Northern Lights: The Art of the Liao

September 16 - October 31, 2006

Gallery & Web Exhibition

The arts of the Liao (907-1125) can be immensely refreshing to the scholar of Chinese art history and the collector of Chinese art. The profoundly powerful artistic conventions of Tang China (618-906) were not merely kept alive on numerous fronts under the watch of the Liao. Through the looking glass of indigenous nomadic traditions, eloquent and idiosyncratic transformations were effected, expressing a distinctive character as the Liao serviced their own cultural needs in most inventive ways. This is particularly true in the worlds of ceramics and metalwork where such funerary accoutrement as death-masks and elaborate crowns, as exemplified in the present exhibition that were crafted for the royal family and high-ranking nobles. Ingenious ceramic creations, such as the inkstone in this exhibition were dressed in the colorful lead-silicate glazes perfected during the Tang, while the organic gourd shape, as another example, present in Chinese ceramics since the Neolithic period, is given a new look under the magic of Liao craftsmanship as the vessel compromises its organic origins by way of details that link it with a metalwork tradition. And even though Liao painters enjoyed the strong underpinnings of the Tang tradition, the national character of the Liao does shine through in their works, as evinced in the floral and bird décor brushed on wood panels included “Northern Lights.”