"Dialogue with Leonardo da Vinci - Special Exhibition of Renaissance and Oriental Aesthetics and Art" is the third major exhibition of the Shanghai Museum's "Dialogue with the World" cultural relics and art series. It is jointly sponsored by the Shanghai Museum and the Encyclopedia Institute of Trecani in Italy. The exhibits are selected from the collections of the Ambrose Library and Gallery in Milan, the National Gallery of Parma, and the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. The ingenuity of this exhibition at Shanghai Expo is that for the first time, Eastern and Western painting masterpieces from the same period are juxtaposed to create a dialogue between Eastern and Western art, creating a rich and diverse viewing angle and perspective for the audience.
Exhibition poster, Leonardo da Vinci's "Woman with Flowing Hair" (right) and Tang Yin's masterpiece "Autumn Wind Fan" (left)
Leonardo da Vinci is a well-known Italian Renaissance art master. His masterpieces such as "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper" have attracted countless people to see their true appearance. At the same time, he was an encyclopedic scientist and inventor who left many precious manuscripts for future generations. He can be called the "greatest all-rounder" during the Renaissance. However, there are only a handful of authentic paintings by Leonardo da Vinci that exist in the world, and most of the works are immovable or prohibited from leaving the country, so they are rare to see in China.
"Woman with Flowing Hair" 1492-1501 Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) National Gallery of Parma
Among them, "Woman with Flowing Hair" is the only authentic Leonardo da Vinci oil painting in Italy that can be exported. This unfinished work depicts a young woman with flowing hair. Her faces face each other, her eyes are lowered, and she is light. He nodded lightly, with a faint smile on his face, a smile not inferior to the "Mona Lisa". The woman painted by Leonardo da Vinci has become a model of female beauty with her elegant and gentle manner. Some researchers also believe that "Woman with Flowing Hair" may be Leonardo da Vinci's sketch for "The Madonna of the Rocks".
"Cannon Firing Bombs" 1485 Codex Atlanticus Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Ambrosio Library in Milan
Leonardo da Vinci was knowledgeable. He was an outstanding painter, natural scientist, and engineer. He was a rare all-rounder in human history. People seriously ridiculed him as "a scientific master who was delayed by painting". His greatest achievement was in the field of painting. His paintings organically combined scientific knowledge and artistic imagination, bringing the level of expression of painting at that time to a new stage. During his lifetime, he left behind a large number of sketches and manuscripts on natural science and engineering. This exhibition will display 11 precious manuscripts from the "Atlantic Codex". Among them, the sketch "Cannons Firing Bombs" is one of the most famous manuscripts in the "Atlantic Codex". It depicts two firing cannons. It was created in When Leonardo da Vinci first arrived in Milan. This weapon device can not only shoot "gravel", but also can fire shrapnel filled with gunpowder, nails or other metals, and can be loaded with different ammunition according to different offensive situations. Even in the 17th and 18th centuries, many people were still shocked by Leonardo da Vinci's imagination that spanned the ages.
At the same time, the exhibition has selected 11 groups and a total of 18 masterpieces of ancient Chinese paintings in the museum's collection. The lineup should not be underestimated, including the rarely seen Five Dynasties "Gateway Turning Picture", Southern Song Dynasty Liang Kai's "White Drawing of the Taoist Lord" and "Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty" Tang Bohu The representative works "Autumn Wind Fan Picture" and other works can be regarded as a small national treasure exhibition of "Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties" originally planned by Shanghai Expo.
"Scroll of Turning Cars at the Gate", circa 907-960, Five Dynasties, Anonymous, Shanghai Museum
"Gate Turning Car" from the Five Dynasties is a masterpiece of genre painting in the mid-10th century, depicting the grand scene of production in a government-run mill. The water mill device pictured in the picture shows the outstanding achievements of the ancients in the application of hydraulic power. Western historians regard water mills as a symbol of science and technology in medieval civilization. The "Gate Turning Scroll" is evidence of the prosperity of water conservancy in the Tang and Song Dynasties.
