National Museums Liverpool Blog - Chinese New Year

Most of us have already celebrated the New Year, and enough time has passed that we have made – and broken – New Year's resolutions a plenty!

If like me you've taken a while to get started with your plans to start a new fitness regime or take up a new hobby, why not have another crack at starting a fresh this Sunday, with the dawning of the Chinese New Year.

2013 is the Year of the Snake, and World Museum can certainly boast a lot of snakes in its collections. You can visit the Clore Natural History Centre to see some of the snake specimens and skeletons on display, or have a look at our online collection if you really want to have a good nose at what’s in our stores.

And if snakes aren't you thing, but you'd like to get involved in the New Year celebrations on 10 February, Liverpool will be awash with activity and some of our venues are getting involved. There’s loads going on this weekend and next, including Martial Arts displays at World Museum, Chinese Crafts at Merseyside Maritime Museum and Lion Dances at the Museum of Liverpool and Lady Lever Art Gallery.

Or why not go to the Museum of Liverpool's Global City gallery, to learn about the history of the Chinese community in Liverpool? The special exhibition East Meets West: The story of Shanghai and Liverpool, looks into the city’s relationship with China and Shanghai, and is watched over by its resident Ceremonial Chinese Dragon.

The Ceremonial Chinese Dragon on display at the Museum of Liverpool

Happy New Year everyone!

Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

I like the way Chinese artists have depicted the West over the centuries, particularly on ceramics and canvas.

Their work shows a fine delicacy which is charming as well as inspirational. Chinese marine art perhaps lacks the sense of movement captured by European artists but I am drawn in by the incredible technical detail.

A number of Chinese artists worked in Far East ports specialising in ship portraits for Western captains.

Several fine examples from the period 1850 to 1910 are on display in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Art & the Sea gallery.

The artists generally painted on linen canvases which gave their works a very smooth appearance. Unfortunately the paint has often cracked over the years.

Most will be featured in the China, Shanghai and Liverpool exhibition at the new Museum of Liverpool opening later this year.

The sailing ship Maiden Queen is depicted by an unknown artist with a traditional junk cargo ship in the background. The painting is in its original lacquer frame.

Owned by T & J Brocklebank, Maiden Queen was employed in the tea trade sailing mainly to Hong Kong. She is seen off the Chinese coast. 

The Elizabeth Nicholson is another British ship painted by an unknown artist. She was built in 1863 in Dumfriesshire for the tea trade. She did one of the fastest runs from China in 1867-8 when she sailed from Foochow (Fuzhou) to London in 92 days.

Elizabeth Nicholson is pictured under full sail with a junk visible beneath the bowsprit.

The Scawfell off Hong Kong was painted by an artist in the Lai Sung studio active between 1850 and 1885. This tea clipper was constructed in 1858 for Rathbone Brothers of Liverpool who were involved in the China Trade.

Seen at anchor off Hong Kong, Scawfell made several record voyages. In 1861 she sailed from Whampoa (Huangpu) to Liverpool in 88 days.

Lai Sung was one of a handful of Hong Kong art studios producing ship portraits.

Anjer Head (artist unknown) is depicted at sea under full sail and steam. She was made in 1881 for Angier Brothers of London.

The Kwong Sang studio was active between 1890 and 1894, selling commissioned paintings in Calcutta. There has been a thriving Chinese community in the city since the late 18th century.

A Kwong Sang artist portrayed the four-masted iron barque Windermere (pictured) which voyaged from London or Hamburg to India, Australia and the Pacific. She was built in 1893 for Fisher and Sprott of London.

Some of the crew can be seen including the officer of the watch holding his telescope.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents and bookshops.

With China Through the lens of John Thomson 1868 - 1872 closing at Merseyside Maritime Museum this Sunday, our Liverpool's Chinatown Through the lens Flickr competition has now also come to an end and it is time to reveal the winners.

