Jonathan Cohen's photos with the keyword: Chinese art

The North Park Blocks form a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Captain John H. Couch deeded the five blocks to the city in 1865, and they were officially platted for a municipal park in 1869. An ordinance was passed in 1904, setting aside one park block for women and children. In 1906, another block was added for a children’s playground. The playground was divided into a boy’s playground and a small child and girl’s playground. Use of the North Park Blocks declined, especially as the 1924 zoning code did not preserve residential uses near them. By the 1940s, the North Park Blocks area was decidedly neglected. A problem with the homeless and aggressive panhandlers led to Daisy Kingdom and the U.S. Customs House to hire security guards, and park sprinklers were set to intermittently spray sleepers. In 1989, the problem was worse; that year the local Montessori School found drug users and discarded needles in the city playground. In October, 2002, Chinese foundry owner Huo Baozhu gave a 12-foot bronze sculpture of elephants to Portland. The city placed them on the North Park Blocks between Burnside and Couch streets where children could interact with them. Based on a wine pitcher from the late Shang Dynasty (circa 1200-1100 BCE), this sculpture is about sixteen times larger than the original. The young elephant standing peacefully on his father’s back symbolizes safe and prosperous offspring. The elaborate surface decoration features cloud-shaped curves and birds and animals from ancient Chinese mythology. The piece is titled Da Tung & Xi’an Bao Bao. Da Tung may be translated as "universal peace" or "large bronze." Xi’an Bao Bao means "baby elephant." The sculpture was a gift to the city from Chinese businessman Huo Baozhu, whose foundry in Xi’an, China, is licensed by the national government to reproduce Chinese antiquities. Huo, who visited Portland a number of times, said he was motivated by a love of Chinese history, admiration for Portland and by a rare blood disease that he knew would be terminal.

This full-scale reconstruction represents the corner of a large palace hall in the imperial style of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The complete building would be five bays (spaces between two columns) wide and four bays deep, or about 28 by 16 metres, with a height of 11 metres. All parts were custom-made in China and shipped to Toronto. A team of ten Chinese artisans from the National Museum of Chinese Architecture in Beijing assembled and painted the building at the ROM from September to November 2005. Only traditional Chinese materials and building techniques were used. The bracket clusters (dougong) under the eaves, the glazed ornamental tiles, and the rich painting and gilding on the wooden parts are all characteristic of Chinese palace and temple architecture.

This full-scale reconstruction represents the corner of a large palace hall in the imperial style of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The complete building would be five bays (spaces between two columns) wide and four bays deep, or about 28 by 16 metres, with a height of 11 metres. All parts were custom-made in China and shipped to Toronto. A team of ten Chinese artisans from the National Museum of Chinese Architecture in Beijing assembled and painted the building at the ROM from September to November 2005. Only traditional Chinese materials and building techniques were used. The bracket clusters (dougong) under the eaves, the glazed ornamental tiles, and the rich painting and gilding on the wooden parts are all characteristic of Chinese palace and temple architecture.

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being. Traditionally, a bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Avalokitesvara (from the Sanskrit "Lord who looks down") is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. Avalokitesvara is one of the more widely revered bodhisattvas in mainstream Mahayana Buddhism, as well as unofficially in Theravada Buddhism. The Chinese name of Avalokitasvara is Guanshìyin – which means "Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World." The name is often shortened to Guanyin. Commonly known in English as the Mercy Goddess or Goddess of Mercy, one Buddhist legend presents Guanyin as vowing to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from the samsara or reincarnation. Avalokitesvara was originally depicted as a male bodhisattva, and therefore wears chest-revealing clothing and may even sport a moustache. Although this depiction still exists in the Far East, Guanyin is more often depicted as a woman in modern times. Additionally, some people believe that Guanyin is androgynous (or perhaps of neither gender). The Lotus Sutra describes Avalokitesvara as a bodhisattva who can take the form of any type of male or female, adult or child, human or non-human being, in order to teach the Dharma to sentient beings. This text and its thirty-three manifestations of Guanyin, of which seven are female manifestations, is known to have been very popular in Chinese Buddhism as early as in the Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty. Additionally, Tan Chung notes that according to the doctrines of the Mahayana sutras themselves, it does not matter whether Guanyin is male, female, or genderless, as the ultimate reality is in emptiness. This statue in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum dates from the Yuan dynasty (around 1300 CE) and comes from the Chinese province of Shanxi.

A cornerstone of the ROM since its opening in 1914, the Chinese holdings total more than 30,000 objects, of which some 3,300 are on display. At the core are purchases by Bishop William C. White, a Canadian missionary with an eye for antiquities. From 1908 until his return from China in 1934, he bought for the ROM, then became the first curator of its Far Eastern division, selling some of his personal collection to the museum. Equally crucial were purchases made from 1918 onward by George Crofts, a fur trader and collector who discovered the ROM serendipitously. Especially compelling are the tombs, which illustrate a salient characteristic of Chinese architecture. As senior curator Chen Shen explains, structures for the living are traditionally made of perishable materials – thatch, wood, ceramic tiles. By contrast, the Chinese have historically favoured permanent materials such as stone and hard-baked clay to house their dead. wood originals have perished. The Tomb of General Zu Dashou (also known as the "Ming Tomb") is one of the earliest pieces in the Royal Ontario Museum’s collections. In 1921, Crofts shipped the tomb reliefs and statuary to the ROM, where they are displayed not as isolated artworks but as a reconstructed ensemble, inviting visitors to enter the burial compound as mourners once did. Legendary in Chinese history, General Zu Dashou was celebrated for his defence of the Ming dynasty against the Manchu invasion. His story, however, is not without tragedy. In 1631, the general gave the enemy army one of his loyal sons as a hostage in hopes to speed up negotiations and relieve the people of Dalinghe of constant warfare. By the time the Ming dynasty fell in 1644, a number of the general’s sons had switched loyalties. In 1656, the exiled general died and construction on his tomb began. The scale of the tomb is an indication of respect and esteem General Zu held even amongst his enemies. The tomb complex is full of imagery representing good fortune and immortality. As in many cultures across the world, Chinese burial imagery acts as a charm for those crossing to an after life and signals the passage to the sacred from the profane. The tomb also serves as a visual reminder to those left behind of the departed and of his good deeds. The relief panel shown above is on the archway leading to the actual burial mound. Symbols on the panel include: · Deer –the symbol for longevity · Monkeys near the bees nest – a pun for high rank. · Qilin – mystical animals with antlers, said to appear with the imminent arrival or passing of a sage or illustrious ruler.

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