UChicago Arts presents a diverse selection of art, film, music, conversations and performances connected to the arts and cultural history of China during a five-month festival.įrom the magnificent art and spectacle of Chinese opera to rarely screened silent films and world premiere performances, the Envisioning China festival opens a window on the rich cultural heritage of China, past and present.

The exhibition showcases how operatic characters and stories were represented in pictorial and decorative motifs in a wide array of media including ceramics, illustrated books, painted fans, prints, photographs, scroll paintings, and textiles.įeaturing nearly eighty remarkable objects on loan from major museum collections, the exhibition and its catalogue reveal how Chinese visual and performing traditions were aesthetically, ritually, and commercially intertwined. One of the first major exhibitions of its kind in the West, Performing Images focuses on the vibrant imagery, rather than ethnographic artifacts, of Chinese opera. © The Field Museum, Photographer John Weinstein.ĭuring the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, opera lay at the heart of Chinese social and ritual life.įrom the village to the court, the spectacle of theater was enjoyed not only on the stage-in costumes, props, and face painting-but also across the full spectrum of Chinese visual culture, from scroll paintings to popular prints. 1745–1795, Album leaf, ink, and color on paper. Chinese, Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), Qinglong Period (1745–1795), Marvelous Tunes for Festivals (Jiejie haoyin): The Second of the Four Crab Generals, from Mask Designs for Court Opera Characters, ca.

Chinese opera mask designs