Evan Anthony on the scrutable Chinese
Clever these Chinese. It 'seems oncy yesterday that the west was salivating over the prospect of a visiting ping-pong team from the east. That was followed by those marvellous acrobats. Having proved ourselves worthy hosts, perhaps by virtue of the warmest of welcomes for our Chinese friends' preliminary PR efforts, we are now rewarded with the ultimate in cultural exchange events — The Chinese Exhibition, an exhibition of the archaeological finds of the People's Republic of China — at the Royal Academy.
As I queued along with one or two hundred other chosen people on the central staircase of the Academy at the ' press ' show, it was soon apparent that nothing had been spared to create the impression that were one fortunate enough to penetrate the closely guarded entrance at the top of the stairs, it would have to be regarded a singular achievement in a career of prePublic viewing. Possibly a bit more insecure than the others (my ticket having been mislaid, at least a dozen phone calls were required to explain my predicament and to receive assurances that word would be left at the door permitting me to enter — should my lost ticket eventually turn up, I was under oath to burn it or swallow it, anything rather than allow it to fall into unkuthorised ' hands) I had visions a reaching the door and being humiliatingly turned away. To push such unpleasant fantasies from my mind, I turned my attention to the perceptive banter of the other important People waiting with me. "It would Probably be easier to apply for a visa and see it in China." "One Might just as well be a member of the public." The chosen and cosseted, unaccustomed to waiting, were, you may gather, growing restless.
The most prophetically memorable comment was made by a woman standing behind me. After reciting a catalogue of complaints about the organisation of the press view and describing her Personal difficulties in obtaining information about booking (which, when received, she found totally confusing), and finally expres'sing her fear that were we kept on the stairs any longer (twenty minutes by then) there would not be sufficient time Properly to examine the exhibits, she pulled herself together, heaved What seemed a fatalistic sigh and concluded. "And the unfortunate thing is that it's probably going to be worth it." The lady was right; it is.
Inevitably, comparisons are being made between this super production and the Tutankahmen show at the British Museum, from which charter bus company drivers and school teachers have only just recovered. Any comparison is, I should think, a tather-beside-the kind of point. Where the Egyptian collection appealed to one's lust for gold and achieved a heightened sense of drama through the climax — seeing the biggest and goldest at the end — the Chinese exhibition is a more leisurely affair, in the sense that any attempt to trace the development of a culture from the palaeolithic period (about 600,000 BC) is bound to seem leisurely.
Four hundred exhibits accompany us on this journey. It would be wrong to infer that there is a lack of dramatic emphasis or excitement — the fabulous Jade Suit of Princess Tou provides at least one major moment, calculatedly staged to make you gasp, should you be the gasping sort — but this collection is broader in scope larger in size than the Egyptian show. Happily, so is the space.
In fact, there is much that might be considered actually theatrical here, but the tasteful ingenuity of Robin Wade and his assistants has achieved an impression of scholarship along with the more obvious signs of showbiz. It is no small accomplishment to have transformed the Royal Academy into the V & A.
The show is housed in twelve sections, each one individually designed, subtly and rather beautifully decorated; a number of the exhibits can-be viewed in the round, and, even with the expected ccowds, it should be possible to see the pieces at close range. I heard one visitor complaining that the lighting was too much like candelight at the dinner table, eventually tiring the eyes, and there is that moment when, emerging from Section 5, home of the Jade Suit, you may find youself blinking as you enter a more brightly lit room; but my only complaint on that score is that the suit, handsomely displayed in its perspex vault, is rained upon by
amber, red and blue lights, directly above, making it impossible to see the true colour of the jade. (Did you know that the workers who spent so much of their time stitching together the 2,160 jade tablets were called jade-smiths?) The catalogue is indeed excellent, but I recommend that you buy it as you leave rather than be burdened with it as you roam through the twelve rooms. It costs 95p and with pictures of every item and explanatory text it is something to own — even were it only going to grace your coffee table. But all the information you need while seeing the exhibition is clearly and lucidly arranged for you to read, posted on the walls. If you have always had difficulty telling your Shang from your Chin (and who hasn't?) you might easily amaze yourself with a newfound facility in bandying such dynastic names about in the future, thanks to Robin Wade's painless information-injection method.
The bronzes, the pottery, the porcelain are all there to testify to the genius of the Chinese. The Flying Horse is as beautiful as it is reputed to be; the ornamentation on the bronze wine vessels is in amazingly good condition; the peasant woman seated is a masterpiece of modelling. Thus can the
treasures be listed, recounted and praised. Facts such as that the Jade Suit and Flying Horse have been indemnified for E20,000,000 become too abstract to grasp (unless you happen to be a true conceptualist), but the visual impact is almost immediately comprehensible.
There is a superb consolation prize available to those who are unwilling to queue for hours. Not far from the Royal Academy, at 6 Albermarle Street is the Marl borough Fine Art Gallery. There is a double bill of rare excellence and a visit to the Marlborough to see either one of them on its own would be more than justified. The Contemporary Spanish Realists include nine artists, and their work is certainly the finest of the re-emerging realist school that I have seen. And in the other part of the gallery Tom Phillips, with his sometime neo-pointillist tech
nique, presents a virtuoso collection of pictures and ideas that are
not be be missed. John Russell spells it out in his catalogue introduction: "No one is going to count, as an artist, unless he can make memorable images; . . . Tom Phillips is going to last, as a maker of memorable images, because he has found new ways of presenting subject-matter which will keep its fascination as long as there are pictures on walls and people who want to look at them." Amen.
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