Taoist folk art

Taoist priests use talismans to summon deities, drive off spirits, and cure illness. A talisman is written on paper or silk in winding strokes that look like writing but are not quite characters, like a picture but not quite an image; because the script recalls ancient seal script, it is also called fuzhuan or fuling. Ritual robes set Taoist deities and figures across the cloth in a flat, decorative arrangement. In temples, the brackets where beams meet columns (chajiao) are often carved as the aoyu, an auspicious creature of ancient legend generally thought to guard wooden buildings against fire. This exhibition shows these objects beside paintings by Hung Tung; its text points to the dense ornament, sense of the uncanny, and space without perspective in religious craft as a way into the figures, written signs, and layered spaces of his pictures.

Look at a ritual robe, then at a Hung Tung painting nearby, and compare how each fills a flat surface with figures, writing, and pattern.

Without perspective, how does a picture find room for so many figures and signs?