When I first viewed the current exhibit in the Chu Room, “Four Hundred Miles of the CT River,” I gravitated towards the ink painting depicting a squirrel amongst vibrant orange wildflowers with an ominous cliff off in the distance. I felt that this single ink painting, Squirrel, evoked the essence of the current collection – which including works from the Chu Family Collection and the Connecticut College’s Chu-Griffis Asian Art Collection – because it combined the organic and rough elements present in the other works. While the centerpiece for this exhibit is Charles Chu’s 23-foot-long handscroll Four Hundred Miles of the Connecticut River, I was impressed with the intricate scrolls which contained neutral and vibrant colored ink paint. These careful depictions of nature captured the impressive talent of Charles Chu and thus are the perfect pieces to honor Charles Chu’s centenary.
Before diving into my artistic analysis of this exhibit – whether I have the background to provide such an interpretation I am not sure, but will offer this as a disclaimer – I must acknowledge Chu’s legacy at Connecticut College. Born in a small farming village in Zhaoxian, Hebei, China in 1918, Chu arrived the United States in 1945 to pursue graduate school. Thus, Chu was a member of the special generation of Chinese artists who moved overseas after the 1940s and lived in diaspora. He eventually became a Chinese Studies professor at Conn from 1965 to 1984. Professor Chu was the first to offer Mandarin Chinese courses at the College in 1965. He allowed Conn to become one of the first liberal arts colleges to offer majors in Chinese language and literature. After his retirement, Chu curated the Chu-Griffis Asian Art Collection, which he co-founded with Toby Griffis in 1985.
He was known as a master painter and calligrapher, “well known for his sweeping watercolors, detailed exhibitions, and popular public demonstrations of calligraphy and brush painting,” according to his obituary on Connecticut College’s website. His style of ink paintings exemplifies the most important traditional style in Eastern China. Consequently, in 2001 Connecticut College dedicated the Charles Chu Asian Art Reading Room on the main floor of Shain Library.
The colorful New England landscapes, a subject of great focus for Chu, in this collection enhance the beauty of the Chu room. In addition to the scroll drawing of the squirrel mentioned above, Bird on Wisteria, Flowers and Birds, Bird with Lavender Flowers, Bird with Red Flowers, and Wild Berries also deserve recognition of their natural beauty. Perhaps you are noticing a pattern of my affinity for ink paintings of birds and flowers. In particular, I enjoyed the ink painting Bird on Wisteria which depicts a small bird perched on a leafy branch with delicate purpley-pink and blue wisteria flowers. This painting is particularly pleasing to the eye as the bird is located almost in the center of the piece and the branch swoops horizontally across the page. The branch placements is powerful because it is representative of the swooping movements of a paint brush. In addition to his intricate brushwork, Chu’s careful calligraphy is exemplified on the right upper corner. This interdisciplinary combination of language and art brings a new texture to this collection.
Although I enjoyed the paintings depicting flowers and animals, I do not want to discredit the beauty in Chu’s landscape drawings. White Mountains and Edgartown from the Chu family collection portray picturesque New England landscape scenes. Both paintings depict the treacherous terrain of mountains and rivers scattered with beautiful trees created through neutral gradations of tan, black, and blue. Of the two, I preferred Edgartown due to the small houses painted along the coast as I felt this addition gave another layer of ivenarrat. On the other hand, the intricate details of the trees in White Mountains is arguably more realistic than the brushstrokes used in the former.
I have saved the most prominent landscape within this collection for the last as I interpreted the scrolls and drawings as components of the massive Connecticut River. While only a (small) part of the scroll of the Connecticut River is displayed, one can imagine the complexity of this ink painting. Similar in color to other landscape paintings in the collection, Four Hundred Miles of the Connecticut River captures the contrast between the natural setting and urban cities developing along the coast. These moments when the natural meets the man-made were most provocative to me as it made me to think about the human impact on nature, in particular on defining geographical landmarks. This masterpiece captures Chu’s relation to the Connecticut community, which was his home for 40 years. The exhibition catalogue for this exhibit written by Professor Yibing Huang –Associate Professor of Chinese and Curator of the Chu Griffis Asian Art Collection– explains that Chu’s desire to thrive in his new homeland is the “aspect of his legacy that [he] would like to particularly dwell on and highlight through the exhibition.” In this sense, Huang organized an exhibit of (metaphorically) 400 miles of Chu’s work. However, in an interview, Professor Huang stressed that there is more he and others can do to honor Charles Chu and his legacy. He stated that his “vision is to get a full recognition of Chu.”
In my mind, the current exhibition is a strong start to this goal. Ultimately, it comes down to students and faculty physically immersing themselves in this collection by taking the time to explore the exhibition (and maybe even the Connecticut River itself).
