Picassos of pottery?
- Source: Global Times
- [08:30 January 25 2011]
- Comments
Majiayao painted pottery.
By Wu Ziru
It's a general consensus that abstract painting is a style commonly considered as Western, first practiced by twentieth-century artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, also antithetical to the spirit of Chinese art as it's possible to get. So what to make of a claim that the medium was first adopted by Chinese ancestors some 4,000 years ago?
That is exactly the discovery touted by Wang Zhi'an, an aficionado of Majiayao painted pottery, who has devoted himself to collecting and studying the ancient objects for more than three decades.
Growing up a village boy, living not far from the Majiayao relics in Lintao County, Gansu Province, at the upper stream of the Yellow River, Wang, now in his sixties, has become one of the country's foremost experts in the field.
"You have no idea how interesting it is," Wang said, in front of several objects from his large collection. "Studying this pottery, even the subtle difference of the lines and colors of the designs on them, is to me like a long and vivid journey back to ancient China.
