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Hours: See Website
Admission: Free
Description: Faces from China's Past: Paintings for Entertainment & Remembrance
The figure paintings in this exhibition were made for decoration and entertainment or to honor the living and commemorate the dead. They were not intended for scholarly enjoyment or as collector's items, and the artists who painted them are little known today. Nevertheless, these works are immediately appealing and tell fascinating stories about people real and imagined.
"Beautiful and Talented Women" affords forbidden glimpses of life in the women's quarters, catalogue women's activities, and evoke court life in ancient times. Many paintings in this section idealize the aesthetic and sensual lives of women, particularly those of concubines and courtesans.
"Commemorative and Ancestor Portraits" celebrate anniversaries and the achievements of the living or venerate people of substance who had passed away. Their audience may have been primarily family and friends.
"In the Company of Women" echoes themes in contemporary popular literature and may have appealed to literate members of both genders.
"Sketched from Art, Sketched from Life" features figures and faces based on old paintings or on firsthand observation and may have been viewed as a form of realistic documentation.
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