Press
亞歐堂 meet asian art: Antique? Renaissances in East Asian Art
29 November 2023 – 24 November 2024
Soft-Opening: 29 November, 2023, 10 am – 8 pm
With 亞歐堂 meet asian art: Antique? Renaissance in East Asian Art, the Museum Angewandte Kunst is dedicating an exhibition to the previously unexplored enthusiasm for antiquity that emerged in China around a thousand years ago, comparable to the Renaissance in Europe a few centuries later.
The focus of attention was on bronze ritual vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties (16th century–256 B.C.), which since that time have repeatedly come to light in excavations on ancient burial sites. These early masterpieces of bronze casting have fascinated collectors and scholars ever since, but also inspired copyists and forgers. Most of the pieces on display, however, show a rather free and playful approach to the formal and decorative language of antiquity. For example, archaic bronze shapes are experiencing a surprising renaissance in blue-and-white and colored porcelain from the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Moreover, a group of Japanese cloisonné works from the Meiji period (1868–1912) demonstrates that romantic references to Chinese antiquity are also not uncommon outside the Middle Kingdom.
Curator: Dr. Stephan von der Schulenburg
