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The Museum of East Asian Art plays host to a Cast of Characters
21st August – 9th December 2007

Meet some new faces at Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, with the opening of A Cast of Characters exhibition on 21st August 2007. Exploring East Asia 's rich cultural background, this intriguing exhibition sets out to introduce some of the most prominent characters who appear within East Asian art. Among the cast will be personalities from Chinese literature and Beijing Opera, as well as East Asian religious and mythical figures.

Like many communities throughout the world, the countries of East Asia and Southeast Asia have for centuries been using figures and characters within their cultural heritage as a means to instil knowledge and preserve history. Consequently, the popularity of specific characters within countries such as China, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand often reflect the long held beliefs, cultural identity, and language of those particular cultures.

In China one of the most popular practices for conveying the idea of Chinese culture is through Beijing Opera or, as it was previously referred to, Peking Opera. Though opera has a long history in China, it was not until 200 years ago that a National Opera developed. Combining singing, speaking, martial art, dance, music and exquisite costumes, Beijing Opera seeks to introduce tales and characters which are clearly defined in terms of their moral stature. As performances do not include the use of props and scenery, intricate make up and movements are vital in transmitting the characters emotion and temperament to the viewer. With several illustrations of opera characters on show, this exhibition delves deeper into the intriguing and symbolic world of Beijing Opera. Alongside these characters the exhibition will also be showing examples of the famous shadow puppet theatre popular within Southeast Asia. Known as wayang kulit (literally meaning ‘leather shadows'), puppet theatre is an age old form of storytelling and still mirrors the beliefs, attitudes and traditions of modern Southeast Asian cultures such as Indonesia. Accompanied by the music of the gamelan, performances usually portray a battle between good and evil with many essentially telling traditional Indian religious epics such as the Ramayana, Mahabharata (Hindu) or Jataka tales (Buddhist).

This overlap of art and religion in East and Southeast Asian culture is not uncommon, and many art forms convey or form a religious message. The result of this is a large number of religious figures appearing in East Asian Art. As uncovered in the exhibition, the most prominent of these are mythological or historical Buddhist figures. Within the vast array of Buddhist deities and bodhisattvas, Buddha (the enlightened one) appears regularly, and is the most highly regarded.

As well as Buddhist figures, the exhibition also takes an extensive look at popular religious imagery which has inspired a range of myths and legends that contribute to today's vibrant belief systems in East Asia. A good example of this is the many thousands of immortals in Daoism. One specific group of Eight Immortals, which first appeared in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) are now worshipped as gods of longevity. As eight is an auspicious number in China , these Eight Immortals can be found within many folklores and continue to be fashionable motifs. The Eight Immortals will be among the cast of characters being displayed at the Museum.

For those visitors who would like a bit more light entertainment and a comedy horse or two, the exhibition with also have a few famous animal characters amongst its cast. Animal motifs are particularly well liked in East Asian culture as they often operate as symbols of luck, fortune and wealth. The meaning associated with each animal is frequently due to character traits as revealed in stories and myths. For example images of toads are often connected with money-making, as according to a Chinese legend a 10th century Daoist minister named Liu Hai, owned a greedy three legged toad. With a wide range of animal characters, as well literary, religious and mythical figures on show, this exhibition offers a great line up of unusual personalities form East and Southeast Asia. The curtain closes on the exhibition on 9th December 2007.

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