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Dilip Raval (b. 1933), Ice Floating in Indus River, Alchi, Ladakh, India, 2010. Digital image; pigment ink on coated paper. Courtesy of the artist. |
SUBLIME LANDSCAPES: PHOTOGRAPHS OF ASIA BY DR. DILIP RAVAL
Saturday, May 19, 2012 - Sunday, August 12, 2012
Dilip Raval belongs to the tradition of legendary American landscape photographers that includes Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, Elliot Porter, and John Sexton. His subject, however, is landscapes of Asia. The photographs in this exhibition were taken on repeated visits to Raval’s homeland of India and during travel to Nepal, Bhutan, Japan, Indonesia, and China. The elements are vibrant and present, and the images evoke awe, respect, and deep personal and human identity with the natural world.
Many of Raval’s compositions are grand and symphonic. They are simultaneously far-reaching and precise, resolving form, light, color, shape, pattern, and prospect in a deeply satisfying and delicate harmony. Using the selective eye in the camera together with the manipulative potential of digital printmaking, the artist brings vast panoramas and close observations into the same frame. Movements of shape—layered mountains, deep valleys, terraced hillsides, leaves on a branch—and melodies of light and color draw the viewer through landscape toward a contemplative reverie that stops short of both nostalgia and cliché.
At first glance, the images appeal to an instinctive love of beauty, but like the sublime tradition to which they more properly belong, they also bring into question the preservation of the individual and of the natural order on which he depends, a quietly insistent fear that nothing so beautiful can endure. As John Sexton, a mentor to Raval, writes in his eloquent and sensitive introduction to the catalogue that accompanies this exhibition, Sublime Landscapes: Photographs of Asia by Dr. Dilip Raval:
"These are photographs of magical places in Asia as they are today. His images cause us to consider the importance of maintaining a balance between human activity and the delicate natural landscape to preserve these areas, not just for their beauty, but also for the preservation of life on this fragile orb we call Earth."
Dr. Raval came to the United States from India to pursue graduate studies in chemistry, and he went on to manage scientific institutions. His works have appeared in exhibitions at many venues, notably the National Center for Performing Arts in Mumbai, India.
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Tomb offering stand. Tang dynasty, 8th century. Earthenware, three-color (sancai) glaze, 2 1/16 by diam. 11 ¼ inches (5.2 by 28.6 cm). Norton Museum of Art, Purchase, the R.H. Norton Trust, 62.11. © Norton Museum of Art |
On the Silk Road and the High Seas: Chinese Ceramics, Culture and Commerce
Saturday, September 01, 2012 - Sunday, January 27, 2013
On the Silk Road and the High Seas: Chinese Ceramics, Culture and Commerce examines why Chinese ceramics were such prized commodities, both at home and abroad. Examples of proto-porcelain appeared in China about 3,000 years ago and hard-paste porcelain began to be made around 1,800 years ago. This precious product was sometimes called “white gold,” especially in the West. Foreign trade and changing domestic markets played a role in stimulating Chinese potters to continually reinvent their repertoire of shapes and decorative techniques. These exchanges also illuminate important episodes in cultural history.
The earliest era of Chinese trade with lands to the west began over 2,000 years ago. Before there was a Silk Road, Chinese records refer to a Jade Road where traders from the East and West met at the oasis of Khotan in Central Asia. There the Chinese acquired the type of gemstone they valued most. From the 1st through the 14th century overland and maritime exchanges of ideas and goods between China, the Mediterranean world, Japan, and Central and Southeast Asia were never controlled by a single political power. The overland road for much of its length was a fragile chain stretched across inhospitable desert and mountain terrain. Ships sailed unpredictable seas from one small city-state to another. Many were swept off course and sank, such as two recently discovered cargos of 9th- and 14th-century Chinese ceramics.
During the 18th century a flourishing shipping business, known as the “China Trade,” developed between Western nations and the Chinese port of Canton in the upper reaches of the Pearl River Delta. Trade concentrated on tea, silk, and inexpensive porcelain. “Fancy” goods and special orders, like the armorial porcelain and large decorative pieces—particularly punch bowls—were privately traded by ships’ officers. At this time, the European porcelain industry was in its infancy and production of large pieces of porcelain was problematic there.
Throughout history, the exchange of goods and ideas was never one-sided. Novel ideas from the West fascinated the emperors of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) inspiring the creation of imperial wares, such as the pattern known in the West as mille-fleur and in China as wanhuajin. Jesuits working in Chinese imperial workshops were a conduit for European imagery and thoughts, such as the mille-fleur design often depicted in easily transportable 18th-century European engravings. The Chinese version of the mille-fleur motif found favor as a pattern on Yongzheng imperial porcelain (1723–1735) and continues to be admired in China to this day. On such wares, flowers of the four seasons miraculously bloom at the same time. One reason for the appeal of this design is its association with a pre-existing Chinese proverb foretelling prosperity: “May one hundred flowers bloom.” Comprised of over 60 objects, On the Silk Road and the High Seas: Chinese Ceramics, Culture and Commerce explores these and other tales, revealing why Chinese ceramics were so desirable at home and abroad.
On the Silk Road and the High Seas: Chinese Ceramics, Culture and Commerce was organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.
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