Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The Past in the Present: Script and Archaism in Modern Chinese Art

(from 6th Oct 2010 until 27th Feb 2011)

Explore the influence of early Chinese writing and artefacts on the art of the twentieth century and beyond.

Detail of Peonies in a bronze vessel, China, 1903 (Museum No: EA2007.103)
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Jiazi-Year Rat

  • Description

    The title of this work is written in archaic script. It is one of a series that Huang Yongyu painted in the 1970s and ‘80s depicting the relevant animal for the year according to the Chinese zodiac.

    The painting was presented by the artist to Yang Xianyi, the well-known translator of Chinese literature into English who read Classics at Oxford during the 1930s. This work shows a timid rat looking at its paw and curling tail, drawn in the Year of Rat (1984) as a gift in celebration of Chinese New Year presented to Xianyi and Gladys Yang, who were both trained at Oxford and are famous translators of classical Chinese literature. This painting was produced among a series of other works in which Huang inscribed the titles in the style of archaic Chinese scripts, rendered in the same free and energetic style.

  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia China (place of creation)
    Date
    1984
    Artist/maker
    Huang Yongyu (born 1924) (artist)
    Huang Yongyu (born 1924) (calligrapher)
    Associated people
    Gladys Yang (1919 - 1999) (recipient)
    Yang Xianyi (1915 - 2009) (recipient)
    Material and technique
    ink and colour on paper
    Dimensions
    painting 70 x 70 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Gordon Barrass, in honour of Michael Sullivan, 2002.
    Accession no.
    EA2002.58
  • Further reading

    Vainker, Shelagh, and Xin Chen, A Life in Chinese Art: Essays in Honour of Michael Sullivan (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2012), p. 141, illus. p. 140

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

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Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

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