Local Perspective is a video program in which Danqing Chen tells the world art to the public. The first season was filmed in Beijing, the second one in New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the third one in a dozen of renaissance cities in Italy, 44 episodes in total, which were produced in succession by Beijing Vistopia Culture Media Co., Ltd. In the past five years, Local Perspective has won 150 million clicks.
Early this year, Shanxi Museum exhibited four tomb paintings of Northern Dynasties (the 6th century AD) for the first time. Mengqian Xie, the director of Local Perspective, headed for Taiyuan Exhibition Hall and underground tombs for three times together with her team, to film the narrations of Danqing Chen, which were finally displayed in two episodes themed as A Tour of Northern Dynasties Tomb Paintings in Shanxi, with a length of 100 mins. It has been premiered successfully at TANK No. 5 in TANK Shanghai on 11th November and 12th November. Danqing Chen and Mengqian Xie have also attended each screening event to introduce the contents about the special episode of Local Perspective, and to answer the audience’s questions in Q&A session.
About Local Perspective
China’s tomb paintings have a history of over 2,000 years. According to the known unearthing records, tomb paintings of the Tang Dynasty were overmature, while those in the Western Han, Eastern Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties were too unadorned and awkward. The authentic works of a large number of famous painters recorded in the painting history from Wei and Jin to Sui all perished. Gu Kaizhi’s scroll painting in the 4th century AD and Yang Zihua’s scroll painting in the 6th century AD known to us were both the facsimiles of the Song people in the 9th century AD.
From 1980 to 2007, Shanxi Province successively unearthed four tombs of Northern Dynasties, which filled the gap of the history of arts. It was the first time for the cultural relics and arts circle to witness vast authentic paintings in the 6th century, whose modeling and aesthetics were diametrically different from those of Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, including Paintings of Dunhuang.
This Program did not mention abstract and obscure archaeological knowledge, but started from the line aesthetics of “painting and calligraphy of common origin” to analyse the inherent relations between Northern Dynasties paintings’ great style and the letters of Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties and the calligraphy of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and to expound on why the Northern Dynasties people were very different from those of Dunhuang, Tang and Song Dynasties.
In the meantime, ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks, ancient Romans and tomb paintings in the beginning of the Medieval period also occurred repeatedly in this program, including some renaissance masterpieces. Under the mappings of world-class painting aesthetics, the style and charm of line aesthetics of Chinese paintings were thus highlighted. Danqing Chen considers, against the backdrop of world art, only Chinese youths are able to truly understand and love the majesty and glory of Chinese civilisation.
At each screening, Danqing Chen and Mengqian Xie also answered questions from audiences and shared behind-the-scenes stories about the making of this special episode. In just two days of screening, thousands of audiences had come to TANK Shanghai to experience an “Abundance of Line”.
About Danqing Chen
Danqing Chen, born in Shanghai in 1953, is a senior intellectual. He graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1980. Famous for his representative works Tibetan paintings, Chen studied and travelled in New York from 1982 to 1999. In 2000, Chen resided in Beijing, and engaged in writing as an amateur writer, and published books like New York Suo ji . Since the year of 2015, he began to produce the video program Local Perspective, and the paper books of the three seasons of Local Perspective will be available on the market by the end of this year.
