Splendors of Imperial China

NEW YORK CITY -- The Metropolitan Museum of Art is presenting an unsurpassed survey of Chinese art treasures from one of the greatest collections in the world - the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.

"Splendors of Imperial China; Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei" features nearly 450 exceptional works from the Neolithic period through the Eighteenth Century drawn from one of the world's richest and most renowned collections of Chinese art. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience the breadth and refinement of Chinese art, including many of the finest examples of painting and calligraphy, jades, bronzes, ceramics, lacquerware and other decorative arts.

The exhibition has been organized by the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is made up largely of the imperial collections of the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911) and includes many of the national treasures that were passed from dynasty to dynasty through much of China's imperial history. As in the West, the great artistic masterworks of previous ages were highly prized and collected by Chinese rulers. Among the most notable was the Ch'ien-lung emperor (reigned 1736-95), whose imperial holdings form the core of the National Palace Museum collection. Widely considered the finest traditional assemblage of Chinese art in the world, the collection represents the bulk of the inherited portion - as opposed to those works excavated in the Twentieth Century - of China's artistic legacy and is especially complete for the later imperial age from the Eleventh through the Eighteenth Century.

After the collapse of the Ch'ing dynasty in 1911 and the eventual expulsion of the last emperor from the Forbidden City in 1924, the National Palace Museum opened in 1925. With the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the imminent danger of an assault on northern China, the government took measures to safeguard the treasures in the Palace Museum. A large group of the finest objects was packed carefully into wooden crates and shipped south, beginning a 30 year odyssey that took the works of art over thousands of miles by train, boat, truck and even hand-towed barge, usually under the most adverse wartime conditions. Often the treasures were spirited away just hours ahead of the invading armies. At the war's end, the nearly 20,000 crates, which had been divided into several shipments to avoid detection, were reunited in Nanking for a brief period before Chaing Kai-shek moved a selection of crates containing more than 600,000 works of art to Taiwan in 1949. It was another 16 years - during which the collection was stored first in sugar warehouses and then in specially constructed tunnels - before the National Palace Museum, Taipei, opened in 1965 and the public again was able to see this unsurpassed legacy of Chinese civilization.

"Splendors of Imperial China" is organized chronologically, with paintings and objects displayed together in the galleries. The exhibition reveals the refinement and reinterpretation of classic forms and themes that evolved over the centuries, as subsequent imperial patrons established their own legitimacy by absorbing and espousing the culture and art forms of previous rulers. Four major themes are traced throughout the exhibition to reflect this continuity -"A Cyclical View of History," "The Confucian Discourse on Art," "The Social Function of Art" and "Possessing the Past." The paintings and calligraphy in the exhibition are being shown in two rotations.

The earliest works in the exhibition are the pierced discs (pi) of carved jade from the Neolithic period and the spectacular ancient bronze vessels from the Shang, (circa 1600-circa 1100 BC) and Chou (circa 110-256 BC) dynasties. Among the paintings and calligraphy on view are key works by the leading calligraphers of the T'ang dynasty (Seventh-Eighth Century), including Huai-su's fluidly expressive "Autobiographical Essay," a handscroll dated 777. Examples of monumental landscape painting of the Sung dynasty (Tenth-Thirteenth Century) include the large hanging scroll "Sitting Alone by a Stream" (anonymous, early Twelfth Century) and the 32-foot-long hand scroll "Streams and Mountains, Pure and Remote" by Hsia Kuei (active circa 1200-circa 1240).

The exhibition also features masterpieces by the creators and reformers of the literati tradition of calligraphy and painting from the Sung through the early Ch'ing period (Eleventh-Eighteenth Century). A highlight of the paintings is a series of life-size imperial portraits dating from the Sung through the Ming dynasty (Eleventh-Seventeenth Century) that have never been seen outside China.

The exhibition includes a selection of the finest known examples of imperial ceramics from the Sung through the Ming dynasty (Eleventh-Seventeenth Century) that have never been seen outside China.

A selection of the finest known examples of imperial ceramics from the Sung through the Ch'ing period is also featured, among them three extraordinarily rare pieces of Ju ware (Twelfth Century) that combines a lyrically beautiful celadon glaze with vessel forms of the most astonishing simplicity and refinement. Later porcelains include elegant Ming blue-and-white bowls and vases with designs that range from scenes of children at play to auspicious floral motifs and magnificent dragons.

Among the enamelwares on view are an elaborately patterned Ming cloisonne and gilt bronze incense burner, a monumental Tibetan-style ewer and a delicately painted enamel snuff bottle of copper and glass from the Ch'ing dynasty. Brush holders carved of jade or bamboo and other scholars' implements, such as inkstones, inkcakes and wrist rests, reveal the ritual importance associated with these objects, as well as the wit and ingenuity with which they were crafted. Exotic and unusual materials, such as rhinoceros horn, ivory, rare woods and richly colored jades, have been transformed into objects of both utility and fantasy that often play off the original form of the medium, as in the carved rhinoceros horn cup in the shape of a tree raft. The exhibition also offers a sumptuous array of lacquerwares, including painted, carved and inlaid lacquer boxes, trays, vases and screens.

The treasure boxes of the Ch'ing emperors are among the most wondrous surprises in the exhibition. Designed to house small-scale antiquities that replicate in miniature the imperial art collections, the boxes themselves are works of art, resplendent with deft carving and inlays of ancient jade and gold. Containing as many as 40 replicas of an emperor's favorite works from his collection, these ingeniously crafted boxes, with their many secret compartments and precious yet diminutive cargo, are fascinating microcosms of imperial taste.

On only two other occasions have exhibitions from the National Palace Museum been seen in the West - in 1935-36 in London and in the United States in 1961-62.

"Splendors of Imperial China; Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei," has been organized by Philippe de Montebello, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in collaboration with Chin Hsiao-ye, director of the National Palace Museum, and the senior curators of the National Palace Museum. Curatorial responsibilities for the exhibition rest with Wen C. Fong, consultative chairman; James C.Y Watt, Brooke Russell Astor senior curator; and Maxwell K. Hearn, curator, the Asian department of the Metropolitan Museum.

The exhibition is accompanied by two publications: Possessing The Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, By Wen C. Fong and James C.Y. Watt with contributions by Chang Lin-sheng, James Cahill, Wai-kam Ho, Maxwell K. Hearn and Richard M. Barnhart; and Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei by Maxwell K. Hearn. Possessing the Past ($85 clothbound) offers a comprehensive and critical overview of Chinese art, focusing on the cultural significance of the visual arts throughout China's history. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Harry N. Abrams, it is 664 pages with 600 illustrations, including 436 color plates as well as seven maps, a bibliography and an index.

Splendors of Imperial China ($35 clothbound; $25 paperback) lavishly illustrates 107 works from the exhibition with comparisons of selected works and discussion of their historical context. Also published by the Metropolitan Museum (clothbound edition distributed by Rizzoli International Publications), the book is 144 pages and features 119 color illustrations.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Metropolitan Museum has organized and prepared an array of related events. An international symposium, titled "Arts of the Sung and Yuan," will be May 10 through 12 at the Metropolitan and will include presentations by leading scholars of Chinese painting and calligraphy from Asia, Europe and America.

Following its installation at the Metropolitan, the exhibition will be on view at the Art Institute of Chicago (June 29 through August 25), the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (October 14 through December 8), and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (January 27 through April 6, 1997).