CHINESE ART IN WELLINGTON

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 153, 25 March 1937, Page 10

CHINESE ART IN WELLINGTON

For New Zealanders, we are told. Chinese art offers a special interest because of certain similarities with Maori ornament. Hence there is opened up a promising field for research which might reveal fresh clues to the great enigmas of both Maori and Chinese origins. This interest should be quickened by the Chinese art exhibition now in Wellington. The enjoyment of an art exhibition depends, for t.ie average man. a good deal upon his mental approach to it. 1 here is no need to tell the connoisseur how to embark upon such an enteiprise. Tn his capacity as a collector, or as an artist himself, he knows his bearings. He has bis own standards of values, and though these may differ from others, much or little as the case may be, lie prefet.-' his own basis and methods of appraisement. But for the plain man. Mr. John Citizen, some help is needed in order that qualities and points of merit lie ought to see and appreciate will not be overlooked. Tt may assist his understanding, for example, if he bears in mind the fact that at the time Julius Caesar was conquering the ancient Britons—a race far more primitive in many ways than were the Maoris when we first met them—Chinese artists were making the extiaordinarily beautiful vases and other ornaments now to be seen at the exhibition in Wellington. The discoverers of these triumphs of workmanship in China, as have the archaeologists in the tombs of Egypt, discovered also that popular ideas about ancient civilisations were vastly astray. Arts of to-day cannot surpass the arts of some 3000 vears ago. "" In notable instances they are inferior. With this preliminary thought in his mind. Mr. John Citizen .will be prepared no doubt for the shock of the realisation that with the evidence of the Chinese art exhibits displayed before him the Western civilisation of which he proudly boasts must abandon a large part of its conceit. , Thus chastened, he may be led to the next point in intellectual reflection, which is that while he is studying Chinese art forms he is also studying Chinese history. The history of a people.is writ large in the material evidence of its art which may have survived the various vicissitudes of time and the forces of destruction. From this point'of view the inscriptions and dedications on Chinese work aie of great historical value. As yet, we are told, only the threshold of archaeological cxploiation in China has been crossed. “ 1 hough recent discovery has (hiown a surprising flood of light on the foundations of Chinese civilisation, no one,” says Dr. W. Percival Yetts. Professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology in the University oi London, can foietell what may. still lie hidden in the ground.” Perhaps before long the great enigma of Chinese origins mav Tie solved, and the oldest continuous civilisation, affecting a quarter of humanity, be brought into i elation with out own cultural beginnings in the West. In the last two decades archaeological research has been greatly stimulated by the revelations resulting from the labour of pioneer excavators, and also acquired systematic method. All over the Fast, and in Central, and South America, the scientific investigators are digging up ancient history, unfolding lost pages of time, and bringing the civilisations of the ages into their right perspective. I liese considerations should quicken the interest of the lay citizen in the unique exhibition now Hl Wellington.