Fragrance of Time — In Search of Chinese Art of Scent

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Searching for Fragrance──Exhibition of Chinese Fragrance Culture and Art

China's aromatic culture has a long history. The fragrance has lasted for thousands of years, lingering in palaces, temples, and boudoirs. It not only serves as a medium for worshiping heaven and ancestors, but also embellishes the daily lives of the ancients. It even carries the spiritual pursuit of literati to cultivate themselves and enlighten themselves. In ancient times, ancestors burned firewood and burned trees to offer sacrifices to the heaven and earth. This sacrificial method called "burning sacrifice" is widely regarded as the origin of Chinese aromatic culture. In addition to sacrificial incense, incense used in daily life has become popular since the pre-Qin period. People wear sachets, bathe in fragrant soup, burn incense lavender, and even build houses with fragrant wood in order to repel insects and filth and nourish the body and mind. Later, as the types of incense materials and the production of incense products changed, the methods of incense became more and more sophisticated, and various corresponding incense burners and incense tools came into being. For thousands of years, literati and refined scholars have been passionate about incense, studying the harmony and appreciation of incense, composing poems on wine, playing the harp and watching paintings in the faint aroma, and even pursuing the realm of enlightenment through incense. "Fragrance" not only plays an important role in Chinese culture, but is also inseparable from ancient people's aesthetics of life and artistic creation. This exhibition is jointly organized by the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Shanghai Museum, and is exclusively sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. It is one of the projects of the "Chinese Culture Festival" and "Shanghai Culture Week", jointly presenting the rich and colorful Chinese aromatic culture. By displaying a total of 160 sets of treasures from the two museums, dating back to the Neolithic period and down to the Qing Dynasty, the audience will embark on a journey of searching for fragrance that spans thousands of years, and feel the way the ancients smelled fragrance to nourish their nature with every breath.

Theme Hall, 2nd floor, Hong Kong Museum of Art