Kaikodo Journal IX Autumn 1998

A Garden Show

Corresponding to the exhibition held between September 14 and October 24, 1998. 40 early Chinese and Japanese paintings; 37 early Chinese objects (77 color plates). Preface by Howard Rogers. 265 pages.

Includes the essay:
Stephen Addiss:
    “Shadows of Emotion: the Calligraphy, Painting and Poetry of Gion Nankai”

In addition to highlighting the numerous objects of paintings which contributed to the main theme, “A Garden Show,” this issue of the journal was also intended to record and 
commemorate a loan exhibition, “Art in the Age 
of The Peony Pavilion,” drawn from private 
collections and designed to accompany the 
Lincoln Center production of the late 16th 
century Chinese opera of that name scheduled 
for performance during July of 1998.  
However, the Municipal Bureau of Culture in 
Shanghai refused to grant visas to the performers 
and Lincoln Center was left with no choice but 
to cancel their production. Our exhibition, 
selected from private collections, to provide aesthetic context for the 
opera, was thus deprived of its focus and was 
cancelled as well. The most generous and 
optimistic view of the Chinese government’s action in 
this case would hold that it was intended to 
maintain the integrity of the original opera, to 
protect the spirit and form of the author’s 
conception and to ensure that the foreign 
audience was not misled by overly creative 
innovations and modern interpretations. The value to art-history of free inquiry, however,  is demonstrated in this 
issue by the essay contributed by Stephen 
Addiss. His Shadow of Emotion examines how 
poetry, calligraphy, and painting interrelated in 
the life and art of Gion Nankai (1677-1751), a 
pioneer artist of the Nanga school whose artistic 
interests and achievements were so broad as to 
raise questions on the extent and nature of his 
individual style and voice.