TWENTIETH-CENTURY TRAVELS OF
CHINESE TREASURES:
ART EXHIBITIONS AND CULTURAL
EXCHANGE
by
SHILEI (SILIN) CHEN
Rebecca M. Brown, Mentor
Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship
Department of History of Art
Program in Museums and Society
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Baltimore, Maryland
May 2016
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Rebecca Brown, my mentor and
faculty advisor, for her patient guidance, insightful advice and cordial support. Without her my
four years of undergraduate would never be so meaningful and rewarding.
I would also like to thank Professor Tobie Meyer-Fong, Professor Craig Clunas, Ms. Lina
Lin, Dr. Xinmiao Zheng, and Dr. Jan Stuart for their valuable suggestions and expert critiques.
Their generosity and helpfulness encouraged me throughout my research process.
This research is made possible by the Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research
Fellowship. I would like to thank Ms. Ami Cox and Dr. Steven David for their dedication in
managing the fellowship program.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my brother for their unremitting
encouragement and support. I love you all.
Chen 2
CONTENTS
Cover Page ………………………………………………………………………………… i
Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………1
Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………...2
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….3
Chapter I International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935……………………………………9
Chapter II Chinese Art Treasures, 1961……………………………………………………19
Chapter III Splendors of Imperial China, 1996…………………………………………….36
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………59
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..61
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INTRODUCTION
The idiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover” rang true in an undesirable way for a catalogue
published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1996. Accompanying the exhibition “Splendors
of Imperial China”, Possessing the Past featured a masterpiece painting Early Spring by Guo Xi
on its cover. However, the home museum of this painting in Taipei withdrew it from the
exhibition only a few weeks before the scheduled date of its travel to New York, at which time
the Met had already printed the catalogues. This awkward situation resulted from a public protest
against the travel of “national treasures” abroad, which was agitated by certain political
conditions at the time. Although unusual, this incident was by no means the sole example of
movements outside the museum world affecting an exhibition in the history of displaying
Chinese art in Western countries. In fact, international exhibitions of Chinese art have always
been a venue where sociopolitical forces in the East and in the West intersect and interact.
The Western interest in Chinese artifacts dates to the Renaissance period, when Marco
Polo returned to Europe with blue-and-white porcelains from his journey in China. The
abundance of Chinese export porcelains preserved in European and American households
testified to the vibrancy of orientalism in the 19th century. Painting and calligraphy, considered
fine arts in China, gained attention and respect in the West much later, not until the 20th century.
Along with this rise of interest in Chinese paintings and calligraphies, a significant
transformation in how the Western world imagined China and represented Chinese art in
exhibitions took place during the 20th century. A viewer of the International Exhibition of
Chinese Art in 1935 would experience Chinese art very differently from one who attended the
“Splendors of Imperial China” exhibition in 1996, although the two exhibitions displayed works
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of art from the same collection. What changed, what contributed to the changes, and what do
they tell us about the Western world and China in the 20th century? I answer these questions
through examining three major exhibitions of Chinese art that took place in the United Kingdom
and the United States.
Before examining the specifics, I feel obligated to explain my choice of words in “the
Western world imagined China and represented Chinese art” by stressing a fundamental yet
often overlooked assumption: exhibitions construct narratives rather than tell facts. First of all,
an object is itself polysemic at the date of birth, and it keeps on acquiring meanings throughout
its life. A Song landscape painting simultaneously belongs to the categories of “Chinese”, “Song
objects” and “landscape painting”, cross-listed under several dimensions of interpretation. 1 In
addition, after the creation of an object, the display, alteration and transfer of ownership of it also
add significance to the object. Second, curators manipulate museum experiences. People tend to
accept what they perceive at an exhibition as facts because of the expertise of the professionals,
the reverence for a museum as a social institution, and the usually authoritative voice. Despite its
correctness, usually, the textual information in labels, text panels and catalogues remains a slice
of a much larger and complicated story, just like a drop in an ocean. Therefore it is actually what
the curators choose to present and how they narrate it that shapes the experience of a visitor. This
discrepancy between a visitor’s trust in museums and the extent of an exhibition's construction
becomes even more prominent when it comes to exhibitions of art from a foreign culture. 2
Furthermore, the non-textual information conveyed at an exhibition is also subject to human
manipulation. The pairing and grouping of exhibits, the lighting of the venue, the density of
1
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1992), 6.
According to an AAM report, museum is regarded as “one of the most trustworthy sources of objective
information.” The Alliance’s Center for the Future of Museums. “Trust Me, I’m a Museum,” last modified February
3, 2015, http://futureofmuseums.blogspot.com/2015/02/trust-me-im-museum_3.html.
2
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object arrangements in a room, and even the color of the wall all communicate the curators’
ideas about the culture featured in the exhibition.
Last but not least, I take the postmodernist view that all interpretations, by the curator or
by the viewer, are socially contextualized. Both parties bring their experience of the
contemporary society with them when they interact with the objects and with each other, through
the process of coding and decoding of an object.3 Therefore, an object presented and perceived at
an exhibition links no less to the present than to the past. When it came to Chinese art and
collaboration with Chinese museums, political factors exerted a particularly strong influence on
shaping ideology at art exhibitions. Chinese rulers had long regarded works of art, and the
possession of them, as a medium for their political agenda. This perception of art as cultural
patrimony in China had a longer life than imperial rule and the republican Chinese government
cast this idea on the organization of art exhibitions, through which they fulfilled diplomatic
objectives and consolidated national identities. Sometimes the Western governments coupled
their political demands with these interference as well. Narrated by curators and shaped by
governments, these exhibitions of Chinese art were essentially products of social constructions.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is not to reconstruct the historical background of the
exhibitions, but to reflect on the society and social changes in the 20th century through
examining the exhibitions.
