ART SHOWS |
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The Center for the Humanities |
| A MEMBER OF THE CONSORTIUM OF HUMANITIES CENTERS AND INSTITUTES | ||
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| AUTZEN HOUSE | OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY | July 2009 |
Colorful Cinese paintings from a private collection will be on display at the Center April through June. The collector, Corvallis artist Louise Meadows, bought the ‘peasant’ paintings at a small shop in Xi’an, in Central China.
“Although the Xi’an County region—HuXi’an—in Central China is better known for its famed terra cotta army of the first Chinese Emperor, Qin, it is also home to a concentration of peasant artists noted for their paintings featuring rural life,” Meadows wrote in a statement about the exhibit. “It is generally thought that these artists developed their distinctive style of painting in the 1950s.
“Their paintings are focused on scenes of everyday rural
life, including farming, festivals, village traditions, and seasons. These
brightly painted, exuberant, naïve depictions came to the attention of
government officials during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and, since they
conformed to an image of the artist as a humble peasant rather than a highly
trained and educated member of the elite, the artists received a certain level
of state sponsorship.
“Eventually, art classes were organized, an artists’ cooperative
was formed and, with government promotion, the paintings have achieved a worldwide
following and have been the subject of many exhibits in China and abroad.
“After designing and completing a painting, the artist will make many individual copies with minor variations from the original. The paintings are then sold at tourist shops in HuXi’an and elsewhere, including eBay. All the paintings displayed in this exhibit were purchased from a shop in the Xi’an Muslim quarter, and selected from several stacks of paintings, produced with varying degrees of skill, by a variety of artists. Surprisingly, when they were examined with more care in preparation for this exhibit, they were found to be mainly the work of just two artists.”
The Center, built as a private home in 1904, still retains some house-like qualities, including a sitting room on the main floor furnished with comfortable couches and chairs. This public room, plus the adjacent conference and lecture rooms, do double duty as an art gallery during the academic year. Each term brings a new exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints, or photography.
Exhibits are free and open to the public weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For information, call 737-2450. Artists interested in showing work should contact the Center at 541-737-3537.
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[Updated: 2009]