EXHIBITION OF CHINESE ART

Evening Star, Issue 22249, 29 January 1936, Page 16

EXHIBITION OF CHINESE ART

One of the most important social and artistic events of tho pre-Christmas season in London was the opening of the Chinese Art Exhibition at Burlington House. Private view day brought many celebrities to the famous galleries, but for once everyone seemed much more interested in the exhibits than in neighbours’ toilettes. There were no striking dress notes. Most of the women wore, black, trimmed with the fashionable Astrakhan, and men favoured dark lounge suits rather than morning coats and top hats. French and German could be heard on all sides, and there were a number of Chinese and Japanese visitors. As usual, a sprinkling of Edwardian dowagers enlivened the scene, and another link with the past was the elegant carriage, drawn by a pair of hays, and having coachman and footman in blue liveries with cockades, which awaited its owners in the courtyard. The exhibits were exquisitely set out more or less in chronological order, and one passes from beautifully wrought bronzes of 2,000 n.c. to the queenly carved but very much alive earthenware animals and figurines which were buried with a man; and so to the wealth of glazed pottery; the quiet, but beautifully detailed, ink paintings of mountain and river landscapes, the brilliantly embroidered coats, and the glories of jade.