Laraine Armenti

visual artist

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
  • BLOG
  • ART
    • Still-life & Interiors
    • Landscape
    • Collage
    • Magnolias
    • Mylar
    • Sketchbooks
    • Gouache Copies
  • BOOKS
  • OUTREACH
    • RESIDENCIES
    • INTERNATIONAL
    • WORKSHOP ART

Catastrophe

May 11, 2015 by Laraine Armenti, visual artist

ARTIST RESIDENCY CHINA — BEIJING, no. 5

Yuanmingyuan

Imagine tours of Buckingham Palace and Versailles leading to graveyards of empty space, vestiges of devastation caused by invading foreign armies. In China, that place is Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. Its annihilation in 1860 by the Anglo-French and American belligerents against the Qing dynasty feels recent.

Yuanmingyuan

Instead of reveling in 18th & early 19th century architecture, design, furniture, gardens, and vast ornamentation of human imagination, visitors view hand drawn images on stanchions and stone markers that line paths leading to piles of rubble and picturesque views. A vibrant spring day in an enormous urban park barely masks the utter waste.

The torture and deaths of 20 European delegates toward the end of four years of global military conflict — summarized as the second Opium Wars — provoked British High Commissioner to China Lord Elgin to order the complete destruction of the vast site. Victor Hugo’s letter of outrage, engraved in stone, is moving, though of small consequence given the violence that took place.

Yuanmingyuan

Yuanmingyuan

Yuanmingyuan

stone markers describe former architectural sites

P5109271

Yuanmingyuan

sole remaining original stone bridge

P5109288

stone labyrinth — recent restoration

P5109301

Yuanmingyuan

P5119305

Yuanmingyuan

Yuanmingyuan

Yuanmingyuan

Yuanmingyuan

Victor Hugo and letter engraved in stone in Chinese and French

Yuanmingyuan

confronted by the spirit of the goldfish

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

To see all blog posts in this topic, select tab above marked RESIDENCIES > CHINA.

Save

Filed Under: Artist Residency, China, Photo

SUBSCRIBE

Search

Content by Category

Content by Date

Recent Posts

  • Outsiders — Musa Collective
  • Evolution
  • Teacher Student
  • Summer Drawings
  • Summer Series
  • Little Gems Show
  • Spring Teaching 2018
  • Teaching Winter Session 2018
  • Tempus Fugit
  • New from Vermont

NEWS

For immediate release . . .

. . . . . . . .

Little Gems: a group exhibition of small artworks by fifteen contemporary artists

May 29 – July 28, 2018

Gladstone
36 1/2 Union Street, Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA
info [at] gladstonejewelry [dot] com
978-704-9410

. . . . . . . .

From Life: Studio School Paintings

September 8, 2017 — November 16, 2017

Cambridge Center Studio School
42 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA 02138
617.547.6789

. . . . . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Copyright © 2021 · Laraine Armenti. All rights reserved. Please do not copy pictures or text without permission.
Outreach Pro Theme · Built on the Genesis Framework · Customization and maintenance by ASK Design.

Copyright © 2021 · Outreach Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in