Garden exhibition shows seeds of culture
Forbidden City event looks at how a small plot of land can inspire and nurture human creativity, Wang Kaihao reports.
"Everybody would have certain activities in the gardens," he says.
"It would be easier for visitors to feel emotionally connected if we tell them what happen in the gardens and thus reflect the garden owners' thinking."
Recreation, antique collection, mental cultivation, celebrities gathering and other activities in the garden thus compose different themes of the exhibition.
Chemistry may naturally be created in this arrangement.
Walking along the zigzag lane in the gallery, which mimics the shape of bridge in a traditional Chinese garden, visitors can find Claude Monet's Water Lilies on one side.
In 1906, the French art icon was mesmerized sitting by the pond in his own garden, making this moment immortal through his brush.
Across the lane, the Japanese ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai's color woodblock print Iris and Grasshopper (1833-34) may explain his ideal garden and how his worship of nature influenced Monet and French impressionism. Both art pieces are from a collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.
