Art Of The Day Weekly

#481 - from 13 July 2017 to 13 September 2017


Portrait of Shang Kexi (dec.1676). Ink and colours on silk, Qing dynasty,(1644-­‐-­‐1911), 248,9×117,5 cm (image), 386,7×140 cm (rouleau) ©Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C

Over the Forbidden City

MONACO – As often happens when one deals with China, figures alone make us dizzy. In this case, he reigned for 59 years, had a horse farm with 20 000 animals for his escort, and wrote 42, 000 poems. All this refers to Qianlong (1736-1795), the sovereign who was a contemporary of Louis XV, and who personifies the apotheosis of the Qing dynasty. He is the main character of the exhibition that temporarily transfers a few treasures from the Forbidden City to the beaches of the Mediterranean. From the handling of arms to the status of the concubines, from the paintings on scrolls to the Jesuit engravings, from unique objects (sound stones, a Manchu throne in deer antlers and rose wood, an enamel elephant), they all talk of the daily life at the hart of these 72, 000 m2 that encouraged jealousies and fantasies. The most surprising item are the photos of the end of the reign, ordered at the beginning of the 20th century by Cixi, the pitiless dowager queen. Everything seems static- like the boat that glides through a sea of lotus – and yet everything changes so quickly. The revolt of the Boxers and the “55 days of Beijing” in 1900, the death of Cixi in 1908 after 47 years of reign, the end of the dynasty in 1911, and of the Empire in 1912.
La Cité interdite at the Grimaldi Forum, from 14 July to 10 September 2017. Catalogue Skira, 296 p., €35.

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