Chinese Oriental Art

Showroom exposition

From the introduction of “Portaits from the Imperial China” of Vincenzo Pavia.
“I have always been fascinated by oriental art.
Since I was a child I would linger and admire the bronze and wooden Buddha statues that my father used to buy for his clients at international fairs. Though, I was fascinated the most by the colored Tibetan scrolls, also known as “thang-ka”. Their rigid subdivisions in horizontal and vertical lines would create frames in which were represented Gods with many arms and people praying.
As the years passed by and as I started my professional activity this interest of mine turned from a curiosity to a passion. I started to buy from a well-known Milanese art dealer the first objects and paintings that I would display then in my showroom in Turin. I never wanted it to be a mere commercial interest because after all my activity of designing and producing furniture objects always took the most of my time and energies. I was interested in realizing projects where I could use elements of the ancient Chinese art (and recently also Japanese).
I wanted to create spaces in which, beyond the classical or modern style of my furniture, it could be possible to experience a more spiritual atmosphere, almost mystical.
During my journeys in the historical China I could taste the charm of this millennial culture and re-experience through my imagination the splendid court life of the great emperors, bounding myself forever to that such refined art.
My fascination focused in recent years on the great portraits depicting dignitaries, members or entire families, whose painters could not sign their artworks so to avoid reducing the importance of the subjects represented.
The magnificence and majesty of the subjects, the chromatic glorification of their vests, the richness of their jewels represent, to my opinion, the real triumph of the Chinese Fine Arts.
The desire to understand the meaning of the chromatism and of the symbology within the animal subjects represented on the dresses; the attention given to the headgears and accessories, led me to make a research that ended up to create this tiny compendium that I hope will support the comprehension of the artworks here presented.
The encounter with my friend Sergio Basso, a scholar of Chinese art, has been decisive in my explorative journey. I first met him at an art exhibition, then we became closer and our conversations contributed in increasing my passion. Lastly, I wish to thank Roberta Barbano with whom I shared the last part of my Chinese trip (the most fruitful and interesting part from an artistic point of view), and who participated to the realization of this project”.