On February 13, the library hosted the grand opening of the exhibition of traditional Chinese and Korean art "Pearls of the East", dedicated to the celebration of the New Year according to the Eastern calendar.
In 2024, this holiday is celebrated in China and Korea from February 10 to 24. The large-scale project is intended to acquaint the Belarusian audience and guests of the capital with Oriental culture, its traditions and originality.
The exhibition features traditional Chinese and Korean art: Chinese gunbi painting, Korean Minhwa painting, as well as moguf, se-yi and the art of calligraphy. Different techniques, filled with complex symbolic depth and painstaking techniques, have a lot in common. The spirituality and naturalness of the works, the integrity and multilevel lines, the conciseness and clarity of the composition, the elegant language of images weave the infinity of picturesque harmony.
Gunbi painting ("careful brush") involves significant professional skills, was available only to professional court artists. Minhwa – painting by amateur artists, writers, "small" Korean nobility, is much easier to perform. Calligraphy is an exquisite form of painting, the basis of education and well–being in the Eastern tradition. Se-i ("free brush") is a painting of poets and philosophers. Mogufa ("boneless") is a technique that combines the features of two styles: gunbi and se-i.
A special place in the exhibition is occupied by the series "8 virtues". The tradition of decorative and stylized images of Chinese characters involves supplementing them with images of plants, birds, animals, fish, and mythical creatures. Such compositions – munchchado – contain hieroglyphs and images associated with the basic Confucian virtues, fundamental moral and ethical principles.
"Pearls of the East" is an ancient wisdom, frozen in the images of traditional painting, embodied in refined metaphorical artistic images. They say about oriental art that one must be able to "read" it.
The event was attended by Lyudmila Vysotskaya, Deputy Director General of the National Library of Belarus, Tatyana Demyanenko, Director of the Confucius Institute at MGLU, Yu Wei, teacher of Chinese language and calligraphy at the Confucius Institute at MGLU, Deputy Director of the Republican Confucious Institute of Sinology at BSU Leonid Batyanovsky, member of the council of the public organization "Association of Belarusian Koreans" Valentina Andreeva, member of the Moscow Club of fans of Chinese painting gunbi, teacher of the course of Chinese painting gunbi scientific and educational center "Yaotian" Natalia Klepikova.
The project is the result of the joint work of the National Library of Belarus and the Republican Institute of Chinese Studies of Confucius of BSU, the Confucius Institute at MGLU and the Moscow Club of Chinese Painting Lovers.
The exhibition will run until May 14.
The completion date can be changed.
Admission is by the library card or by the social and cultural center ticket.
The working hours of the exhibition correspond to the working hours of the library.
For more info: (+375 17) 368 37 37.
The material was provided by the Public Relations Department.
