Monday, September 24, 2012

Personalities

You can find him on the Nanjing University campus.
This wise oldster lives on my campus, in a Rodin-like garden full of statues of men laboring, men watching, men reclining. And just look at him - he's not just any oldster. He's a little disapproving, a little amused, and is definitely going to speak his mind any moment now. He's maybe your neighbor. You probably tell stories about him.

The only woman in the statue garden has no face, no personality, and no defining characteristics other than her gigantic breasts and the baby. Woman-as-mother. Hm. I suppose the wenrou-delicate traditional heroines did not tickle the artist's fancy, and neither did the badass barbarian ladies, nor the powerful supernatural females.

Anyway, these beauties were sculpted by local - and world-renowed - artist Wu Weishan, who, according to that website, decided to apply the depiction-of-the-inner method of Chinese brush painting to sculpting. It sure seems to have worked, for the male sculptures, at least.

Here's the wikipedia article, in case you were going to look it up. It's classic Chinglish and doesn't say much of anything.

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