Forfeiting my integrity and honesty while affecting a smile of
interest, I agreed to review this exhibition. I mean come on,
anyone without grey hair would be pushed to take a lie detector
test and read out a sentence like “I’ve always had an
interest in Chinese silk painting” without the needle
shooting up and down. It isn’t that I wanted to be a
cultural philistine; indeed I gave it my all not to be and donned
the appropriate clothing, hoping that it might put me in the
right frame of mind. In a blazer, shirt and chinos, I set out. It
wasn’t going well, I thought, as I peered at a Tang dynasty
Buddhist altar valence. A long piece of fabric onto which are attached various pieces
of embroidered and plain silk, the only thing I could liken it to
was a bank manager’s tie collection: a stripy one, a plain
one, and a risqué embroidered number perfect for the office
party Amongst the scraps of ancient fabric I couldn’t find
much that charmed. Their size and incompleteness makes
scrutinizing them a chore. Seeing a gold embroidered
dragon’s bulbous eyes staring out from a tapestry convinced
me. On the whole the figures portrayed in this exhibition have a
paradoxical ability to make the impossible believable. The dragon
is bodiless yet has scaly hands creeping upwards. I wouldn’t
have expected life and vivacity; yet they are strangely
articulated on silk with paint and thread that blends the real
and fantastic.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004
Chinese Silk
