Advertisement
Published: February 24th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Year of the Pig
Lots of decorations for the year of the pig. After Xi'an, Sally and I spent two half days seeing parts of Nanjing. Wu was kind enough to go with us. Jan. 30 we went to the Nanjing Museum of Art. As always, it's traditional art, not modern art. It's a new museum with rooms for different types of art: painting, ceramics, brocades, sculptures, etc. We moved slowly, but we saw a lot. I liked the ceramics especially. I'll include some photos.
One bright room had a sculpture display by a current artist. I'm adding a few of the sculptures here. Here is the preface to the room.
People make history, and over the ages famous cultural figures are outstanding representatives of the people.
The Nanjing Museum is by nature a museum of history and art--the art it houses reveals history to the visitors, who in turn enjoy artistic beauty in an historical environment. Under such circumstances, how could one not hold the well-known cultural figures in even higher esteem?
Using artistically rendered images of people to "facilitate teachings and exhortations and to aid the adherence to the main ethical principles of cultural and ideological relations" has always been an important tradition in Chinese history. Professor Wu yellow bowl with birds
One example of the ceramics at the Nanjing Art Museum Weishan of Nanjing University is opening a special gallery to display these works, all for the sake of allowing visitors to appreciate the spirit of these great masters of culture while they view items of cultural heritage. This way, not only will we be able to deepen our understanding of history, culture and art, but we will also see these sculptures as artworks of historical significance.
Full of historical spirit, these sculptures of culturally famous persons help us strengthen our belief that those who are historically conscientious will surely be acknowledged by history; and that culturally renowned persons in history are indeed those who are acknowledged by history, respected and memorialized by those who follow. Xu Huping, Director of Nanjing Museum, October 2002, in Banshan Garden
That afternoon we went to buy CDs for storing photographs, and instead I got carried away and bought a Newman MP4 player. I got it home and couldn't make it work. I took it back the next day and exchanged it for an Apple iPod which I love. It now has lots of music: the Beatles, Elton John, Edith Piaf, Chinese piano music, Kitaro, some country and more rock; over 400 photographs;
several videos; several sermons from Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta; and a couple of audio books. That little gadget has 30 Gigs of data!
The next morning we met Wu again and went to Fuzi Miao (con fuzi us, get it?). It's the Confucius temple and the examination rooms for the Civil Service Exam that was held for 400 years. We looked at those two buildings and at many, many shops. Our favorite was the Tibetan imports. We each got a humming bowl. (Tap on the bowl with a wooden rod and rub around the sides and a wonderful humming noise is made.) Wu treated us to a delicious lunch of soup and jaozi. Warm and delicious on a cold, cold day.
In between all the touring, I've been rebuilding my computer. I've learned how to download Torrents, podcasts, etc.
Coming soon: Hainan and Hong Kong
Advertisement
Tot: 0.183s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 15; qc: 80; dbt: 0.0576s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Gailey
non-member comment
The colors in the photos are great! When - what century - were the exams given? And were they given to everyone? Sounds as though it was some sort of competition to get to be with the emperor in some capacity. Glad to hear HOng Kong was fantastic!! Love, Gailey