<p style="text-align: justify;">"My experiences of beauty stem from everyday life. This is what I have been continuously seeking wherever I travelled over the past years. I have been staying true to my feelings and emotions which were nurtured by my native soil, therefore the beauty I sought often emanates a scent of soil and nature." ──Wu Guanzhong<br><br>Sketching in nature has been one of the main sources where Wu Guanzhong got inspiration for his art creation throughout the 60 years of his artistic career. This exhibition showcases around 30 paintings and sketches of Wu Guanzhong and present to the audience the artistic theories that he realised during the process of sketching, and also the development of his paintings from sketches.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The Hong Kong Museum of Art has developed an art education programme in partnership with the Design and Cultural Studies Workshop for the appreciation of the art of Chinese painting and calligraphy. By means of animated images, this project will feature and interpret some of the fundamental ideas or subject matters of Chinese art in a simple and vivid approach.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">These 4 animations of “Jockey Club Education Programmes: A Chinese Scholar's Studio Tour” Online Resources inspire audiences to expand imagination and appreciation of Chinese landscape painting, ceramics, jade-carving and sericulture from a whole new perspective.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The Chinese literati take pride in excelling at poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal carving. OU Da-wei’s profound knowledge of these four types of art makes him a modern literati artist. OU is sensitive to his Daly life, where he finds inspiration for his poetry, calligraphy and seal works in his surroundings, personal experiences and global issues. He excels in infusing a modern style and spirit into traditional and ancient art forms. <br><br>This course improves students’ understanding and appreciation of traditional Chinese art through appreciating and studying OU’s art. The students will create works related to everyday living using traditional Chinese materials and methods.<br><br>Teaching goals:<br>1. Learn about OU’s poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal work through his video.<br>2. Learn about and appreciate OU’s use of seal script and its composition in seal carving.<br>3. Appreciate the meaning of short texts in leisure seals.<br>4. Learn about the characteristics of zhuwen (red character style) and baiwen (white character style) seals.<br>5. Learn about the creation and use of reverse images.<br>6. Learn master seal inscription techniques.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Commemorating its 60th anniversary in 2021, the Min Chiu Society, formed by a group of art collectors in Hong Kong, has been an important cultural force devoted to fostering intellectual exchange and collecting, studying and promoting Chinese art. Guided by its founding ethos––"an earnest pursuit of classic knowledge, with a passion for antiquity"––the Society's art collections are eclectic, ranging from Chinese paintings and calligraphy, ceramics, jade, glass, lacquer wares, carvings in bamboo and wood, furniture, textiles as well as China Trade arts. This exhibition presented the very best of Chinese art from the collections of Society members. Over 300 works of art were featured, bringing the artistic and cultural taste of Chinese imperial courts and literati across generations.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Appreciating Chinese painting and calligraphy can be a frustratingly clueless task. Luckily, Tang Hou, a Yuan connoisseur, offered to help with this advice: "In the case of landscapes or paintings of bamboo, plum blossoms, orchids, old trees, rocks, birds and flowers, they are ink-plays in which the initiated and cultured lodge their thoughts and feelings. Pray not to gauge them for formal likeness." In other words, if you are looking only for formal likeness, you are looking in the wrong direction. What is more, when you look at the brush and ink, you look at the artist. Withdrawal means attaining an ideal realm of existence while avowal, proclaiming one's conviction unequivocally. The proclamation, however, requires neither sound nor words when the medium is painting or calligraphy. When appreciating these works, it is the sincerity and integrity embodied that we should look for.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">To showcase the manifestation of literati integrity in painting and calligraphy, 60 masterpieces have been selected from the Chih Lo Lou Collection and other Museum holdings for display with reference to their subjects, techniques and the artists' style names and courtesy names.</p>