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M+, Hong Kong, © Peng Wei / 彭薇
Peng Wei 彭薇
Between Clouds And Water 雲水隔
2013
Between Clouds and Water from Peng Wei’s ongoing series (since 2005) Letters from a Distance shows her use of copying and appropriation of both Chinese and Western artistic tropes. The usual elements of Chinese landscape paintings are all present: mountains, rocks, and trees; a river and a waterfall; a pavilion and human figures.To add her own imagined narrative to the landscape, she juxtaposes aseemingly traditiona lscene with a love letter (as inscription) from the English poet Lord Byron (1788–1824) to his married Italian lover Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli (1800–1873). Peng designed and painted the patterns of the protective flaps of the scroll (both front and back), instead of using ready-made fabric,turningthe workintoanobjectof desire—a letter.
My dearest Teresa,
I have read this book in your garden;—my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognise the hand-writing of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours—Amor mio—is comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter,—to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart,—or, at least, that I had never met you in your married state. But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me,—at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us,—but they never will, unless you wish it.
Byron.
Bologna, August 25, 1819.
In 1819 Byron met Countess Teresa Guiccioli, who later divorced her husband to become Byron’s lover. Byron had divorced his wife two years prior and went on a voyage in Europe. Copied from Byron’s correspondence by Peng Wei on 28 July 2013, in unbearable heat.
[The Chinese text is adapted from a translation of the English original in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of His Life published by H. L. Brönner in 1830. ]
My dearest Teresa,
I have read this book in your garden;—my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognise the hand-writing of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours—Amor mio—is comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter,—to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart,—or, at least, that I had never met you in your married state. But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me,—at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us,—but they never will, unless you wish it.
Byron.
Bologna, August 25, 1819.
In 1819 Byron met Countess Teresa Guiccioli, who later divorced her husband to become Byron’s lover. Byron had divorced his wife two years prior and went on a voyage in Europe. Copied from Byron’s correspondence by Peng Wei on 28 July 2013, in unbearable heat.
[The Chinese text is adapted from a translation of the English original in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of His Life published by H. L. Brönner in 1830. ]
The Weight of Lightness: Ink Art at M+. M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong, 13 October 2017–14 January 2018
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