Kangxi is here! A must-visit during the summer vacation in Shanghai!

🌟Exhibition Information: 🎨The Last Aristocrats - 18th Century European Master Paintings from the Uffizi Gallery ⏰April 12, 2024 - August 25, 2024 📍Dongyi Art Museum, No. 1 Zhongshan East 1st Road 🌟Exhibition Overview: In 2021, Dongyi Art Museum signed a "Five Years, Ten Exhibitions" agreement with the Uffizi Gallery in Italy. So far, four major exhibitions have been held: "Self-Portraits of Masters", "Botticelli and the Renaissance", "Titian: The Goddess of Flowers", and "The Last Aristocrats". The "Last Aristocrats" exhibition carefully selects 80 authentic pieces from the Uffizi Gallery's collection and brings together heavyweight works by more than 50 art giants such as Goya, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Boucher, Chardin, Guardi, and Liotard. Through various forms such as paintings, noble jewelry, handicrafts, and sculptures, it recreates the great artistic heritage left by the Medici family, giving the audience a chance to glimpse the magnificent blueprint of 18th-century European art and feel the artistic charm and humanistic landscape of that glorious era. 🌟Exhibition Highlight: Portrait of Emperor Kangxi‼️ On the occasion of the 370th anniversary of Kangxi's birth and the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo's death, the new director of the Uffizi Gallery, Simone Verde, specially came to Dongyi Art Museum to view the "Last Aristocrats - 18th Century European Master Paintings from the Uffizi Gallery" exhibition and brought a newly added special exhibit, the "Portrait of Emperor Kangxi". This piece was taken to Italy by the painter in the early 18th century and is being exhibited in China for the first time in nearly 300 years, showcasing the history of complementary and appreciative artistic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West. 🌟Exhibition Tips: 1️⃣ Giovanni Gherardini, Chinese name Nie Yunlong, was born in Modena, Italy. He studied architectural perspective in Bologna and is the earliest documented full-time court painter employed by the Kangxi dynasty. 2️⃣ A close look at the full portrait of Kangxi reveals a light source coming from the left side, making the left side of Kangxi's face bright and the right side slightly dark, with a strong sense of three-dimensionality. The Western classical chiaroscuro portrait technique was considered "yin-yang face" by many Chinese at the time and was unacceptable. Therefore, Nie Yunlong appropriately weakened the contrast between light and dark on the face, retaining the three-dimensional perspective style and techniques of Western painting while also respecting the painting aesthetic preferences of China at the time. This might explain why Emperor Kangxi favored Nie Yunlong, as can be understood from the creation of this painting. 3️⃣ Emperor Kangxi, the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history, "nominally maintaining the status quo, but actually pioneering", is renowned for his civil and military achievements. He was a tireless outdoor hunter and a decisive and diligent ruler. He "never enjoyed a day of parental affection", was unable to escape his original family throughout his life, showed filial piety to his grandmother and stepmother, doted on his children, cared for friends without principles, but was betrayed by his sons, feeling extremely lonely and desolate in his later years, worried that ministers would leave him upon retirement. What kind of multifaceted emperor do you see in him?