After all, works of art served as the immediate vehicles for the socially informed
narratives, therefore the art historical understanding of these objects at each point across the 20th
century came in and influenced the impression of China. Knowledge making in the field of
3
More on agency of curators and viewers, see Michael Baxandall, “Exhibiting Intention: Some Preconditions of the
Visual Display of Culturally Purposeful Objects” in Exhibiting Cultures: the Poetics and Politics of Museum
Display, ed. Ivan Karp et al. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 33-41.
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History of Art often closely relate to organization of exhibitions. The former guides object
selection, labeling and catalogue writing in art exhibitions, while the latter fosters research
progress by enabling researchers to view original works of art and by creating a forum of
communication. The group of scholars and that of museum practitioners closely connect with
each other and sometimes overlap. As scholarly interests of History of Art migrate, discourses of
art exhibitions change accordingly. Analysis of art historical interests in some of the individual
exhibits thus would reveal reasons behind changes in the representation of China. Yet the
expertise that curators consulted did not always come from Western art historians in the case of
Chinese art. In the beginning of the century, art historians hardly recognized Chinese art as a
field of rigorous studies, while connoisseurs played important roles in museum exhibitions. More
recently, Chinese-born, Western-educated scholars assumed curatorship in major Western
museums, who brought in distinctive perspectives. This paper also aims to answer how this
changing composition of expertise and the evolution of studies of Chinese art altered the image
of China in exhibitions.
Working under these two frameworks, I concentrate on three major exhibitions in the
20th century. The objects which were sent from China in all three exhibitions originally came
from the imperial collection harbored in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Chinese courts have a
long history of art collecting that dates back to the Song dynasty in the 10th century. In the 18th
century, Emperor Qianlong catalogued the enormous collection of paintings, calligraphies,
manuscripts, ceramics, bronzes, and other art objects passed down from dynasty to dynasty. In
1924, the Republican government evacuated the last emperor from the royal palace and
controlled the art collection. The government transformed the palace, known as the Forbidden
City, into the Palace Museum in 1925 to exhibit the art collection. The invasion of Japan during
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World War II forced the Chinese government to transport part of the collection to safer parts of
China, during which time the government loaned more than 700 objects from the collection to
the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London in 1935. The first one of the three
exhibitions that I study, this exhibition boasted a scale unseen in the West before with the largest
number of works of art exhibited and comprehensiveness in periods and genres covered. The
patronization of both the British crown and the newly established Chinese government at the
brink of the Second World War required a closer look at the impact of the sociopolitical
landscape; approximate in time and geography with the 19th century world fairs, the exhibition
fell along the line with exhibitions as spectacles and a colonialist approach to art.
The outbreak of the Civil War immediately after the defeat of Japan in 1945
suspended the reunion of the transferred group with those left in Beijing. When the Republican
government lost the war and fled mainland China in 1949, it brought the majority of this group
of artworks to Taiwan, and constructed the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei to
preserve them. The second one of the three exhibitions, “Chinese Art Treasures,” was a
collaboration of the NPM and five major art museums in the United States between 1961 and
1962, which made the debut of a continuous history of Chinese art in American memories. As
the location shifted and the time progressed to the 60s, more scholarly interests in Chinese
painting and recognition of it as a subject of Art History arose, to which the quality of paintings
exhibited corresponded. The bipolar political environment fostered this collaboration and
significantly imprinted the organization of this exhibition. The last one of my research,
“Splendors of Imperial China”, toured four major cities in the United States in 1996. Closest to
us today in time, this exhibition forayed into the current century: some ideas and issues
manifested in the exhibition, such as contextualization of art and the increasing importance of
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corporate sponsorship, remained familiar in today’s museum context. The portrait of China
appeared more subtle and the political tone subdued, not only resulted from the demand of the
chief curator and museum visitors, but also the changing diplomatic relationship among United
States, mainland China and Taiwan. In addition, impact of popular movements in Taiwan on the
exhibition suggested democratization of the museum space. Because of these drastic political
events and the movements in both History of Art and the museum industry, the 20th century
stands out as a critical period for studying dynamics between art exhibitions and the society.
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CHAPTER I INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF CHINESE ART, 1935
The International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London was the first comprehensive survey of
Chinese art in a Western country. Held by the Royal Academy of Art at the Burlington House
from November 1935 to March 1936, the exhibition displayed 3,080 pieces of bronzes,
porcelains, paintings and calligraphies, and other works of art from 240 lenders across 35
centuries (1700 B.C.E to 1800 CE).4 The exhibition generated huge publicity: major newspapers
in England covered the event extensively, and a total audience of 401,768 made a visit. 5 6 Daily
Mail reported that King George V and Queen Mary visited the exhibition within the first week of
opening.7 The exhibition also promoted Chinese art internationally and elevated its status. In the
Introduction to the catalogue, which sold 108,914 copies, Laurence Binyon discussed the
esteemable status of Chinese painting and ideas behind it, which to some extent changed the
widely held perception in Europe of Japanese paintings as the origin of all Asian paintings. 8
Many art museums around the world proposed to the Chinese government to host similar
exhibitions in their countries after the London one. The success of this exhibition resulted from
the collaboration between the British government and the Republic of China. The Palace
Museum contributed about a quarter of the total exhibits alone. However, during preparation for
the exhibition, the British and the Chinese opinions regarding the selection of objects and the
display of them diverged in many ways, and controversy about the exhibition arose in China.
4
Jason Steuber, "The exhibition of Chinese art at Burlington House, London, 1935-36," Burlington magazine 148,
1241 (2006): 528.
5
I primarily investigate Daily Mail and North-China Herald. The former has a circulation over 1.8 million in 1930
London. While the latter only has a circulation of under 8,000, it is the most read and influential English newspaper
in Shanghai in the first half of the 20th century. Bai Ruihua, The Chinese periodical press: 1800-1912, Roswell
Sessoms Britton.
