Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Going to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery was such an experience. My reflection will focus on the Chinese Art section. The Chinese Art section was what striked me the most because in class, chinese culture was discussed a lot. In class, we talked more about the communist party in China from the past hundred years until now. However, through this museum, some things from the past have not changed much over history. One thing that we learned through the lesson about communism was that the Chinese people were always trying to share tools among the community, so that the government had more material to work with for the military. This situation was also shown in the movie from class To Live. Throughout the Chinese Art collection, many pieces of art that I saw was pottery and plates. These pieces of art date back to 4000 B.C.,and many even recently too. From witnessing all of these pieces of art, I came to the conclusion that pottery and dinnerware was very important to the Chinese people for many years.          Much of the pottery had a meaning behind the colors that they were using. The most popular colors that were used were black, white, yellow, maroon, tan, and gray. I had the conclusion that the Chinese people want to be as close to nature as possible with their art. The type of material that they paint on is the old, fragile yellow and tan tinted paper. When they paint, the technique that the Chinese people paint with is  a very thin and light stroke. Most of the material that they paint on is not even covered. The paintings almost all look like stick figures, but with a lot of detail so that it would not look like stick figures. From all of the Chinese history that we have learned about through NCLC 130, the Chinese people are always trying to use as least resources as possible. Unlike in America, we usually cover up the majority of the canvas on which we are painting on.          Another collection of pottery was porcelain making. These porcelain bowls and tea bottles were used all throughout China, and they can still be viewed today all around the world. The two main colors on these porcelain collections are blue and white. The designs that the Chinese people usually make on them are floral designs. Sometimes, the Chinese would put in a picture of a blue-and-white dragon too.          Many of the pieces belonging to the Chinese Art section of the museum had pictures of nature. Some of the parts of nature that they portrayed most were the mountains, pieces of bamboo, tigers, trees, and flowers. This was not surprising because throughout the movie from class, there were constant uses of nature among the Chinese people. If there was one thing I learned from this museum is that the Chinese people are very appreciative of nature and the environment. One painting that showed this was a landscape of men tea-sipping under a willow tree from Qing Dynasty. Sitting under the willow tree sipping tea made the men looking very relaxed in this piece of art. They had their carts or trays that held the tea, and they were relaxing on the ground. The colors are very relaxed and not too extravagant.         Another piece in the Chinese Art section that caught my eye was a picture of children playing in the garden. Once again, the children are having fun in the middle of nature. This can relate to Youqing and Fengxia because they always used to play in the house or outside. Although these two children were very close with their parents, they had a fun time with the kids from the neighborhood. Also Youqing would always look out for his sister Fengxia. From the early stages, Chinese people teach the children to appreciate nature.          Lastly, the Chinese people also believed very deeply in the spirits. Many of the pieces of art were symbolizing guardian angels. Statues, such as the tomb guardian creature, were made to guard the tombs of high-ranked people. These statues usually had wings too.          Although we only talked about the Chinese Art section, throughout the whole museum, the theme that I concluded was showing how even though every area in the world has changed drastically over thousands of years, there are still things that cultures have never got rid of. They kept some traditions, while also starting new ones. Overall, Chinese people had higher-ranked people in their society, but nobody should have that much more than anybody else around them, or what they deserved. Back to Extra Credit Assignments Main Page Back to NCLC 130 Main Page