Message from scraig

[Anonymous]

I missed the very first session and this is my make up assignment: The Taiwan Palace Museum Exhibit in El Monte at the Taiwan Cultural Center. I have never seen such innovative use of technology in presenting information such as Chinese writing as well as Chinese paintings. One painting was done in both a Chinese style and western style, the western style exemplified through the use of shadow and three dimentional presentation. In other words, there was depth achieved by contrasting the items in the foreground as larger than the objects in the background. The painting is "Hundred Horses" and was painted by Giuseppe Castigliane, an Italian Jesuit who lived in China for several decades during the Qing Dynasty. The painting was done in 1728. To me it is very beautiful. Then, the museum animated the painting so that the horses are moving through the woods and water. Other paintings of Chinese court ladies playing instruments, chatting and drinking tea were also animated and it really brought the time and culture to life. As you entered the exhibit, there was a large round plate on which hundreds of Chinese characters were written. They could be highlighted to show the ancient writing found on large vases a thousand years ago and highlighted it showed the modern version of that character. If touched, the character would turn into the person, bird, concept, animal, etc. that the character represented which was projected on three walls. It was a really innovative and fascinating exhibit and very pleasant to experience. Additionally, a film depicted a lovely, modern, very poised young woman enjoying pleasent moments such as the tea ceremony with others in a beautiful setting. Another film, this one for children was about the adventures of a child and a cat, and was very charming.
edited by scraig on 5/27/2012
edited by scraig on 5/27/2012