We had a really interesting range of entries and exhibition curator and competition judge Betty Yao found it difficult to choose the winner from nearly 200 photos. However after much deliberation Betty chose three images, which have all also been blogged about over the course of the competition, with the overall winner being 'Chinese New Year - People' by Lee Carus, an image she says she 'returned again and again to' because '...there is so much there - capturing the people, the colours'. Congratulations to Lee, who wins a banquet meal for two at Yuet Ben.

The two lucky runners-up are Graham Morgan, whose enigmatic shot Betty praised 'for capturing the moment', and Mark McGowan, whose Chinese arch photo reminded her of two atmospheric images from the exhibition; of the pagoda reflected on the lake, and the hazy shot of a man standing by the River Min.

Congratulations to all our entrants, and one final reminder to visit the Maritime Museum this weekend for your last chance to see John Thomson's fascinating images.

The Liverpool's Chinatown through the lens photo competition has ended today, and there is a fantastic range of interesting photos in the competition pool on Flickr. Thanks to all those people who submitted photographs - the images make for fascinating browsing! The winner will receive a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues.

China Through the lens of John Thomson 1868-72 is only on at Merseyside Maritime Museum until 6 June, so get yourself down there and don't miss this stunning exhibition.

The winner and runners-up will be announced shortly - watch this space!

Complex and complicated are not quite the same thing, a distinction which I think is captured in this week's highlight from our Liverpool's Chinatown through the lens Flickr competition, by Flickr user Lee Carus; the scene is busy with detail but not over-crowded, and carefully shot - the photographer waited patiently for some time before snapping this image.

Chinese New Year - People © www.leecarus-photography.net

Quite a few different subjects that I have blogged about over the past few weeks appear here - the buildings in Chinatown, the crowds, the flags - but most prominent is the saturation in vivid colour. Practically no two areas use quite the same colour or hue, and the jostling of a brilliant orange jacket to a pearlescent green flag, shimmering gold surrounded by whites, pinks and blues, mirrors the heaving crowds.

Despite the level of detail, the composition is spacious: the cream buildings in the background and the smoke whiting-out the centre is effective in both throwing the more sharply defined foreground figures into relief and receding the background crowds and buildings, a depth enhanced by the stolid black railings to the right leading into the image. Also interesting is the fact that although the crowds are the ostensible subject, those figures in the background left comprise a fairly abstract mass of curves and shapes, the effect being like a painter suggesting a figure or object with a few simple flicks of a paintbrush - they become real as the viewer steps away. See the photo in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

Older buildings have often outlived most of the people who set inside them, but their meaning and significance is usually defined by the way they are used by those same people. This week's highlight from our Liverpool's Chinatown through the lens Flickr competition, by Flickr user diaryof70steen, is an attractive composition which, though it consists of two buildings and nothing else, says much about different cultures and communities over time.

old and light © diaryof70steen

Visually the image creates a striking parallel between the vibrancy of the Chinese arch, its curved roofs and intricate patterns, and the stoic grandeur of the Black-E centre, with its magnificent dome and Corinthian columns. With a whited-out sky the many shapes and patterns of the buildings stand out crisply in an almost abstract way.

More than the architecture however, the photo tells of a long history of different Liverpudlian communities. The Black-E - taking its name from its smoke-stained stonework that was cleaned in the 1980s - combines a contemporary arts centre with a community centre (the UK's first community arts project), and is based in the former Great George Street Chapel, which closed in 1967. This in turn had been the centre for a programme of artistic, educational and social welfare activities as well as worship, and was itself the second Chapel on the site, opening in 1841 after the 1811 original was destroyed by fire. It seems appropriate that a building so long the hub of many community activities is captured here next to a great symbol of Liverpool's long-established Chinese community, itself also dating from the 19th century. See the photo in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

While holiday snaps are often intended to record a static memory of a place and mood - think of all those posed pictures of your family on the beach with fixed smiles - the more artistic photograph can often capture a whole narrative in a single image. I think in this week's highlight from our Liverpool's Chinatown through the lens Flickr competition, by Flickr user Graham Morgan (greybeats), something of both approaches is captured.

