the original painting
Title: Three Musicians(Musiciens aux masques)
Artist: Pablo PicassoTime: Summer 1921
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 200.7 x 222.9 cm
Location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Time: Spring2011
Medium: Collage
Dimension: 25cm x 25cm
Location: Hostel D 705
‘Hertage’ is inspired by Picasso’s work Three Musicians, as a collage work patched by three main characters and bear on their body heritage.
The name ‘hertage’ is the combination of two words; they are ‘heritage’ and ‘collage’. The work basically originated and inspired by the experiences of listening to music and walking through heritage. Hong Kong is a special place with consistence of western and eastern culture. And this culture has already deeply dug into our minds. When listening to music while walking through heritages in Wan Chai and Central, we feel very satisfy with the mood and atmosphere. As a result, we borrowed the ideas of Picasso and his friends playing music and creating poem to express our feeling.
Hong Kong as a historic city, has a unique culture of mixing of western and eastern elements. It is a city where the west meets the east and and finaly reach a harmonious status. In the process of the city development, including the culture integration, much significant architecture were left. They are known as the heritages of Hong Kong. Heritage serves to shape values, ground aspirations and inspire creativity and a sense of belonging within a community. It contributes to social stability, civic pride and a richer quality of life. “Architectural significance” is currently the only test under the law in Hong Kong when considering legal protection for our built environment, no matter what unique, historical, social or cultural value may be attached to a particular property, group of properties or even a neighborhood. This means that many of our interesting buildings and neighborhoods – the Wanchai Market/Blue House area, the old terraces in Western, as examples – may simply disappear merely because there is no policy or process to facilitate their protection.
But till now, many people still think that heritage conservation is a government issue. It is government that who should take the responsibility to make decisions and take action. But the fact is that heritage conservation is an issue related to every citizen closely. The heritages are just around us but we seem to pay little attention to them. Actually, we have the responsibility and power to make changes. Heritage conservation should be under public control with the public being involved in the process of their identification and stewardship. It can only be realized through more education and awareness. What we concern is not only the tangible things, but also the intangible histories, the social and economical changes of our city. This intangible value, the collective social memory, is not always appreciated until it comes under threat and there is a need to develop a mechanism to identify places, sites and settings to which such value is attached. What we should do is take preventive measures prior to any threats. Only when these heritages are conserved well can we have strong belongings to our city.
The heritages that have been chosen by us in this artwork were Queen’s pier, blue house and old terrace in Wan Chai, King Yin Lei, and the pagoda in Ping Shan Heritage Trail. Among which, the Queen’s Pier have already been demolished. The fragments of the picture of Queen’s Pier were pasted on the man on the right hand side of the Three Musicians, which indicates that Queen’s pier was no longer exits. The blue house and old terrace in Wan Chai were put on the man on the left hand side, which means that they are now under fair conservation but still is not totally invulnerable. On the other hand, King Yin Lei was thought to be the best conserved among all, since the government have set up a reconstruction scheme to activate it.
Between our work and Picasso’s Three Musician, there are many similar points to share when talking about ‘hertage’. We have good faith in Cubism like Picasso. Through flat surface, heritages in three dimensional effect in the photo make everybody who scan through the work feel impressive. As Picasso’s Three Musician, we make use of three characters to represent different stages. The character at the middle place indicates the heritages under best conservation. The character in the left hand side represents some fair heritages conservation project. And lastly, while the character at the right hand side represents the ones who have got worst protection and have suffered from damage or even have been ruined, the shape and all those buildings are in pieces.
On the other hand, we also do share some different point of view from Picasso’s. As many of the heritages are memory in our mind, we did not use full color to cover the body. Instead, we use photos which are cut into pieces to cover the body. That means those are lost and minimized memory. Also, it’s obvious to figure that all foot of all characters are built on the ground with buildings. The position is not a normal body like Picasso’s work. In Hertage, the legs are in different shape and represent the meaning of heritage. The King Yin Lei is chosen to be the best preserved heritage as the government immediately stopped the construction of expensive residential area. The decision made by the government is fast enough to protect collective memory of Hong Kong people.
The name ‘hertage’ is the combination of two words; they are ‘heritage’ and ‘collage’. The work basically originated and inspired by the experiences of listening to music and walking through heritage. Hong Kong is a special place with consistence of western and eastern culture. And this culture has already deeply dug into our minds. When listening to music while walking through heritages in Wan Chai and Central, we feel very satisfy with the mood and atmosphere. As a result, we borrowed the ideas of Picasso and his friends playing music and creating poem to express our feeling.
Hong Kong as a historic city, has a unique culture of mixing of western and eastern elements. It is a city where the west meets the east and and finaly reach a harmonious status. In the process of the city development, including the culture integration, much significant architecture were left. They are known as the heritages of Hong Kong. Heritage serves to shape values, ground aspirations and inspire creativity and a sense of belonging within a community. It contributes to social stability, civic pride and a richer quality of life. “Architectural significance” is currently the only test under the law in Hong Kong when considering legal protection for our built environment, no matter what unique, historical, social or cultural value may be attached to a particular property, group of properties or even a neighborhood. This means that many of our interesting buildings and neighborhoods – the Wanchai Market/Blue House area, the old terraces in Western, as examples – may simply disappear merely because there is no policy or process to facilitate their protection.
