Demons, Ghosts, and Goblins in Chinese Art

Special Exhibition
Featured

Sunday, September 8, 2024–Monday, January 20, 2025

Location: 010 Focus Gallery
Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery

Free; No Ticket Required

Featured Art

About The Exhibition

Demons, ghosts, and goblins feature in Chinese art as creatures that either bring harm or ward off evil spirits. This exhibition presents 20 paintings and sculptures of secular and religious subject matter from a private collection and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The show explores the stories in which they appear and the supernatural power that they exert.

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China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta

By Clarissa von Spee, Curator of Chinese Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, with contributions from Yiwen Liu, Curatorial Research Assistant, The Cleveland Museum of Art. China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta is the first publication in the West that focuses on the artistic production and cultural impact of this region of China. Also called Jiangnan, it is located in the coastal area south of the Yangzi River that has throughout large parts of its history been one of China’s most wealthy, populous, and fertile regions. For millennia it has been an area of rich agriculture, extensive trade, and influential artistic production. Art from Jiangnan—home to such great cities as Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing, as well as to hilly picturesque landscapes stretched along rivers and lakes—has largely defined the image of traditional China for the world. The lavishly 432-page illustrated catalogue includes introductory essays by internationally renowned scholars covering such topics as Jiangnan in poetry, the region’s economy, silk production, southern green stoneware, landscape painting, color print production and urban culture, Buddhism, and garden culture. The book presents six thematic sections and features more than 200 objects from Neolithic times to the 18th century ranging in media from jade, silk, prints, and paintings to porcelain, lacquer, and bamboo carvings. Edited by Clarissa von Spee, the essays and object entries illustrate and discuss how this region gained a leading role in China’s artistic production and how Jiangnan succeeded in setting cultural standards. Taking this new approach, the international exhibition catalogue highlights iconic works of art as well as new, previously unpublished material, from private and public collections in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan. 432 Pages, 336 color + b-w illus.

Chinese Dragon

Unlike the traditional European depictions that are usually seen as greedy and evil, dragons in China are often associated with good luck and wisdom. They are fierce and powerful, but respected for their great knowledge and strength. Characteristics: This Chinese dragon figure features the serpentine shape, antler-like horns, long whiskers and ornate finned spines often seen on depictions of this mythical creature. Its green and yellow scales and horns contrast with the red of its spines, whiskers and tongue.

Heidi Taillefer: Dragon of the Yangtze 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

Heidi Taillefer (Canadian b. 1970)Brewing the Yangtze, 2000Surrealism, humanism, and mythology meld in the dynamic work of Canadian artist Heidi Taillefer. In this large-format oil painting, a five-clawed royal dragon represents China’s longest and most important river, the Yangtze. The imagery is replete with symbols of Chinese culture: golden carp suggest wealth and prosperity, cranes represent longevity and wisdom. And disembodied human hands—whether reverently clasped or holding a ceremonial weapon to pierce the dragon—allude to the interplay of humankind with the natural world. Nicknamed “the dragon lady” as the result of a childhood obsession, Taillefer deepens her fascination with dragons and Chinese mythology in Brewing the Yangtze, reproduced in glorious detail on this 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio

by Pu Songling Exquisite and amusing miniatures regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fictionWith their elegant prose, witty wordplay and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this selection from The Strange Tales of Pu Songling (1640-1715) reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems. Here a Taoist monk conjures up a magical pear tree, a scholar recounts his previous incarnations, a woman out-foxes the fox-spirit that possesses her, a child bride gives birth to a thimble-sized baby, a ghostly city appears out of nowhere and a heartless daughter-in-law is turned into a pig. In his tales of humans coupling with shape-shifting spirits, bizarre phenomena, haunted buildings and enchanted objects, Pu Songling pushes back the boundaries of human experience and enlightens as he entertains.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. 562 pages Published 2006

Sponsors

This exhibition is made possible with support from Anne T. and Donald F. Palmer.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. Major annual support is provided by the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm and the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment. Generous annual support is provided by two anonymous donors, Gini and Randy Barbato, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Gail and Bill Calfee, Joseph and Susan Corsaro, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Florence Kahane Goodman, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Robin Heiser, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, the William S. Lipscomb Fund, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, William Roj and Mary Lynn Durham, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, Saundra K. Stemen, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.