Art show explores beauty's mystery

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," Romantic poet John Keats penned in 1820, "that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know".

An original exhibition in San Francisco is expected to inspire people of today to seek beauty from truth and nature by inspiring conversations with the past.

On view through Sept 30 at the Legion of Honor museum, Truth and Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Mastersis the first major international exhibition to juxtapose works by England's 19th century Pre-Raphaelite artists with the medieval and Renaissance masterpieces that inspired them.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed by seven young English artists with aspirations to rebel against the stern Victorianism of the domineering Royal Academy of Art in 1848, a year of political upheaval across Europe.

The alliance, founded by William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, advocated a return to the simplicity and sincerity of subject and style found in earlier ages.

"It's similar in many ways to our own time - the people of today still ask the same questions: What is beauty and who gets to decide? Who's to say something is relevant in your own time?" said Melissa Buron, director of the art division at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) and the exhibition's curator.

The three-month show presents an "extraordinary moment" because the iconic masterpieces of old masters have never been displayed with Pre-Raphaelite paintings inspired by them, and some of the works have never traveled to the US before, according to Max Hollein, director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The exhibition features more than 30 paintings on loan from 25 private collections and museumsin Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US. The masterpieces include Botticelli'sIdealized Portrait of a Lady, Raphael'sSelf Portrait and Van Eyck'sThe Annunciation.

The exhibit sheds light on a global point about a society in which things are changing very fast and getting complicated, said Buron.

"We see a turn to a simpler and more 'authentic' time that we are interested in slow food and hand-crafted materials," she explained. "I think that's endemic of modern and rapidly industrializing cultures."

Returning to simplicity and nature is also a lifestyle that young people are enthusiastic about in China, said a student surnamed Zhao, who was visiting the museum with her friends from China.

"The idea of juxtaposing the paintings with those that inspired them is very clever. It's a subject we all can relate to no matter what cultural backgrounds we are from," said Zhao.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com