"This Institute is really like a treasure!" Visitors to the Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art expressed their admiration. Since March, 2023, Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art at Tianjin University will hold the “Open Day” once a month for all faculty and students, sharing treasures of humanities and arts and ubiquitous beauty with the public.
People are visiting Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art.
This February, Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art was included into the “20th-Century Chinese Architectural Heritage List”, not only for the unique ingenuity and genius of architectural designers, but also for the humanistic connotation and artistic spirit infused by the Dean Feng Jicai. Since the establishment in 2005, the Institute has held a variety of cultural and artistic activities, attracting a large number of faculty and students to participate every year. The “Red Leaf Season” series, in particular, offers a landscape of red leaves contrasting pleasantly with the colorful koi, making it a popular spot for the public to punch in.
Moreover, there are still many beauties hidden in this most charming Institute for people to explore.
Follow us to explore this cultural gem and “treasure school”. Once entering the courtyard of Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art, you will be welcomed by a pair of elegant black swans swimming at ease on the Chengxin Pool surrounded by bamboos. This picturesque beauty makes you immediately immersed in the tranquil and poetic spectacle. Through the gateway to the teaching building, the institute motto inscribed by Mr. Feng Jicai, “Love the truth, kindness, and beauty; concern for heaven, earth, and people”, just came into your view. Under the guidance of the institute teachers, you can go upstairs and downstairs to fully appreciate the place filled with ancient and modern art. Step by step, there are always new discoveries and serendipities, and you can truly feel that “beauty overwhelms everywhere”. Climbing up the stairs, you will be faced with a towering gate of a mansion in the Ming Dynasty. At a certain corner, you may inadvertently encounter a weather-beaten afterimage of a stone lion in the Han Dynasty. The elevator door is also ingeniously designed. You can see that the Tang poetry and Homeric epics are engraved on the left and right doors. In the dim corridor next to the intangible cultural heritage classroom, the photos of Dunhuang sculptures are illuminated by bunches of lights on the red walls, walking through which seems to have walked through a tunnel of thousands of years of history and art. Light and shadow interwoven in the hall “Sunshine Box”, the architectural designer skillfully uses a large cloth tiger with a height of one person to display the enthusiasm of folk art. The two mottled pillars of the ceremony hall turn out to be the remains which the May Fourth Patriotic Pioneer Ma Jun collided with his head...
The “museumization of the institute” is one of the unique educational concepts of Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art. In order to practice this concept, cultural and artistic treasures are placed in every rooms and corners of the entire institute, and the various exhibition halls are scattered throughout the building, enabling people to experience the power of humanism. On the second floor, the Peiyang Fine Arts Gallery, which has held many art and culture exhibition such as the “Exhibition of Original Works by Italian Painters”, now displays the history of institute since its establishment. Here, you can understand the teaching method of “moving classes to the field” and learn about how much the institute has done for the investigation, filing, protection, and inheritance as well as for the disciplinary development and talent cultivation of intangible cultural heritage. On the third floor, the Dashu Gallery, which was inscribed by the great literary writer Bing Xin, mainly displays the Mr. Feng’s literary works, paintings, and the rescued works of folk cultural heritage. After hearing the explanation given by the teachers, you can have a clearer understanding of Mr. Feng, the writer who has been familiar with in Chinese textbook since primary school. The three exhibition halls from upstairs to downstairs of the “Jumping over the dragon gate” Folk Art Museum—the Fancy Life Hall, which showcases folk life and emotions, the Sculpture Hall, which presents the aesthetic appreciation evolution and folk art of various dynasties in China, and the Flowers Hall, which collects the masterpieces by the contemporary successors of intangible cultural heritage all over the country, also widen people’s horizon and broaden their mind.
After the two-hour visit, you not only draw cultural and artistic knowledge from the lecture given by the institute teachers, but also took the initiative to explore more “treasures” with curiosity.
According to the staff of Feng Jicai Research Institute of Literature and Art, the “Open Day” is open to all faculty and students of Tianjin University, adopting an appointment system, and will be held once a month in the spring and autumn semesters. The “Open Day” will give full play to the general education of the institute, get close to faculty and students, and boost the campus cultural and humanistic construction of Tianjin University.
By Chu Jingyi
Editor: Sun Xiaofang