6
Steuber, “The exhibition of Chinese art,” 528.
7
"The King and Queen See Chinese Art," Daily Mail, Dec 2, 1935: 9.
8
Steuber, “The exhibition of Chinese art,” 528.
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The differences in curatorial preferences in essence revealed the different images of China that
the two sides intended to represent.
The Royal Academy of Art started the tradition of annual winter exhibitions in 1870, and
the ambition of augmenting the influence of the exhibition grew after the end of the First World
War. Loaning from foreign institutes, the Academy hosted exhibitions of Spanish, Italian and
French art. These exhibitions of European art focus almost entirely on paintings. However, in the
exhibition of Chinese art, the British committee showed a greater interest in decorative arts over
paintings and calligraphies. Paintings constituted less than a quarter of the total exhibits. Besides
the large number of them, decorative arts occupied the most prominent galleries of the
Burlington House. The Vestibule, the Central Hall and the Lecture Hall (fig. 1) presented the
Dragon Throne, the Giant Buddha Sculpture and wall-size textiles. Newspaper also illustrated
coverage of the event with photos and sketches of decorative objects, including the throne,
statues of bodhisattva and warrior figurines. The curators’ preference for decorative arts echoed
with the visitors’ passion: colours of porcelains inspired a new fashion and even the Queen
ordered a dress of Chinese “jewel blue.”9
In comparison to that of ceramics, the selection of paintings was relatively poor. James
Cahill contended that the selected paintings came from the second-tier of the collection of the
Palace Museum. Only two of the proclaimed “early” paintings in the exhibition were
authentically before Ming dynasty, while the others belonged to later imitators. Cahill barraged
the British specialists for their ignorance, and the Chinese committee for fooling the British.10 He
mentioned the high quality of paintings shown at the exhibition in Nanjing immediately after the
9
North China Herald (197: 3568), December 5, 1935.
James Cahill, “London 1935/36 Exhibition Early Paintings from China,” 2010. Among the two genuine and
significant works of Song, Cahill believed that one of them was sent only because the Chinese committee then
thought it was not original.
10
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London exhibition as the evidence of deliberateness of the Chinese. 11 The relatively short history
of collecting and studying Chinese painting resulted in the lack of knowledge of the subject in
the British committee. While some world-renowned experts and collectors of decorative arts,
such as Sir Percival David, served on the selection committee, not a single one of the five experts
who travelled to Shanghai to view the collection specialized in Chinese painting.12
The emphasis on decorative arts certainly served the practical reason that the audience
were more familiar with Chinese porcelains, and the weakness in paintings also had objective
causes. However, the way that the British curators presented the objects revealed that this
unbalance might also result from their attitudes towards Chinese art. An article in North China
Herald reported on the installation of the exhibition: “Blue or cream textile fabricated in China
covered the walls of galleries, and objects were arranged with an attention to ‘artistic spacing’
and ‘the matching of colours’.”13 The article accredited Dr. Leigh Ashton, curator of the Victoria
and Albert Museum, and Dr. Zheng Tianxi, the Chinese representative, for the setting. It would
not be too bold to speculate that Dr. Leigh Ashton took the lead in arranging, given the
reputation of the Victoria and Albert Museum as a major venue of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Another evidence that Zheng did not have much say came from his complaint about the dense
arrangement. While the Western press praised the arrangement that allowed “everything to be
seen to the utmost advantage,” Zheng complained about the crowdedness, the mixture of objects
of different medium, and the mingling of the objects from the Palace Museum, which he
considered of a higher quality, with those from other countries.14 More than 3000 pieces were
packed in 17 rooms. The overwhelming amount of exhibits in a single gallery did not allow
11
Ibid.
They were: Sir Percival David, Mr. George Eumorfopolous, Mr. R. L. Hobson, Prof. Paul Pelliot, and Mr. Oscar
Raphael. North China Herald (195: 3531), April 10, 1935.
13
Ibid.
14
Wu Sue-ying, “China in Exhibitions: A Case Study of the 1961 Chinese Art Treasures Exhibition,” (Master’s diss,
Taipei: National Chengchi University, 2002), 52.
12
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much room to contemplate. The British committee attempted to alleviate the burden of eyes by
matching the colours, and thus it sometimes grouped objects of various genres and qualities
together. Arranging objects primarily based on their formal elements, the British curators created
a spectacle reminiscent of the World Fair in the 19th century.
Reviews in newspapers revealed the perception of Chinese art in the context of this
museum setting. A critic praised so, “[m]ysterious, glamorous, far-away Cathay … so remote
that it remained fabulous, stands here revealed.”15 Another article commented, “[t]race Chinese
art back as far you please into the dimness of prehistoric times, there is still no trace of primitive
style, as in Europe.”16 While both reviews praised the delicacy of Chinese art, they expressed a
sense of exoticism and timelessness, both characteristic of the Orientalist ideas in the 19th
century. The former highlighted otherness as opposed to artistic values of the exhibits, while the
latter account implicitly denied a historic view of Chinese art and saw it as highly achieved but
static. Unlike the exhibition of Spanish art in 1920, the 1935 exhibition excluded all modern
Chinese art -- the timeline halted at 1800. Along the line of exoticism and permanence, the
British committee also displayed a particular interest in the imperial characteristics of the
collection. They selected a large number of paintings and calligraphies by members of the royal
family, or with their marks, and artifacts with the imperial symbol of the dragon, such as the
Dragon Throne. The British fascination with emperors indicated an imagination of a delicate,
lavish and antique China, which was remote not only in space but also in time. In summary, the
World Fair tradition in arranging exhibitions and the lingering Orientalism contributed to the
predominance of decorative objects in the selection of objects, the emphasis on the visual appeal
15
16
Pierre Jeannerat, "China Art Glories of View To-Day," Daily Mail, 28 Nov, 1935: 16.
