Publisher's Synopsis
CHINESE PAINTINGS IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD -- The Ashmolean Museum's Department of Eastern Art houses a collection of Chinese paintings that has been built up since the 1950s to complement the University's substantial holdings of Chinese bronzes, ceramics and decorative arts. The paintings include several works by early Qing (1644--1911) dynasty artists but its strength lies in the late Qing and twentieth-century paintings, which constitute one of the foremost collections of their type in Europe. This catalogue presents more than two hundred major works, from seventeenth century landscapes, through landscape and figure paintings by modern masters such as Ren Yi, Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong and Fu Baoshi, to recent work by contemporary artists, with inscriptions fully reproduced in Chinese characters, and an extensive bibliography. MODERN CHINESE PAINTINGS: THE REYES COLLECTION IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD -- The Reyes Collection of modern Chinese paintings covers the period from the middle of the 19th century until late 1995 when the collection was presented to the Ashmolean Museum. Artistically this period includes paintings which seek to update the tradition, as well as works embodying a response to Japanese or to Western art and works which reflect international art movements of the late 20th century. Politically it is a period that began under the Qing dynasty, which witnessed the founding of the Republic in 1911 and the establishment in 1949 of the People's Republic of China; it was also a period punctuated by unrest in the form of widescale rebellion, the Sino-Japanese (1937-45) war, civil war and, most recently, the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The plurality of artistic styles that arose in these circumstances, together with the ongoing tension between China's illustrious past and international present, has precluded the decisive formulation of a mainstream in Chinese painting; the Reyes collection, in representing the conservative as well as the innovative painters of each generation, is in keeping with most major collections, public and private, in this field.
