The fascinating Ming Dynasty in the CaixaForum Barcelona
A total of 126 pieces of first order, which reflect how society, culture and art of the fascinating Ming Dynasty, which dominated China between 1368 and 1644 was exhibited for the first time in Spain from tuesday, in the exhibition which opens at CaixaForum in Barcelona.
In partnership with the Nanjing Museum, the first great National Museum of China, the British company Nomad Exhibitions has organized this exhibition, which previously has been seen in Rotterdam and Edinburgh, and as he pointed the director of Nomad Exhibitions, Tim Pethick, goes far beyond the iconic Ming vases.
The audience that comes close to the esplanade of Montjuïc discover, nothing more start the exhibition route, which “Da Ming” means “great light” and that the dynasty led a total of sixteen emperors, who helped change their country forever, both demographically he went from a population of 65 million people to another 175- and economically, since the exchange was abandoned and opted for the money.
As emphasized this morning the Deputy General Director of the Foundation “la Caixa“, Elisa Duran, it is a “remarkable for the quality of the works on display and the exhibition discourse and collections shows that are given to know, coming out first of Nanking, the so-called southern capital of eight million people, and where the dynasty was founded. ”
Ming. The golden rule emphasizes both a censer ornaments enamelled copper, Jingtai Reign (between 1449-1457), as it focuses on ritual objects, integral part of court life, and displays the 13.5 meters from a roll – something that does not happen for space at the Museum of Nankíng- on the lives of women of senior officials, who in his spare time even played a kind of football.
The exhibition is divided into four areas, the first of them devoted to what happened in the palaces and behind the walls, where you can see the luxury of the objects of life in the court or the invention of new procedures for porcelain production.
In the section called “ideal society”, central in the exhibition, describes how the ideal society of the Ming Dynasty was based and organized in a hierarchy of four classes: officials, men with a formal education, farmers and artisans and merchants. Copies of a civil service entrance exams to help explain the difficulty involved get a charge, while various objects highlight the importance of the arts of calligraphy, poetry and painting.
The lives of women, on the other hand, is governed by the three obediences: first must obey the father, then her husband and, finally, the son, considering that they should be the ones that had to sustain morale in a changing society. In the field ‘Good Life’ are the changes in the “ideal society” and how the Ming adapted to the new reality, product manufacturing and trade. Art, culture, the most beautiful, became consumer goods, as were accumulating immense private wealth.
The exhibition serves to highlight the so-called scholars and artists or scholars, especially the four masters of Wu School Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying. In China they have a very important role and their works have the same acceptance in the West may have artists like Claude Monet or Manet Edouard. In this part of the exhibition, paintings are displayed and can check the level of complexity of the lawyers practicing artists in the “three perfections”: poetry, calligraphy and painting. ”
The last of the areas reflects China’s relationship with the other continents, and a drawn hand-printed map made by the Italian priest Matteo Ricci, who joined in Macao in 1582, and that evidence, the Ming empire version is displayed in the center of China’s growing connection with the world.
Indeed, the deputy director of the Nanjing Museum, Qizhi Wang, has been this excited Tuesday because in Spain can meet all these works and has advocated for trade with his country will continue and that there “can also see western parts” .
The exhibition will be at CaixaForum until next October 2, also it calls at the cultural centers of this institution in Palma de Mallorca and Zaragoza.