What is unprecedented is that the exhibition invited 100 outstanding seal engravers in China in different age groups to carve the contents of two Chinese classics--The Confucian Analects and Tao Te Ching--with the material of the Shoushan stone. It's a perfect combination of traditional Chinese culture and this unique art form that has lasted over 2,000 years.
"All the items shown at the exhibition embody the highest level of China's seal cutting art today," said Luo Pengpeng, one of China's leading seal cutting artists and Deputy Director of the Academy of Seal Cutting Art of China, the organizer of the exhibition.
According to Luo, exhibition planner, the idea was to show traditional Chinese culture and art through the organic combination of all these cultural elements. She said that the exhibition was greatly supported by artists and collectors, and all the priceless artworks on the show were provided free of charge.
The exhibition proved a big hit not only with artists but also with ordinary people who are interested in traditional Chinese art.
Li Fengchuan, a visitor from north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, brought his daughter to visit the show. "I want my child to know more about traditional Chinese culture and art," he told Beijing Review.
He also hopes that this kind of high-quality art exhibition can be held more often in the future, allowing the general public to get reacquainted with such cultural heritage.
According to Luo, the exhibition will be held in Japan in May, as the first leg of an overseas tour.
But compared with its high artistic and cultural value, the seal cutting art is still an art form mastered by a small group of scholars and artists and has not been popularized among the public to the extent of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Most Chinese do not know where to learn the art.
The major reason for this is that seal cutting has not been an independent subject of the arts in China's education for some time, which has directly limited its popularity and continuance, said Luo. Even now, the study of seal cutting is still subordinate to the department of calligraphy or the department of Chinese painting in some art schools, she said. But she added that things are changing.
"I would say that the art of seal cutting has entered its best development period since the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949," Luo told Beijing Review.
In her view, with the enhancement of China's economic strength and the improvement of its people's living standard, Chinese traditional culture is now of increasing interest in China and the rest of the world, which directly boosts the development of the seal cutting art.
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games has no doubt escalated this trend, said Luo. The image of a Chinese seal has been chosen as the emblem of the Beijing Olympics, which has greatly intensified the status of the art in the hearts of Chinese people, she said.
(Beijing Review April 15,2008)