Chinese New Year © Graham Morgan

More familiar as a writhing, twisting creature, the Chinese dragon here is seen as a massive, still block of colours, occupying the whole right side of the image: the lack of body makes it hard to imagine its full size, and it certainly looks like it is towering menacingly over the people on the left. However what is especially interesting about the dragon and the people are their positions and their masks: all of the figures are to some extent covering their faces and none appear to directly acknowledge the others; instead all are facing different directions in a curious, almost posed manner.

The viewer knows that there are really people inside the dragon, hidden under the costume - similarly the man in the foreground half-covers his face, presumably against smoke and noise, the figure behind is half-masked (or half-unmasked?), and those further back still are almost gone completely behind the smoke; everyone is only half-revealed, as though hovering between two personalities, or emerging from a chrysalis. Though it is Chinese New Year, it seems apt that this reminds me of the Roman god Janus (from whom we get the name January), often depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions: back to the old year and forward to the new. This image captures that idea of uncertain but exciting transition, change and ambiguity. See the photo in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

Sometimes a minimalist approach can achieve dramatic effects: I think this is the case with this week's highlight from the Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens Flickr competition, by Flickr user Abi :), in which a black and white photograph is tinted with a powerful yellow with captivating results.

Yellow Flag © Abi :)

I don't know if the photographer chose yellow for a particular reason, but the symbolism of the colour in Chinese culture makes it an interesting choice. Yellow represents, amongst many other things, earth, the balance of yin and yang, and stability, making it an apt colour for a photo mostly comprised of shades of two opposites, black and white, and with so volatile a subject as smoking firecrackers.

Visually it is a very arresting colour to use, but though the flag draping dramatically on the left is one of the first things the eye is drawn to, there are spots of the colour discreetly added throughout the rest of the image - a coat or hat, the firecrackers, the sun-like decoration above the doorway - as though the warmth and joy of the colour is seeping into the pores of the photo.

There is more to the image than just this immediate colour element however. The flag and smoke make a neat vertical symmetry which frames the doorway in the background: the crowds and upstairs windows have a similar effect on the horizontal; this makes a complete frame which concentrates the gaze to the partially-obscured doorway, making it a subtle third subject for the viewer after the yellow flag and the firecrackers, which are the main focus of attention for the crowd. See the photo in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

Keeping with the black and white theme from last week, this week I've chosen another monochrome masterpiece as a highlight from the Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens Flickr competition, by Graham Lloyd.

Dragon © Graham Lloyd

Taken during a performance at the Black-E Centre, the play of pattern and light captures many interesting details in one frozen moment of dance. The ornate swirling patterns of the dragon's head and back contrast sharply with the even lines of the wooden floor, which, whoosing diagonally across the photo, enhance the sense of frenzy and dynamism seen in the dancing dragons of Chinese New Year.

One tale of Ancient China tells of a solar eclipse, thought to be caused by a huge dragon slowly devouring the sun: only by shouting and causing a commotion did the people scare the dragon away from its meal. The picture reminds the viewer of this idea that dragons are not just creatures from fantasy films and celebrations, but represent something genuinely frightening - the perspective here, looking down on the dragon like spectators viewing a dangerous caged animal, enhances this sense of danger... until the viewer notices the contemporary footwear and the mood suddenly lightens. See the photo in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

To complement John Thomson's photographs in the China: Through the lens exhibition, and after the vibrant colours of previous highlights from the Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens Flickr competition, this week I've chosen an interesting black and white image by Aidan McManus (adebⓞnd), which has both a geometric beauty of its own and a strong human element.

Through the Window © adebⓞnd / Aidan McManus

The structure of the photo is simple, bold and effective: the lines and rectangles give a sense of harmony and balance, as though the viewer has zoomed in on a Piet Mondrian painting. The various shades of grey and black and the two bright white smudges of light give the photo an almost abstract quality, but, despite occupying only a small part of the image, the girl intently and patiently watching the New Year's celebrations below is the actual focal point of the picture. 

This human element is further enhanced by the marks scribbled and smeared in the steamed-up glass, the sense of now-absent fingers and hands  - save for a solitary artist at the far right - chaotically clearing a view to the street below a reflection of the excited activity of the New Year parade. See the photo in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.