North China Herald (197, 3565), December 4, 1935.
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and the interest in highlight the imperial characteristics. On the other hand, Chinese art, deemed
delicate yet static by the British curators, was presented less as a history than as a wonder.
On the other side of the story, the Chinese committee strove to elevate the international
status of the young republic through promoting art. A few evidences supporting this statement
emerged in the preparation phase. The Chinese government patronized this art exhibition, which
stood out as the first one among the national art series that had official patronage from the home
country. The President Wang Jingwei attended the first opening of the preview exhibition in
Shanghai to emphasize the national patronage. Governmental officials constituted the majority of
the Chinese organizational committee, as opposed to art specialists in its British counterpart.
When the British committee displayed a bad taste for paintings, some Chinese committee
members, such as Ye Gongchuo, expressed their worries that the inferior quality of paintings
from China compared to those from other countries would humiliate the nation and jeopardize
the perception of Chinese art internationally.17 In fact, a precedent might have set an example for
the Chinese government of leveraging overseas cultural campaigns to serve a diplomatic purpose,
or to generate support at home. Mussolini’s devoted support of the Exhibition of Italian Art 1200
- 1900 at the Burlington House in 1930 demonstrated a clear and public promotion of Italian
Fascism. He overrode wide objections of art authorities against sending the Botticellis and
Titians overseas, and denied proposals of focusing on modern art or minor works instead.18 In his
cover letter accompanying loan requests, Mussolini delineated his understanding of the
exhibition as an “exceptional manifestation of
italianita.” 19 The championed nationalism
paralleled the propaganda of racial superiority of the Italian Fascist party. The success of this
17
Wu, “China in Exhibitions,” 33.
Francis Haskell, “Botticelli in the Service of Fascism,” The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the
Rise of the Art Exhibition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 114.
19
Ibid, 116.
18
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exhibition set an example of cultural diplomacy for the Chinese government to look upon.20The
republic of China also had the need to showcase national heritage on an international stage to
allude allies at this point of time, since this newly founded nation then stood at the brink of war
with Japan.
Domestically, the government strove to hail a mono-ethnic nationalism, to promote the
artistic sophistication of Chinese art and to boast the advantage of a republican government. It
hosted a preview exhibition in Shanghai before the objects travelled to London, as well as a postLondon exhibition in the capital Nanjing afterwards. Shanghai’s most circulated newspaper,
Shen Bao, published an article by the Deputy President of the Art Education of China Press, Shi
Zhongpeng, on his visit to the pre-exhibition. 21 He enthusiastically praised the republic for
making art accessible to the public: “the previous political system made art appreciation the
privilege of emperors and the elite class … even if a commoner owned a few pieces of art, they
were few in numbers and kept from other people… this was the first time in history, that a
systematic survey of art, especially painting, became available.” The emphasis on the huge
contribution to the people and to art historical studies due to the accessibility augmented the
advantage of a “new” China. Shi went on to give a toast to the Chinese paintings: “… the
calmness of ‘Autumn Night at the Pond’ and the gracefulness of the ‘Red Polygonums and
White Goose’ completely exhibited the national character of peace-loving… Landscape
paintings of the Four Masters of Yuan … showed the catharsis of reclusive masters facing
foreign invasion.” The phrase “national character”(minzu jingshen) in Shi’s statement would be
translated to “spirit of the race” verbatim. Yet the “race” he was referring to, “zhonghua” (China),
20
In North China Herald (195: 3531), April 10, 1935, the article first mentioned the Italian Exhibition and then
shifted to the Academy’s consideration of the proposal by Mr. Quo Tai-chi of featuring Chinese art. More
investigation might be needed to safely say the Chinese government had looked at Mussolini’s deeds.
21
Shen Bao (13: 22276), May 1, 1935.
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has only existed as a nation. The term “zhonghua minzu” (the Chinese race) was an invention to
unite the multiple ethnic groups within the boundary of the newly born republic. Shi’s following
reference to the Mongols as “foreign invasion” illustrated his underlying distinction between Han
and other ethnicities under the vague umbrella of “zhonghua minzu.” Chinese government’s
struggle with the definition of “Chinese art” during the selection of objects mentioned above
confirmed the Han-oriented mentality. Another noteworthy aspect of this paragraph was Shi’s
connotation of paintings with the temperament of the artist or the atmosphere of the time. Rather
than describing the formal elements as the British newspapers did, 22 Shi emphasized the
spirituality of the paintings, recalling the idea of “Spiritual Resonance” in the classic aesthetic
text, Xie He’s “Six Principles of Chinese Painting.”
After examining the respective logics of constructing China of the British and that of the
Chinese, one would better comprehend their attitudes towards paintings. One vivid example that
reflects the distinctive mentalities of the two sides was the Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain
scroll by Huang Gongwang. The long handscroll painted by the famous Yuan painter in 1350
depicted a panoramic view of his mountain retreat. The layers of trees, rocks and clouds
constitute a prosaic landscape that featured a variety of strokes and lines. A masterpiece copied
throughout the following dynasties, the original painting was partially burnt and was split into
two parts. The Palace Museum then not only held the two pieces of the original painting,
Wuyongshi Scroll and Shengshan Painting, but also an excellent copy of it by a Ming painter
called the Ziming Scroll. Controversy about the authenticity of each piece went on for an
extended period of time. Emperor Qianlong, who believed that the Ziming Scroll was the
22
“Do you remember the charming study of a cat crouching with peonies waving over her ? Or the graceful Ming
painting of a lady and child, in robes of loveliest hue? Or the long scroll of ‘The Myriad Miles of the Yangtze’?
Unfamiliar though the treatment maybe, I do not think that visitors will be able to resist the poetic suggestion of
these and many more haunting pictures.” North China Herald (197: 3568), December 25, 1935.
