in Suzhou Museum’s “World Cultural Heritage Series” following “The Unique Fragrance of Begonias – The Discovery and Inheritance of Dazu Rock Carvings” and “Where My Heart Belongs – The Copying and Spiritual Inheritance of Dunhuang Art”. The exhibition takes the gardens that are most familiar to Suzhou people as its theme. Starting from "local culture", it traces the development of Eastern and Western gardens, focuses on the art of Suzhou's classical gardens and the elegant tastes of literati, and at the same time presents the exchanges and integration between major garden systems in the world.
This time, Suzhou Museum has brought together more than 160 treasures from 13 public institutions at home and abroad, including 36 pieces/sets of national first-class cultural relics, covering poetry, calligraphy and painting, ancient artifacts and collectibles, Western art and other categories, focusing on presenting the diverse expressions of gardens as a spiritual home for mankind.
Qiu Ying's Figure Painting Album No. 1
The exhibition is divided into five parts, focusing on gardens and the secluded ideals of literati throughout the ages, the practice of Suzhou gardens in the Ming Dynasty, the landscaping techniques of Jiangnan gardens, the ultimate elegance of garden life, and the world's gardens that care for each other.
The exhibition will display seven pieces of calligraphy and paintings from the Song and Yuan dynasties. Zhao Mengfu's "Lanting Preface in Running Script" from the Wuxi Museum will be exhibited in Suzhou in the future. Two Song Dynasty paintings "Moon Viewing Under the Pine Tree" and "Watching the Tide at Qiantang River" from the Suzhou Museum, as well as the museum's treasure "Seven Gentlemen" will be publicly exhibited again after many years.
The "Four Masters of Wumen" Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, Shen Zhou and Qiu Ying will also "gather" again and exhibit a total of 13 works. These include Wen Zhengming's "Zhen Shang Zhai Tu Juan" in the National Museum of China, Qiu Ying's "Character Stories Album" in the Palace Museum, Tang Yin's "Wumen Summer Vacation Poems" in running script in Liaoning Provincial Museum, and Shen Zhou's "Baode Yinghua Tu" in the Palace Museum.
Ancient garden paintings on display
Wen Zhenheng, "Poetic Images of Tang Dynasty" (Collection of the Palace Museum)
The Wen family, represented by Wen Zhengming and Wen Zhenheng, had a profound influence on the theory, practice and artistic creation of Suzhou garden design. This special exhibition displays a total of 17 works by nine people from five generations of the Wen family (Wen Zhengming, Wen Jia, Wen Peng, Wen Yuanfa, Wen Congjian, Wen Boren, Wen Zhenmeng, Wen Zhenheng, and Wen Chu). Among them, the most exquisite extant work of Wen Zhenheng, "Poetic Pictures of Tang Dynasty" (in the collection of the Palace Museum), will exhibit all 12 pages, the longest "Traveling to Baiyue Mountain" (in the collection of Wuxi Museum), and the Ming-era engraved "Records of Superfluous Things" (in the collection of Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion Museum), which represents his artistic and life aesthetic ideas, will all be on display in this special exhibition.
Ge kiln green glaze plate
Ding kiln porcelain
Ge kiln green glaze plate
Suzhou gardens not only have elegant landscapes, but also their furniture, furnishings, and antiques are all exquisitely crafted. Among them, Song Dynasty porcelain is particularly regarded as a benchmark of aesthetics. This exhibition specially invites important domestic public cultural institutions to cooperate and support, bringing together the treasures of the five famous kilns: Ru, Ge, Guan, Ding and Jun.
The garden works of Japan's "Three Masters of Ukiyo-e" - Hokusai Katsushika, Utagawa Hiroshige and Kitagawa Utamaro - will also be exhibited at the same venue, reflecting the common garden aesthetic taste of East Asia.
Claude Monet's Water Lilies
Claude Monet paintings
According to the person in charge of the Suzhou Museum, the exhibition will end with Claude Monet, the representative of Impressionism, and his most classic artistic image, "Water Lilies". The two paintings on display are representative works of Monet's "Water Lilies" and "Bridge" themes. With smooth and flexible brushstrokes and delicate and subtle color changes, they condense the fleeting beauty of light and shadow on the canvas, showing his poetic perception and unique expression of natural landscapes.
The scene of the press conference of the Suzhou Expo
Suzhou Folk Museum Upgrade and Renovation
The press conference also announced that the Suzhou Folk Museum will open on June 28 after upgrading and renovation. The Suzhou Folk Museum is located at No. 32 Panru Lane. The museum building is located in the back four courtyards of the Lion Grove, a world cultural heritage site (formerly the Bei Clan Ancestral Hall). Suzhou Folk Museum is the first thematic museum in my country whose main content is to display urban folk customs. It was officially opened to the public in November 1986. In July last year, Suzhou Museum launched the Suzhou Folk Museum building renovation and exhibition renovation project.
Suzhou Folk Museum exhibition renderings
The renovated permanent exhibition is based on the three major themes of "Enjoying the Four Seasons", "Three Meals a Day" and "Celebrating Life", systematically presenting Suzhou's unique folk culture. The focus will be on displaying star exhibits from the museum's collection, such as the "Dragon Boat Lanterns", "Phoenix Boat Lanterns", the "Five Wealth Gods' Procession" small ornaments, and Qiao Mai's "24 Food Scenes of Suzhou". In terms of exhibition design, it also continues the aesthetics of the Suzhou Museum and designs themed exhibition installations such as the "Suzhou Folk Calendar" to create an immersive exhibition scene and provide tourists with a diversified cultural experience. At the same time, the architectural features of the original "Bei Clan Ancestral Hall" that combine Chinese and Western styles are retained and highlighted to the greatest extent. Iconic architectural elements such as fireplaces and mosaic floor tiles demonstrate a unique aesthetic style.
Suzhou Folk Museum exhibition renderings
Suzhou Folk Museum exhibition renderings
The renovated Folk Museum will make better use of the architectural space to create new consumption scenarios. Based on the exhibition in the first-floor exhibition hall, the second-floor area will be opened to create a coffee and tea space, and a folk-themed cultural and creative space will also be developed. Nearly 20 cultural and creative products will be launched, including fireplace luminous refrigerator magnets, "Eight Water Immortals Plush Pendants", etc., covering three major categories: architecture, exhibits, and traditional food customs of Wu.
Suzhou Folk Museum exhibition renderings
The Suzhou Folk Museum is adjacent to Suzhou Museum, Humble Administrator's Garden, Lion Grove, Pingjiang Road and other cultural and historical institutions and cultural heritage. After reopening, it will relieve the pressure of surrounding passenger flow to a certain extent, form a agglomeration effect, achieve coordinated development, and create a new landmark and new consumption scene for cultural experience in the ancient city.
