Chinanews.com, Beijing, February 9th (Reporter Ying Ni) "Bull Things Ruyi-Xin Chou Year of the Ox New Year Cultural Exhibition" opened at the National Museum of China on February 9th. More than 160 pieces (sets) of cultural relics and cattle related The artwork tells the audience about the "bull" spirit in traditional Chinese culture.
The exhibition selects more than 160 pieces (sets) of cultural relics and artworks related to cattle from the collections of the National Museum of China, and is divided into three units: Companion with Cows, Sources of Art, and Songs of Spring Cows. From production and life, history, culture, and art Carving and painting and other aspects systematically display the history, culture and festival beliefs related to cattle.
Exhibits.
Photo courtesy of the National Museum
Among them are the Shang and Zhou bronze ritual vessels that incorporate the image of ox horns, the distinctive bronzes of the ancient Dian Kingdom, as well as sculptures and paintings related to cattle in different historical periods.
The images drawn based on historical allusions such as Laozi’s Passage, Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Wu Niu Chuanyue, etc. make the legend more vivid; the paintings, calligraphy, and porcelain depicting fishing and woodcutter farming and reading carry the most simple long-cherished wishes and expectations of the farming society; Songs, pictures of marriage and marriage, etc. closely connect cattle with secular society; paintings such as the picture of herding flute and the picture of returning to herding in the autumn suburbs express the ancient people's longing for the landscape and countryside between the fiction and the reality.
Domestic cattle in China can be divided into scalpers, buffaloes, yaks, and zebus. They have different temperaments and image characteristics, as well as different domestication history and distribution ranges.
Yellow cattle are mostly distributed in the north, buffalo and zebu are more common in the south, and yaks are more common in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The yellow ox and the holy buffalo are closely related to the beliefs and sacrificial activities of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The image elements of the ox are also widely seen in the modeling and decoration of the Shang and Zhou bronze ritual vessels.
In the exhibition, a bronze 鬲 with animal face pattern from the late Shang Dynasty reflects this.
Exhibits.
Photo courtesy of the National Museum
The pottery figurines of the twelve zodiac and the pottery ox figurines of the Tang Dynasty reflect the taste of the Tang people.
The image of the Chinese zodiac has experienced the process of animal zodiac figurines, sitting zodiac figurines with beast heads, standing beast heads figurines, and decoration of civil servants with animal heads.
The statues of beast heads were first seen in the Wu Zetian period and became popular in Xi'an during the Tang Dynasty.
The bodies of such zodiac figurines made during the period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty were mostly civil officials, with large volumes and vivid shapes.
Song dynasty painter Xia Gui's "Muddering Flute" and "Autumn Suburb Returning to Pasturage" are idyllic. Wu Zuoren's ink painting "Yak" gives the audience the enjoyment of vigorous beauty. Wu Weishan's sculpture "Purple Qi Donglai·Lao Zi Chu" "Guan Bronze Statue" is condensed and abstract...The cow-grazing scenes in the classical works are mostly combined with landscapes and forests, forming themed works such as high priest riding a bull and boy cow pasting.
Modern and modern artists have absorbed many light and shadow, modeling factors and multiple expression methods, and new ideas have emerged one after another.
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