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original one, annotated the painting on the blank space of the scroll. By the time of the visit of
the British committee, Chinese art authorities still debated among themselves, unable to achieve
consensus upon the identification of the original painting. The final choice by the British of the
Ziming Scroll showed their trust of the imperial taste. As an alternative explanation, they might
not care as much about the authenticity of the painting as about the imperial marks. However, to
the eyes of Chinese scholars, Qianlong’s mark and inscriptions impair the composition and the
atmosphere of the paintings, since they filled the space which the artist deliberately left negative,
a technique called “liu bai.”
Another point of conflict of the British and the Chinese opinions arose from the set of
portraits of emperors and empresses of the Yuan dynasty (fig 2). The half-length portraits of
Yuan emperors captured the facial characteristics of the Mongols, who shared flat faces, slim and
upward eyes, and twisted beards. Empresses adorned by jewels wore red robes and high hats of
the same colour, forming a contrast with the white robes of their husbands. This set of paintings
served as representative of Chinese portraits among the entire repertoire of paintings. In addition,
this album again highlighted the divergences between the British imagination of China and the
Chinese self-construction. Unable to show spiritual sophistication, a portrait of an emperor,
which forbid free expression, was hardly “Chinese art” in the opinion of literati. Today a Chinese
art historian would accept the validity of imperial portraits as art, yet in 1930s many Chinese
painters still worshipped Xie He’s canons of painting. Without concern for the justification of the
portraits as art, the British committee not only included imperial portraits, but also chose Yuan
royalties over those of the Han-ethnic. This might stem from the exotic taste and the idea of
“comprehensiveness” of the exhibition.23
23
Two paintings of Song emperors were also sent to the exhibition.
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In summary, the British curators and the Chinese government idealized China in different
ways as were informed by the historical context specific to each country. The British represented
China as a timeless and eccentric civilization, and highlighted craftsmanship rather than art
historical values of works of art in the exhibition, which reflected its colonialist legacy. The
Chinese government attempted to cultivate nationalism of a new republican China with an
emphasis on the Han cultural heritage due to the imperative need of uniting a nation to confront
with an invading enemy.
Fig 1. Plan to the Galleries
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Fig 2. Portraits of Kublai Khan and of a Yuan Empress
Fig 3. Portrait of Song Taizong (details)
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CHAPTER II CHINESE ART TREASURES, 1961
The “Chinese Art Treasures” exhibition displayed 253 objects lent by the Nationalist government
of the Republic of China (ROC) in five major museums in the United States in 1961 and 1962.
Starting from the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C, the exhibition toured the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, the Art Institute
of Chicago, and closed at the M. H. De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. The
influential exhibition attracted an audience of more than 465,000 people in total, and art
historians and critics frequently remarked on the quality of the exhibition. 24 Scholars in both
Taiwan and the United States recognized it as the largest and finest exhibition of Chinese art
after the 1935 one in London.
Although frequently compared, the “Chinese Art Treasures” exhibition and its London
precedent profoundly differed in both internal content and external context. As opposed to the
comprehensiveness and the quantity of exhibits of the earlier show, the later exhibition placed an
unmistaken focus on paintings and calligraphies, the number of which included in the exhibition
surpassed that of all the other types of objects combined. Some of the most important early
paintings in Chinese Art History made their debut in the Western world, an element about which
the curators and journalists boasted. In the catalogue, both the cover and the frontispiece featured
paintings of the Song dynasty. American curators defined the exhibition as one of “Chinese
paintings … supplemented by an equally fine group of ceramics, lacquers…”; 25 in the
introductory chapter of the catalogue, the section on paintings and calligraphy preceded that of
“Ceramics and Other Materials” and exceeded the latter in length. The media boasted the quality
24
25
Guo li gu gong bo wu yuan, Gu gong qi shi xing shuang (Taipei: Taiwan shang wu yin shu guan, 1995), 175 - 180.
John Walker et al., “Foreword” in Chinese Art Treasures (Lausanne: Skira, 1961).
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of Chinese paintings and the rare chance to see them in the west, besides alluding to the
imagination of the imperial China, to persuade readers not to miss this exhibition. The New York
Times highlighted early paintings by subtitling its review “Sung Dynasty Notable [.] Landscape
From That Era Called ‘Glory’ of Group on Display...”, and it called later paintings and other
artifacts “supplement[ary].”26
Yet at the time the American audience still found Chinese paintings unfamiliar, which
both the curators and the journalists were aware of. Curators called Chinese paintings “the kinds
of things that are least familiar to American museum goers.” The author of the New York Times
article dedicated the section on the exhibits on display almost entirely to paintings, yet he titled
the section ‘Ceramics and Lacquers’ to hook the attention of American readers. This peculiar
discrepancy between public interest and the curatorial interest elicited several questions: Why
did the curators choose to focus on paintings? Why focus on a category of art strange to the
public? How come the exhibition still attracted so many visitors? I contend that three reasons
either preconditioned or contributed to this choice of focusing on paintings. First, the retreat of
the Guomindang to Taiwan resulted in a split of the original imperial collection and a skewed
pool for the curators to select from. Second, compared to the British selection committee in 1935,
American scholars held greater interests in studying Chinese painting and endeavored to
incorporate it into modern art historic frameworks. Third, an emphasis on paintings helped
construct a narrative that fit with the political objectives of the Guomindang of the Republic of
China and the American government. Taken all together, these three reasons enlighten us about
the relationship among museums, researchers, governments and the public at the time.
26
Stuart Preston, “Museum Displays Art of Old China: 231 Objects From Imperial Collection in Loan Show at the
Metropolitan,” New York Times, Sep 15, 1961, 35.
