The mysterious gods and spirits ride on horses, holding weapons. Hundreds of women have different hairstyles from the early 20th century.
All are characters from the shadow puppet genre which are now on display at the exhibition room of the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province.
There are also distinctive tables, chairs and beds showing different furniture styles of the past dynasties, which have been collected by Zhao Shutong.
"These puppets can be used to put on several dozen shadow puppet shows at the same time," said Zhao, who has just donated 40,000 shadow puppets worth tens of million yuan to the academy for its collection and to study.
Zhao, a sculptor, created a group of clay sculptures -- Shouzuyuan (The Courtyard for Collecting Rents) -- in 1965. The sculptures, which portray the sad lives of peasants in feudal China, met with high admiration and recognition throughout the world.
Zhao has long had a passion for Chinese folk art and culture.
Zhao started to garner shadow puppets more than 30 years ago and owned one of the world's biggest collections. He also has 125 complete play scripts dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and originating from throughout China.
In addition to shadow puppets, his collection also includes ancient, especially Ming and Qing (1644-1911) style furniture pieces, plus ancient wooden carved windows, embroideries, calligraphy and painting works and tree-root carvings.
Although receiving a Western art education from a Russian professor, Zhao said the true source of his artistic creation had always come from Chinese folk arts.
"Now that many folk arts are in danger of disappearing, I feel deep regret," Zhao said.
Take the shadow puppet play for example. He said the shadow puppet performance is in danger of extinction in China where its history dates back more than 1,000 years.
"The charm of the shadow puppet play lies in its comprehensiveness. It blends various kinds of arts, like painting, sculpture, music, singing and performance."
During the past three decades, Zhao bought boxes of puppets whenever he came across them.
"But my collection does not belong to me. It belongs to China. That is the reason why I have given all my puppets to the China Academy of Fine Arts, the place which I believe will make the best use of the antiques," he said.
Zhao hopes the collection can help researchers think about turning shadow puppet plays into an industry.
China Academy of Fine Arts President Xu Jiang said: "It is of great support and care to the academy that Zhao has offered such a big gift. I am sure that they will have great function in the academy's development in folk arts study."
Xu said the academy has long valued traditional Chinese arts.
According to Xu, not only will a shadow puppet museum and research center soon be established by the academy in the city, more efforts are also planned to engage shadow puppets in the academy's animated cartoon development.
"The new generation in China grows up with cartoons, most of which come from abroad. Why don't we use shadow puppets? They have the best Chinese modeling," Xu said.
(China Daily February 12, 2003)