"Autumn Wind Fan Scroll" Tang Yin, Ming Dynasty (1470-1523) Shanghai Museum
"Autumn Wind Fan Scroll" of the Ming Dynasty is a masterpiece of Tang Bohu in his later years. It is also a self-portrait of the artist who used the literary allusion of Ban Jieyu of the Western Han Dynasty to describe himself and lament the ups and downs of his life and the harshness of the world. According to Shanghai Bo, this work is an industry-recognized masterpiece among the Tang Bohu paintings handed down from generation to generation. "Because it is so famous, we actually forgot to exhibit this work." Ling Lizhong, director of the calligraphy and painting department of Shanghai Expo, said that since the opening of the People's Square building in 1996, "Autumn Wind Fan Scroll" has only been exhibited at Shanghai Expo. once.
Ling Lizhong said that for this exhibition, they will select Chinese paintings from several dimensions as a carrier of dialogue with Western painting art. One is from the timeline. The same period as the Western Renaissance was the fifteenth century, the Yuan and Ming Dynasties in China. Coincidentally, in the fifteenth century, two cultural and art centers appeared in the two hemispheres of the East and the West. One was Florence. Region, one is the Wumen region of China, which is another dimension; secondly, in terms of the concept and expression of painting, Leonardo da Vinci thinks like a scientist, and there is a lot of anatomy and perspective in his works, which is similar to Chinese painting. The concept appeared in the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, so the exhibition added another dimension by adding the "Gate Turning Car Picture Scroll". In the context of Chinese painting history, artists of that era valued observation and understanding of nature.
For this exhibition, the Shanghai Museum has selected its collections from the Five Dynasties "Turn the Wheel at the Gate" to the Ming Dynasty "Autumn Wind Fan" as the carrier of dialogue. The time span exceeds more than 500 years, and presents the artistic development path of Chinese painting from realism to freehand brushwork.
"Legs", circa 1524-1525 Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) Casa Buonarroti, Florence
"Boy and Lamb", 1520s, Bernardino Luini (c. 1480-1532), Galleria Ambrose, Milan
Darenli, an official of the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai and an Italian curator, said that Leonardo da Vinci is an eternal topic. This exhibition at Shanghai Expo combines art, architecture, design, and painting to comprehensively display Leonardo da Vinci’s talents and overcome the difficulties. The boundaries of time, space and categories. He believes that the Shanghai Museum is the only museum that can facilitate the realization of this exhibition project. "Thanks to its rich collection, we are able to imagine, outline and complete the dialogue between the Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci and the Chinese tradition and artistic masterpieces of his era."
Chu Xiaobo, Director of the Shanghai Museum, said that as the first attempt at a comparative exhibition of Eastern and Western painting art at the Shanghai Museum, the exhibition will use a unique dialogue method to lead the audience on a graceful journey that spans time and space and is beyond imagination. Talking about the original intention of preparing this exhibition, he said, "Over the years, through discussions and exchanges with directors of famous foreign museums and art institutions, I have discovered that current exhibitions are no longer limited to attracting audiences with the so-called 'treasure of the museum', but hope Exhibitions with in-depth research, dialogue between ancient and modern times, and dialogue between East and West are an important curatorial trend in the current world of international museums and art galleries. The Shanghai Museum also has such a mission. In the future, we will do more and more exchanges between civilizations. An exhibition of dialogue.”
In addition, this exhibition is also innovative in form. In order to allow the audience to fully and immersively understand Leonardo da Vinci, the third exhibition hall on the fourth floor of the Shanghai Museum will display a series of model installations and multimedia art inspired by his manuscript paintings, combined with modern technology to stimulate the imagination of tourists, from Italy Designed by Tianlan Studio, an art research institution. The gate turning machinery restoration device of China's fifth generation will also be on display at the same time, using brand-new technology to demonstrate the outstanding achievements of the ancients in water conservancy applications. This will also be a highly interactive and interesting art dialogue exhibition. Through the beautiful exhibition hall design, the audience can independently choose the visiting route in the exhibition hall and complete an immersive art journey across time and space. The museum hopes that when the audience appreciates the masterpieces, they can use their own eyes and hearts to discover the harmony but difference of art, the perfect integration of art and science, and to appreciate the exquisite and innovative charm of Eastern and Western art masters hundreds of years ago.
The Shanghai Museum stated that this exhibition is a self-funded original exhibition and will continue the public welfare ticket price policy for this exhibition series in the past.