But till now, many people still think that heritage conservation is a government issue. It is government that who should take the responsibility to make decisions and take action. But the fact is that heritage conservation is an issue related to every citizen closely. The heritages are just around us but we seem to pay little attention to them. Actually, we have the responsibility and power to make changes. Heritage conservation should be under public control with the public being involved in the process of their identification and stewardship. It can only be realized through more education and awareness. What we concern is not only the tangible things, but also the intangible histories, the social and economical changes of our city. This intangible value, the collective social memory, is not always appreciated until it comes under threat and there is a need to develop a mechanism to identify places, sites and settings to which such value is attached. What we should do is take preventive measures prior to any threats. Only when these heritages are conserved well can we have strong belongings to our city.
The heritages that have been chosen by us in this artwork were Queen’s pier, blue house and old terrace in Wan Chai, King Yin Lei, and the pagoda in Ping Shan Heritage Trail. Among which, the Queen’s Pier have already been demolished. The fragments of the picture of Queen’s Pier were pasted on the man on the right hand side of the Three Musicians, which indicates that Queen’s pier was no longer exits. The blue house and old terrace in Wan Chai were put on the man on the left hand side, which means that they are now under fair conservation but still is not totally invulnerable. On the other hand, King Yin Lei was thought to be the best conserved among all, since the government have set up a reconstruction scheme to activate it.
Between our work and Picasso’s Three Musician, there are many similar points to share when talking about ‘hertage’. We have good faith in Cubism like Picasso. Through flat surface, heritages in three dimensional effect in the photo make everybody who scan through the work feel impressive. As Picasso’s Three Musician, we make use of three characters to represent different stages. The character at the middle place indicates the heritages under best conservation. The character in the left hand side represents some fair heritages conservation project. And lastly, while the character at the right hand side represents the ones who have got worst protection and have suffered from damage or even have been ruined, the shape and all those buildings are in pieces.
On the other hand, we also do share some different point of view from Picasso’s. As many of the heritages are memory in our mind, we did not use full color to cover the body. Instead, we use photos which are cut into pieces to cover the body. That means those are lost and minimized memory. Also, it’s obvious to figure that all foot of all characters are built on the ground with buildings. The position is not a normal body like Picasso’s work. In Hertage, the legs are in different shape and represent the meaning of heritage. The King Yin Lei is chosen to be the best preserved heritage as the government immediately stopped the construction of expensive residential area. The decision made by the government is fast enough to protect collective memory of Hong Kong people.
In concept layer, main differences between Hertage and Three Musician are not huge as Three Musician is the origin of Hertage. And I will explain as follow base on the form, the subject matter, color and mood:
Base on the subject matter, Hertage and Three Musician did not share any similarities. Main character of the work is still three. But base on the clothing, the color tone and the composition of the subject has lots of differences. Hertage did not follow the use of single color to cover up the body. Instead, Hertage had lots of building in different color on the body which makes it attractive and memorable.
Secondly, the form of the work of Three Musician and Hertage had shift from one to another. Three Musicians is a Cubism painting which apply the use of color and shape to make visual effects. Hertage is a work base on the concept and shape or Three Musicians which build tight relation to each other in meaning. However, when the discussion goes to talk about the form, they are two different things. Stick and glue is essential for collage, while painting concern the use of brush and color. The form of Three Musician is oil painting and Hertage is a contemporary collage. As a result, the two work have differences in form.
Mood is an essential factor for art work creation. It is so similar that Hertage and Three Musician depict mood in a usual way. Hertage is a collage which directly depicts the creator’s feeling to an experience in heritage. Three Musician is a painting depict the memory of Picasso with two of his old friend. In Three Musicians, the masked Pierrot palying clarinet and the singing monk holding sheet music are Picasso’s friend, while the one at the center, strumming guitar is Picasso’s stand-in self. The painting is in old Italian comic theater style, called dell’arte. The time of Picasso with his friend and make pore is marvelous then inspire Picasso to make this work. For the case about Hertage, we are inspired by the work as well as the beautiful scenery walking across heritage. The social history, the neighbor relation, the childhood memory of grandma and grandpa, went through my mind.
As time goes by, memories will fade you away. Hertage is inspired by The Three Musicians. I could now imagine. In summer time, Picasso and his friends are in the garden making poem and having wonderful time. They talk about drama, theater and poetry. I wish I could have the same experience. Sitting under blue house sharing with neighbor about current affairs, should be a warm and close community. The subject matter and form of the two works are different, but still, the mood is so similar. Like Chinese Literati painter said: Realistic could not win Shen. We wish that our work could make you feel relax and contribute more to heritage conservation.
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