Dynasties on Display: Work of Chinese scholar artists showcased at LVAM

Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2005 | 8:16 a.m.

They were artists and poets whose lifelong studies in Confucian classics led to a privileged life in civil service.

Their private study was their sanctuary a place to meditate, to contemplate, study or write. Nature was their muse.

For nearly 2,000 years the Chinese government was run by these scholars, whose positions were based on merit rather than political and familial ties.

To offer a glimpse into the scholarly life of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Las Vegas Art Museum is presenting "Chinese Beauty and Elegance: Collecting and Connoisseurship in Scholarly Taste," through Sept. 23.

The exhibit features a life-size creation of a scholar studio, equipped with traditional hardwood furniture from Ming and Qing dynasties, writing accoutrements, symbolic art objects and other collectibles.

Additionally, there are displays of fine porcelains, scholar stones, carved wood objects, a buffalo-horn wine cup and turtle-shaped bronze water dropper. There are decorative natural objects that inspired the scholars morally and philosophically.

Many of the items were loaned to the museum by the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, Calif. A modern-day collection of ornate jade items -- maidens, vases and incense holders -- owned by Gerald Facciani, president of the LVAM's board of directors, finishes the exhibit.

Looking at the studio, Kristine Galassi, Las Vegas resident and guest curator of the exhibit, explained, "This is a very traditional scholar studio from the Ming and Qing dynasty, a very simple place where the scholar could relax and be inspired."

A scholar's desk featured the "four treasures," items that distinguished them among the literati: writing brush, ink stone, ink well and paper.

Also, Galassi said, "In their room they would keep a few items. They might be pieces in bronze, jade and pieces of old paper.

"We've got pieces of antiquity. We have pieces which awaken the scholar's senses. Mostly it was a small collection that they would open and appreciate with other scholars or alone. These were links to the past."

From the Han dynasty (202 B.C. to 220 A.D.) to the Qing, the last of Chinese dynasties, the Chinese government was ruled by a bureaucracy of scholars who studied for decades to take the Chinese Civil Service Examination.

"That's what's so great about old Chinese government," said David Kamansky, curator director emeritus of the Pacific Asia Museum, "(Success) was a question of having a brush and something to write on. The arts, scholarship, calligraphy, knowing how to write was very important.

"In China, there was a feeling that the (intellectual) was the person who should run government."

Though scholars didn't collect ornate items, as celebrities they were often depicted on them. A red lacquer vase that shows scholars in nature, among the craggy trees, mountains and lakes where they would retreat, is one example of this on display at the museum.

The exhibit also features two muted-tone landscape scrolls from the Wing Fong collection on loan from UNLV's Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery. The paintings, Galassi said, might be typical of a painting that would transport scholars into that natural realm.

Scholars also kept scholar stones in their studios: jagged, rugged, craggy stones that reference the mountains. Fungus, usually representing longevity, was also among the symbolically Confucius natural items that scholars may have kept in their studios.

"What we want to do is keep with the understanding that they were of the natural world," Galassi said.

Galassi spent 10 years in Hong Kong and Singapore, where she worked for Christies auction house in the Asian art department. She also worked for the Singapore History Museum, where she cataloged non-Imperial works.

In Las Vegas she has taught extension classes on Chinese art and will give a lecture on the LVAM exhibit at 2 p.m. on Aug. 14.

"The way scholars appreciated and collected art had a large influence on how we appreciate Chinese arts," Galassi said.

Holding a 10th-century porcelain ritual bowl, she added, "They gave us Westerners an appreciation for these elegant jade-like glosses that we see today."