Vincent van Gogh is working on one of his famous paintings,
Sunflower, when, to his astonishment, the flowers he is painting
begin to spin. The puzzled painter sits back in disbelief until the
whirring blossoms stop moving.
This scene takes place on a cylindrical music box in the display
Van Gogh Automation. The work (pictured) is part of From Musical
Clock to Street Organ exhibition, which showcases antiquated
mechanical musical devices in the Netherlands, now running at the
Guangdong Museum of Art.
The exhibition was shipped in from the Netherlands-based
National Museum, which warehouses the world's largest collection of
automatic musical instruments in a central mediaeval parish church
in the inner city of Utrecht.
The exhibition features 50 pieces dating from 1480 to 1930. All
of these mechanical pieces will operate during the exhibition so
that visitors could see how they work. One of the highlights among
these pieces is Jaquemarts Clock, which was made in 1480.
"Like tulips, wooden shoes, windmills and cheese, automatic
music, and especially street organs, are an essential part of the
rich Dutch culture," says Dirkjan Haspels, public relations
director of the National Museum of from Musical Clock to Street
Organ.
"Having Guangzhou host the exhibition for the first time is not
coincidental," he says, explaining that the city became one of the
musical clock-production centers in China in the 18th century.
"Guangdong and Utrecht share a bond of friendship. And this
makes Guangzhou the obvious location for this first exhibition of
its kind in China," Haspels says.
Among the musical automata, street organs, which were popular in
the first half of the 20th century, are most representatives of
Dutch culture, Haspels adds.
"When people hear the music of a street organ, they would come
out of their houses cheerfully to dance and sing in the streets,"
he says.
Time: 9 am- 5 pm, daily except Monday, until November 11
Place: Lobby and Exhibition No 7, Ersha Island
Tel: 020-8735-1468
(China Daily September 22, 2007)
