Past Exhibitions

Porcelain Paintings from the Changsha Kiln to the Liling Kiln 3rd Floor 2019.05.18 - 2020.05.14 The brown colored porcelains with paintings found in the Nanjing area of the Three Kingdoms period were the earliest porcelains decorated with paintings we have found till now. The painting themes on these porcelains mostly included immortals with wings and auspicious beasts which might be related to local beliefs and funeral customs. However, these special porcelain paintings were lost in the Western Jin Dynasty, and there was no porcelain with painting decorations for the next few hundred years. Porcelain painting reached its first peak until the Changsha Kiln of the Tang Dynasty. The paintings on the porcelains from the Changsha Kiln were mainly themed on flowers and birds, together with other elements including landscapes, figures, buildings, and clouds. It is the first time in the Chinese porcelain history that brown, green and red colors were used to paint on the porcelain, marking that porcelain painting had entered into a colorful era. The royal aristocrats of the Song Dynasty still favored the porcelains without decorations, while paintings decorations were popular elements used by the folk kilns, of which the Cizhou kiln in the northern China and the Jizhou kiln in the southern China stood out. The painting skills from the most part of China were spread to and converged in Jingdezhen (a city in Jiangxi Province, a leading porcelain-manufacturing centre) until the Yuan Dynasty, resulting in the birth of amazing blue-and-white porcelains of Yuan Dynasty. The Ming and Qing Dynasties were the heyday of the development of painted porcelains. In addition to inheriting the previous painting skills, new varieties such as contrasting color, multicolor, pastel, enamel, light-reddish-purple art, under-glazed multicolor emerged one after another, and the paintings themed on flowers, birds, figures, and landscape were becoming more and more exquisite. The paintings on porcelains from royal kilns were precise and rigorous, while those were free and easy in folk kilns. Porcelains become vivid with the decoration of paintings, and paintings are given immortal life because of porcelains.	Exhibition of Artwork Donations from Yan Jialong and Zou Chuan’an No.2 Special Exhibition Hall,1F 2019.05.10 - 2019.05.30 The exhibition features 43 works of Yan and 63 of Zou, all of which marked the peak of their personal achievements, fully revealing the level of Hunan contemporary art between the latter part of the 20th century and the early 21st century.	Exhibition of Hunan Private Collections No.2 Special Exhibition Hall, 1F 2019.01.20 - 2019.02.28 Private collections of Hunan Province have been flourishing for a long time. In response to the policy of the Sate Council, we organized this exhibition, aiming to encourage the legal private collection, inject vitality into collection market and reveal the irreplaceable role of society in facilitating the protection of cultural relics.
The Paintings of Wu Guanzhong No.2 Special Exhibition Hall, 1F 2018.10.17 - 2019.01.10 Wu Guanzhong(1919-2010), born in Yixing of Jiangsu province, is a renown painter and art educator. His practical and theoretical achievements have brought a broader prospective for the Chinese contemporary art. During 1980s, Wu probed into a series of significant aesthetic problems such as “abstract beauty”, “form beauty” and “form determining the content”, leaving abundant works and many sharply novel remarks. Artistic ideas proposed by him like “unbroken kite string” (kite refers to art works while string the reality where inspirations lie. He argued that works, despite of its forms, ought to emotionally revolve around certain themes), “cultural war” (cultural is also involved in global competition) and “form is nothing” （form should be appreciated in content, otherwise, it is of no meaning. His ideas have caught widespread attention, aroused discussion and controversy in artistic field, stimulating relentless passion in contemporary artists. Devoted wholeheartedly to blending together western oil paintings and traditional Chinese ink paintings, Wu created a lot of works, which, with original and ingenious designs, are perfect combination of tradition and modernity, imbued with his philosophy of life and enthusiasm for art. What's more, he donated for many times his works to National Art Museum Of China， Shanghai Art Museum, Zhejiang Art Museum, The National Gallery Singapore and Art Museum of Hong Kong etc, making his works accessible to more people.	Pharaohs, Gods and Mummies:Ancient Egyptian Finds Exhibition No.1 Special Exhibition Hall, 1F 2018.09.28 - 2018.12.05 The body of a woman bent with her arms on the ground, her head marking the western border of the sky, while her arms limit the eastern one. This is how ancient Egyptians represented the sky, with the arched goddess Nut, who cyclically gives birth to the sun every morning. This is the starting moment of the journey in Egypt. On both sides of the Nile, the mother river of Egypt, plants grew in the fertile soil. The peasants supported the economic lifeline of the whole country through their hard work while senior officials lived a luxurious and dissipated life under the shade of garden trees. The quietly standing pyramids convey Pharaohs’ hope for immortality, and the stone pillars of temples contain the millenary history of this ancient country. The solar calendar tells extraordinary wisdom and the hieroglyphic has left behind the legend of ages. …… From desolation to prosperity, from ignorance to civilization, from simple lines to complex patterns, from frugal grave mounds to lofty palaces, all this contributed to the great civilization of Ancient Egypt. Hunan Museum, together with Henan Museum, Shanxi Museum, Liaoning Museum and Guangdong Museum, cooperating with the Museo Egizio, Turin, who holds the second largest ancient Egyptian collection, organized this ancient Egypt finds exhibition. More than 230 precious Egyptian artifacts from Nile river region with deep and profound history and culture, started from the northern ancient city of Italy, Turin, traveled to the east through the new Silk Road, and now display the mysterious and fascinating life, belief and rituals.	Exhibition of Yang Fuyin’s Paintings No.2 Special Exhibition Hall,1F 2018.09.06 - 2018.10.06 With great ingenuity and originality, Yang's Chinese paintings retain a touch of traditional charm in an unparalleled creative way, with his free-flowing brush strokes revealing great strengths. You can sense from his works the typical vitality and tension of Chinese art.