Exhibition Marking Bada Shanren’s 400th Anniversary in China Draws 400,000 Visitors — Mostly Young People

NANCHANG, CHINA — In the hometown of classical Chinese painter Bada Shanren, the city of Nanchang, the largest exhibition ever organized dedicated to his life and work has drawn around 400,000 visitors by September 15, according to the Bada Shanren Memorial Hall — and the overwhelming majority of them are young people. The exhibition titled “So Lofty the Spirit, So Eternal the Ink” opened on July 10 in two venues, the Jiangxi Provincial Museum and the Bada Shanren Memorial Hall, and will remain open until October 10.

It presents 129 paintings and calligraphic works loaned from 22 museums and cultural institutions across China, many of which are rarely lent out. Preparations for the exhibition, which coincides with the 400th anniversary of the artist’s birth, lasted nearly three years, Deng Feng, a researcher at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), told the media. The loans include works from the Palace Museum in Beijing, as well as regional museums across the country.

Among the exhibition’s highlights is the “Self-portrait of Bada Shanren,” the artist’s only portrait widely accepted by scholars, as well as the nearly 20-meter-long scene “Flowers Along the River (Heshang Hua Tu),” an immense masterpiece of Chinese painting. Born into the Ming imperial family as Zhu Da (1626–1705), the artist became a Buddhist monk after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644 and took the name Bada Shanren in his late 50s.

Much of his contemporary fame comes from the famous birds with “upturned eyes” that populate his paintings — images that have become extremely popular memes and emoticons on the Chinese internet. The museum’s social media posts have surpassed 1 million views, live tours on the Douyin platform have gathered around 140,000 viewers, while merchandise inspired by his birds, such as plush toys, sold around 400,000 RMB (about $59,000) in just the first 20 days of the exhibition. According to Deng Feng, Bada Shanren’s art stands in a delicate balance between “ecstasy” and “serenity.”

Interest is not expected to fade with the closing of the Nanchang exhibition: the Shanghai Museum plans a major exhibition dedicated to the artist in December, with loans from the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington.

Source: The Art Newspaper (via USA Art News)