Les 3 Rêves du Mandarin

For 40 years, ING Belgium is a faithful partner Europalia. This year, ING Belgium is organizing, in close collaboration with the Capital Museum, Beijing, the exhibition "Three dreams of Mandarin, which will be held from October 22, 2009 to February 14, 2010 at the Cultural Space of ING Place Royale in Brussels.

For nearly fifteen hundred years, China experienced an original political system based on the recruitment of its rulers through highly selective competitions. The material in these competitions included a large body of texts dating back to Confucius. Candidates were judged on their knowledge and quality of their style and their calligraphy. In this context, developed a literate culture, both broader and narrower than that of men of power - the Mandarins. More broadly, because there were many men (and some women) learned (e) s. Smaller, because to be a true scholar, he had to go beyond the academic skills required to pass the competition and demonstrating a commitment to artistic and literary lifetime. This often meant going outside the scope of strict attention to Confucianism to Taoism and Buddhism and, sometimes, to develop a culture of conformism.

Content

The exhibition "Three dreams of Mandarin" has two parts, each designed to illuminate a facet of this literary culture. The period chosen is from the sixteenth to eighteenth century. It revolves around the critical period of the conquest of Ming China by the Manchus in 1644.

Firstly, the exhibition speaks Mandarin scholar in his study. Are addressed in turn their learning, the bonds that attach to his teachers and his ancestors, his tools, known as the "treasures of the scholar (brushes, ink, paper, ...), collections books, bronzes, jades and porcelains.

The second part gives pride to painting. It focuses on the literate without formal anchor, the artist, writer, poet. It has three components, called "dreams" because they often appear as distant aspiration than as a reflection of the prosaic reality. These dreams are art, love and freedom, each unfolding in a symbolic space:
• 'the dream in the bamboo grove "evokes the origins of the literary vision of existence that affirms the early centuries of our era: the ideal of independence vis-à-vis the power and the friendship among peers enriched by intense artistic practice.
• "the dream under the plum shade" illustrates the emotional life of the scholar. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the development of a culture of love between young people sharing the same artistic and literary fads. These themes have found a large figure in the arts and decorative arts.
• "Butterfly Dream" deals with the deep and close relationship with the Chinese qu'entretiennent nature.This feelings take place in the garden, domestic space and tamed, but also in the mountains, where the letter can be found or lose.

Visitors follow a path at the time and mental space to more privacy and freedom. At each stage of his career, he found a plant chosen for its evocative power: bamboo (resistance), plum (delicacy) and the lotus (purity).

Preferred Partner

For this exhibition, ING has partnered with the Capital Museum of Beijing. The exceptional collection of bronzes, porcelains, jades, paintings and calligraphy lent by the museum is further enriched by works from other sources: the Art Museum of Beijing, the Musée Guimet and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Sackler Gallery Washington, the Brooklyn Museum, the Asian Art Museum of Stockholm, the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels and the Royal Museum of Mariemont.