Chen 21
In 1948, the Guomindang, the ruling party of the Republic of China, lost the Civil War to
the Communist Party and retreated to Taiwan. Since the outcome of the war appeared ominous
for the Guomindang, President Chiang Kai-shek had begun to transport works of art of the
imperial collection to Taiwan. He brought 2972 crates of objects to Taiwan in total, which
almost entirely came from the 19816 crates that moved southward under the threat of the
Japanese invasion in 1933. After settling down, Chiang began to construct a new palace museum
to harbor the 243,639 pieces of works of art. 27 The portability of paintings and calligraphies
enabled the party to transfer a large number of them to Taiwan. More importantly, the
Guomindang prioritized objects with higher cultural significance as it fled the land it used to rule.
For example, more than 1500 crates that went to Taiwan contained manuscripts, classic books
and historical records, which constituted a major part of the collection of the NPM. 28 The
possession of books symbolized the inheritance and control of the history and patrimony of the
Chinese civilization. Calligraphies and paintings had traditionally been regarded as the highest
form of art. Traditionally, Chinese scholars valued pre-Ming paintings over Ming and Qing
paintings. Under such ideologies, Chiang took almost all the fine early paintings, those attributed
to painters from Tang (7th century) to Yuan dynasty (14th century), and far fewer Ming and
Qing paintings (14th to 20th century).
While the NPM also possessed exceptional artifacts other than early paintings, such as
the largest collection of Ru-ware porcelains in the world, it uniquely claimed the category of
early masterpieces. Dr. Aschwin Lippe, specialist on Chinese paintings who served in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, made such comments when he visited Taiwan and viewed
27
According to “Chronology of Events” on the website of the National Palace Museum,
http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/Article.aspx?sNo=03002803.
28
Zheng Xinmiao, Tian fu yong cang: liang an gu gong bo wu yuan wen wu cang pin gai shu (Beijing: Zi jin cheng
chu ban she, 2008), 41.
Chen 22
paintings in the collection in 1955: “The collection of the Chinese government is actually
strongest, in quantity and in quality, in paintings of the Sung and Yuan dynasties, which are so
rare everywhere else. The Ming dynasty still is very well represented while the Ch’ing paintings
are relatively fewer in number, and do not show the full scope of the later development. ”29
Lippe served on both the Selection Committee and the Catalogue Committee of the “Chinese Art
Treasures” exhibition, and his observation of the collection from this trip in 1954 largely
informed the selection of objects made later.30 The unbalanced collection of Chinese paintings
held in the NPM and restructured pool of objects that the Western curators chose from made
“comprehensiveness” difficult to achieve and early paintings attractive as a focus.
In the same article, Lippe also wrote, “Clearly they [some Song paintings] belong to the
greatest works of art produced anywhere or at any time, and it is a shame that they should be so
little known and so difficult to see.”31 His passionate comment on these hidden gems represented
the academic interests of many American scholars, the second reason of the change. The change
of venue of the exhibition from Britain to the United States led to the emphasis on paintings,
since modern scholarship on Chinese paintings developed stronger and faster in the United States
than that in Britain. Whereas British collectors like Sir Percival David traditionally had more
interest in ceramics, the Americans embarked early on the collecting and appreciation of Chinese
painting as a form of art.32 In the first decade of 1900s, Charles Lang Freer started to build the
first major collection of Chinese painting in an American museum, which stimulated interest and
29
Aschwin Lippe, “Art Journey to Formosa” in Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 9 (1955): 11.
Michael Sullivan, "Notes on the Paintings in the Exhibition of Palace Museum Treasures in the U. S. 1961 - 62,"
Artibus Asiae 25 (Jan 1, 1962): 45.
31
Lippe, “Art Journey”, 12.
32
Warren I Cohen, “Art and American Understanding of East Asian Culture: 1784-1900,” in East Asian Art and
American Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
30
Chen 23
respect for Chinese art in the country. 33 During the Second World War, the anti-Japanese
sentiments turned many collectors away from the collecting of Japanese prints and shifted their
attention to Chinese paintings.34 American collectors took advantage of the tumultuous political
situation of China at the time and purchased Chinese paintings in large quantities, which
constituted the first collections of them in major American museums in cities such as
Washington D.C., Cleveland, and Kansas.35 These collecting activities not only offered physical
materials for researchers to study, but also promoted respect for Chinese paintings as a subject of
Art History.
In academia, the Western knowledge of Chinese paintings increased as a result of
multiple factors. During the Second World War, the immigration of German art historians into
the United States introduced period style as an art historic tool to examine Chinese paintings.
The immigration of young Chinese scholars brought in native cultural perspectives for the
studies of Chinese paintings, and these young scholars matured academically in the 1960s to
become leaders in the field. For example, Zeng Xianqi, who came to the United States in 1946 to
study at Harvard, served on the selection team of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for the
exhibition.36 American scholars published increasingly on Chinese paintings to incorporate the
subject into modern scholarship. For example, James Cahill’s Chinese Painting published in
1960 discussed Chinese paintings under the period style framework and demonstrated profound
knowledge of distinctive hands of masters, whereas writings in 1930s often transcribed and
reiterated what ancient Chinese scholars wrote about Chinese paintings. 37 The published diary of
33
Ingrid Larsen, “‘DON'T SEND MING OR LATER PICTURES’: Charles Lang Freer and the First Major
Collection of Chinese Painting in an American Museum,” in Ars Orientalis (40) 2011: 6–38,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23075931.
34
Cohen, East Asian Art.
35
Ibid.
36
Wu, “China in Exhibitions,” 77.
37
James Cahill, Chinese painting (Geneva: Skira, 1960).
Chen 24
Li Lincan, a high official of the NPM and art historian who escorted the collection during the
entirety of the travelling exhibition, recorded his meeting with some American scholars. 38 When
Li met Alexander C. Soper and John H. Cox, both professors of Chinese art, he took notes of
Soper’s original approach to the Travellers Among Mountains and Streams by Fan Kuan from
the perspective of architecture chronology, and praised him for fostering scholarly
communication between East and West. In contrast, Chinese scholars used to cast sarcastic
comments on British specialists in 1930s, considering them incapable of understanding the
sophistication of paintings despite their expertise in artifacts.39 This shift in attitude of Chinese
scholars also verified the increased cross-cultural understanding of Chinese paintings of the
American scholars.
