Paintings and ceramics in dialogue, around the Chinese and Japanese collections, bequeathed by Harley H. Preston at the Musée Cernuschi
Watanabe Seitei (1851-1918), The Twelve Months: Eleventh Month, between 1900 and 1918, Japan, Ink and colors on silk, 115 x 40 cm, Purchase 2019, © Paris Musées / Musée Cernuschi
From April 14 to July 30, 2023, the Musée Cernuschi presents a new exhibition of Chinese and Japanese ceramics and paintings, in tribute to the art historian and collector Harley Preston.
The exhibition, which is divided into two sections, will offer a dialogue between Song ceramics and 20th century painting for China and Nihonga painting and Mingei ceramics for Japan.
The Harley Hall Preston Legacy
In 2018, Harley Hall Preston (1940-2015), an art historian and collector, bequeathed nearly 200 objects to the Musée Cernuschi. Among other interests, such as European drawing or fan art, he had built up a collection of Asian art mainly devoted to Chinese ceramics from the Song dynasty (960-1279), Japanese ceramics from the Mingei movement, as well as 20th-century Chinese painting.
Other recent acquisitions complete this major contribution to the enrichment of the museum's collections and will be presented in this exhibition, such as the Shinhanga prints from the Paul Tavernier bequest and the magnificent series of paintings representing the twelve months by Watanabe Seitei, acquired by the City of Paris to accompany the renovation of the permanent collection that was opened in 2020.
Pourriez-vous décrire votre rôle en tant que directeur du musée départemental des arts asiatiques à Nice? Comment prépare-t-on une telle exposition ?
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L’Asie sans réserve, c’est une réponse à une question que l’on nous pose presque tous les jours au musée : qu’avez-vous dans les réserves ? Dans l’opinion commune, on y cache des trésors alors qu’en réalité, les musées exposent au maximum leurs chefs-d’œuvre pour se montrer le plus attractif possible. Néanmoins, les réserves relèvent effectivement des œuvres extraordinaires que les équipes de conservation retirent des espaces d’exposition en raison de leur fragilité. Les textiles et les arts graphiques ne s’exposent que trois à quatre mois d’affilée à 50 lux et sont ensuite mises au repos pendant trois à quatre ans. Ces œuvres ne se régénèrent pas, bien sûr, mais cette règle permet de les faire durer le plus longtemps possible. Les réserves du musée départemental des arts asiatiques ont donc été le point de départ de ce projet, qui a d’autant plus de sens cette année en raison du 25ème anniversaire de l’institution. Et par extension, mon intérêt s’est porté sur les œuvres asiatiques conservées dans les réserves d’autres musées du territoire des Alpes-Maritimes pour montrer que l’histoire du patrimoine local comprend également une part d’Asie, dans des lieux auxquels on ne s’y attend pas. Sept institutions, dont l’université Côte d’Azur, le musée Matisse ou encore le château de la Napoule, ont participé à ce projet.
Les objectifs de cette exposition sont nombreux : partager les enjeux de la conservation dans un musée, montrer qu’une collection vit grâce aux acquisitions, suivre les évolutions sur 25 ans de la collection du musée départemental des arts asiatiques, faire du musée un acteur de la valorisation des arts asiatiques dans le sud de la France, aider les musées partenaires à identifier leurs œuvres asiatiques, lancer une baisse du bilan carbone de la programmation d’expositions du musée (90% de la scénographie est récupérée). Cette exposition est riche en enjeux et constitue le premier volume d’une série d’expositions qui vont explorer les collections asiatiques présentes sur le territoire.
Tea bowl, Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Northern China, Cizhou group kilns, Stoneware coated with a black glaze animated by rusty streaks, H.7,2 cm ; D.6,5 cm, Legacy Harley Hall Preston 2018 ©, Paris Musées / Musée Cernuschi
PART ONE: Around the Chinese collections
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The Song, a golden age of Chinese ceramics
The Preston bequest includes nearly sixty Chinese ceramics, dating from the 5th to the 19th century. It is the Cernuschi Museum's most important acquisition in this field since the 1970s.
Under the Song, ceramics experienced a true golden age. The improvement of kilns allowed for production of a quality that was unique at the time. The proliferation of production centers led to an unparalleled wealth of colors, shapes and types of decoration, as witnessed by the Preston collection.
Most of the major types of ceramics are represented: Yue and Yaozhou celadon-glazed stoneware, Jun-glazed stoneware, Jiangxi qingbai porcelain, Jian and Jizhou dark-glazed stoneware, and North China Cizhou stoneware.
20th Century Landscape and Flower and Bird Painting
The Preston Bequest includes a collection of Chinese paintings by twenty-four artists from the 1960s to the 1990s. This collection is devoted to two genres: landscape and flowers and birds. It includes together nearly three generations of artists, most of whom were born between 1900 and 1950. It contains works by artists such as Wang Yachen (1893-1983) and Xie Zhiguang (1900-1970), who made a name for themselves in the first half of the 20th century.
At the same time, there are many works by younger artists, whose activity is marked by the experiments that characterize the 1980s and 1990s. Some of these artists reformulated landscape painting with naive lines and unstructured or minimalist compositions, in contrast to the heroic rendering that predominantly characterized this type of subject matter in the 1950s and 1960s. Many painters also tried to renew the genre of flowers and birds, drawing on the work of the masters of the beginning of the century. The generous use of washes and an expanded palette characterized this new age of ink painting.
PART TWO: Around the Japanese collections
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Nihonga painting and Shinhanga prints
The term Nihonga ("Japanese painting") was coined at the end of the 19th century to designate a traditional style of painting, born in opposition to that of Yoga, based on a choice of themes and techniques derived from the Western model.
The Nihonga style is characterized by the use of specific materials and technical processes, which have evolved over more than a thousand years. Japanese painters continue to apply them today, sometimes in very personal ways.
The Shinhanga ("new print") movement, which originated with the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), is considered, along with Sosaku hanga ("creative print"), to be one of the two major trends of the 20th century, aiming to breathe new life into Japanese printmaking. At the end of the 19th century, the latter had gone through an unprecedented crisis.
The Mingei Movement
The Mingei movement (Mingei undo), founded by the philosopher, writer and collector Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), gave a new dimension to Japanese folk crafts in the early 20th century.
The term Mingei (from minshu, "people", and kogei, "craft"), coined by Yanagi and the potters Kawai Kanjiro (1890-1966) and Hamada Shoji (1894-1978), is at the origin of this movement, which honored the beauty of modest and solid everyday objects made by anonymous craftsmen.
PRACTICAL INFORMATIONS
Musée Cernuschi
Musée des arts de l’Asie de la Ville de Paris
7, avenue Vélasquez
75008 Paris
Tél. : 01 53 96 21 50
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