National Museum of Art of Romania: Inauguration of the Oriental Art Gallery

 Minister of culture, Raluca Turcan, on Friday said that the inauguration of the Oriental Art Gallery, which opened its doors to the general public on Friday, represents a commitment that has been met, while she was also emphasising that we must be proud of our country's cultural heritage every day."The creation of this new permanent exhibition is the result of a community effort in which museographers, restorers, technicians and management staff from the museum were involved on the one hand, and on the other hand, a series of partners, sponsors and donors who joined the project over time and whom I want to thank from the bottom of my heart!" Turcan said on Friday in a post on her Facebook page.The minister added that "we must be proud every day of our country's cultural heritage and enjoy this international dialogue that MNAR (National Museum of Art of Romania) creates with the rest of the world through the Oriental Art Gallery and the European Decorative Art Gallery, which were conceived as a single exhibition dedicated to decorative arts."The Oriental Art Gallery includes almost 600 art objects from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Dagestan, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Japan, Syria, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, selected from the most important and valuable oriental art heritage in the country, managed by the National Museum of Art of Romania.In the space dedicated to Islamic art, pieces made between the 7th and 20th centuries are exhibited, which reveal the mutual influence of artistic practices, such as epigraphic decoration and the alternation between arabesque-type and geometric vegetal elements. Islamic art reflects the presence of common features in terms of artistic conception and the repertoire of decorative motifs, both in sacred and secular art objects: carpets, costumes, embroideries, ceramics, metal objects, weapons and armour.In the hall presenting the art of China, remarkable works of millennial cultural traditions are presented, offering an overview of the evolution of artistic genres from the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) to the first half of the 20th century. The selection of paintings, sculptures, textiles as well as pieces of ceramics, jade, cloisonne and lacquer illustrate the various styles of court art and art of popular influence.The rooms dedicated to Japanese art present defining objects of Japanese culture from the 17th to 20th centuries, from the Edo, Meiji and Taisho eras: paintings on silk and paper, sculptures, bronze vessels, ceramics, ivory pieces exhibited alongside the famous samurai armour of the tosei gusoku type. Polychrome woodcut, one of the major creations of art in the Edo era, is illustrated by important works by masters active at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, including Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Kunisada and Kuniyoshi. The presentation of this section concludes with a unique construction in the country, the tea ceremony room.