Given such progress and interests in the study of paintings, the research demands of
scholars rose, which the exhibition took as a primary goal to fulfill. The curators state that “[t]he
present exhibition will serve not only to sharpen the standards of scholars professionally
occupied in this field but to show the American public the finest products of the history of
Chinese culture.” 40 Professional needs preceded public interests in terms of the sequence of
importance for this exhibition. Li recalled in his diaries the meticulous process of photocopying
the paintings in the National Gallery of Art for future studies, which exemplified how the
organizers made the exhibition an opportunity to “sharpen the standards of scholars”. 41 As
opposed to the British committee’s preference for paintings with imperial marks and patterns that
pleased untrained eyes, the American curators endeavored in pursuing art-historically important
paintings at the expense of public familiarity. As a result, this exhibition did fulfill the objective
38
Li Lincan, Guo bao fu mei zhan lan ri ji (Taipei: Taiwan shang wu yin shu guan, 1972).
Wu, “China in Exhibitions.”
40
Walker et al., “Foreword,” Chinese Art Treasures.
41
Li, Guo bao fu mei, 106.
39
Chen 25
of advancing researches. Many prominent American art historians in later times mentioned the
impact of this exhibition on their academic career.42
Yet the selection of the exhibits mostly due to research needs inevitably left a gap
between the public knowledge of Chinese art and that necessary for the understanding of the
paintings, which had the potential to induce a lack of interest. Intuitively, one would expect the
curators to fill in this gap with generous labelling, and to counter the strangeness with the
inclusion of more visually familiar objects. However, Michael Sullivan noted the austerity of
both the selection and the presentation of the exhibits, stating that “[n]o concessions were made
to popular taste.”43 From photos of the exhibitions and catalogues, one could comprehend the
“austerity” that Sullivan commented about with a hint of disdain for the practice of catering to
the public eyes in 1935. Curators mounted the massive paintings sparsely on white walls with
profuse lighting. Labels with limited amount of text accompanied the paintings. Curators left
space not only between paintings on the walls but also in the gallery they inhabited, making the
viewer feel at ease when standing or moving around in the airy space. Such an environment,
suitable for beholding and mediating, enhanced the aesthetic value of objects and emphasized
their identities as works of art. It also distanced the paintings from the World’s Fair atmosphere
palpable at the London exhibition. Sullivan praised this mode of presentation for turning
paintings from “‘background panels’ to lacquer and porcelain” to “individual works of art”,
which is “still surprisingly uncommon in the West.”44 In short, instead of enabling viewers to
fully interpret, the presentational approach to the paintings aimed to punctuate their artistic
42
For example, Richard Barnhart mentioned his visiting the exhibition in his paper published in the Arts of the Song
and Yuan.
43
Sullivan, “Notes”, 46.
44
Ibid., 45.
Chen 26
values and to establish their elevated status, which remained unconventional for exhibiting
Chinese paintings.
Fig. 4 “Chinese Art Treasures” Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art
Chen 27
Fig. 5 “Chinese Art Treasures” Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This mode of presentation not only heightened the status of Chinese paintings among
American art historians, but also fortified the narrative that politicians favored, which was the
third reason for the new emphasis on early paintings. In the middle of the Cold War, the
Guomindang-led Republic of China (ROC), or Taiwan, and the U.S. need to reconfirm their
alliance with this cultural exchange, and branding ROC as the genuine inheritor of a dignified
civilization benefited both sides. The spiritualistic, peaceful Chinese paintings mystified and
dignified the representation of Chinese culture. The proposal for this exhibition rose as early as
1952, when the creator of the Time magazine, Henry R. Luce, visited Taiwan. 45 After many
American art institutes formally extended invitations, the ROC government approved the
proposal and internally determined several principles of organization, which included that the
45
Gu gong qi shi, 175.
Chen 28
U.S. government must patronize the exhibition. The Board of the NPM also paid exceptional
attention to the security of the objects due to the objection to the exhibition from the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and the military threat it posed. Though instability across the
Taiwanese Strait suspended the exhibition for a few years, the United States cooperated to a
great extent to realize the exhibition, and did not fall short of showing state sponsorship.
President and Mrs. Kennedy, and President and Madam Chiang served as the honorary patrons.
American military vessels escorted the transportation of the exhibits from and to Taiwan to
assure the Guomindang. The traveling exhibition was inaugurated in the National Gallery of Art
in Washington D.C. The dialogue concerning the exhibition stayed on the state level between
Taiwan and the United States. The friendly diplomatic relationship of the two countries in the
Liberal Camp formed the basis of active cooperation, such as the generous loans of the fragile
masterpieces of the NPM to the United States.
Fig. 6 The military vessel that transported the collection back to Taiwan crossing the Bridge of
Golden Gate
Chen 29
Fig. 7 Sketch of life on the military vessel by Li Lin-tsan
Promotion of Chinese art at this moment had the potential to offer manifold benefits.
First of all, it served as an attempt to solidify the alliance between Taiwan and United States at a
tumultuous moment of PRC’s rise in power. In the Preface of the catalogue, the chairman of the
committee of the ROC wrote: “... in these troubled times of ours a fuller understanding of
Chinese art and culture by the American people, on whose shoulders largely rests the future of
the free world, assumes a new significance. This exhibition may also serve as a reminder that the
free Chinese are fighting to save their cultural heritage as much as to recover lost territories.” His
words punctuated “free,” a word that called to the hearts of the Americans, as the link between
American and Chinese people, with an assumption that equated people on the island of Taiwan
to the entirety of the Chinese people. The American media followed this tone: “...When the
Japanese invaded Manchuria they [the art treasures] took the all-too-familiar road of the refugee,
Chen 30
transported from one place to another before being shipped across the water to Formosa in 1949
with the Chinese Communists hot behind them.”46 It does not take much effort for one to see the
comparison of the Communists to Japanese invaders here. This comparison makes more sense
from the standpoint of preserving the reign of the Guomindang than preserving these art
treasures, and the very fact that an American journalist took the stance of the Guomindang and
made this comparison reflected the political objective of fortifying the connection and the stance
of the “Free” Camp.
Branding Taiwan as the inheritor of Chinese culture had an impact on domestic issues in
Taiwan and those in the United States as well. On one hand, Taiwan endeavored in constructing
a Chinese national identity by displaying Chinese cultural patrimonies. The invention of the term
“national treasures” to represent the ancient Chinese works of art housed in the NPM emerged
around the time of the pre-exhibition held in Taipei. 47 The implication of sharing a “nation”
contained in the term “national treasures,” which Li considered more succinct and dearer,
asserted the collective past of the multi-ethnic and multicultural society of Taiwan. It fit with the
series of measures to homogenize and to Sinicise Taiwan after the influx of people from the
mainland following the Guomindang in 1949. On the other hand, the United States saw the
imperative to justify its support for the ROC in face of a rising PRC. A letter to The New York
Times questioned the stance of the United States on which China should stay in its U.N. seat
because of “...the ridiculousness of a million or so Chinese stranded on an island being the sole
representative of China in the United Nations … while 600 million Chinese occupying the
46
47
Preston, “An Imperial Passage to China, ” New York Times, Sep 17, 1961, X23.
Li, “Foreword,” Guo bao fu mei, 1.
Chen 31
mainland are excluded.” 48 By exhibiting the cultural legitimacy of Taiwan, the American
government endorsed its political stance with ROC.
The choice of the painting on the cover exemplifies how the political agenda made the
emphasis on paintings and the curatorial context speak to itself. Painted by an anonymous artist
in the eleventh century, the Song dynasty scroll Nobel Scholar Under a Willow depicts a drunk
literatus sitting underneath a willow tree. The gnarled root, the curved trunk and the dangling
branches and leaves of the willow frame the scholar, creating a leisurely atmosphere. The
gentleman-scholar figure, possibly Tao Yuanming (365-427 C.E.), sits on top of a leopard skin in
a relaxed pose with his robe falling from his shoulders. His beard hangs in front of his chest and
his hair disheveled. A cup of wine stands by his feet, which he watches but seems not to direct
his attention to. The scholar seems to live in his own spiritual world and embodies a carefree
manner. Known for his talent of writing and his aloof attitude towards worldly matters, Tao
Yuanming of the Jin dynasty resigned from his official position to live a reclusive life in the
nature. Taoist ideals prevailed in this period, and the term “Wei Jin Feng Gu” refers to the
characteristic of having an uninhibited spirit valued by people at the time. The ubiquity of this
ideal in part resulted from the political instability of the Jin dynasty.
This painting, as the cover of the catalogue, conveys the important first impression of
Chinese paintings to U.S. viewers. Despite its fineness, this scroll neither showcases the best
brushworks or composition, nor comes from the most well-known painter. The most
characteristic part of this scroll was the cultural meanings discussed above. Implicitly, the scroll
symbolized the type of Chinese image that the ROC would wish to be imagined as at the time:
noble, aloof and peaceful among the worldly chaos with a carefree and relaxed attitude. Even
48
Emerson C. Ives and Charles Cogen, “Letters to the Times: Policy for China Offered,” New York Times, Jan 15,
1962.
Chen 32
though American readers could not fully capture the cultural implications without this
background knowledge, they would understand the atmosphere and the general idea transmitted
through the visual forms. The calligraphy of the Chinese characters, more decorative than
functional, enhanced the mysteriousness of the ancient civilization and its dignity. While the text
associated with the painting in the catalogue, written by American specialists, did not mention
this ideology, the chairman of the ROC committee described Chinese paintings as “ultramundane”
and rendering “comfort and solace to the modern man who often feels himself entrapped in a
materialistic world,” which climaxed at the responsibility of the Americans and the Taiwanese of
liberating the world. The cover design of the catalogue demonstrated the image making of a
spiritual, revered China, to be equated with the ROC who “reclused” on the Taiwan island.
Fig. 8 Cover of the catalogue of “Chinese Art Treasures”
Chen 33
Another painting shown in this exhibition exemplified the advance in studies of Chinese
paintings of American scholars and the modern scholastic tools they used. A massive scroll
entitled, Banquet by Lantern-Light by an anonymous Song painter, had an almost identical twin
in the collection of the NPM. Its twin held a signature of Ma Yuan, a renowned painter of the
Song dynasty, yet the committee selected the one without a seal. Contemporary scholars
generally agreed that the one exhibited was actually by Ma Yuan, and the one with a seal was a
later imitation. Compared to the mistake made with the Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain in
1935, this prudent choice indicates the level of academic rigor in evidence in 1961. The stylistic
studies of American scholars offered valuable insights into the authenticity of early paintings, a
lingering problem for identifying these works.
Chen 34
Fig. 9 Ma Yuan, Banquet by Lantern-Light (L: exhibited, R: with seal)
However, the academic rigor and stylistic study made the catalogue obscure to read for
the general reader. Almost all the text is constituted of a paragraph of meticulous visual
description, one of stylistic analysis, and one of inscriptions, marks and attribution, suffused with
overwhelming geographical terms and strange names. The tendency of placing the painter in
relation to the period school appeared especially conspicuous in the text for the Duck on A
Riverbank by Ch’en Lin of the Yuan dynasty. After a few sentences of visual description, an
entire paragraph was dedicated to identifying who influenced the painter. “Ch’en Lin was the
son of an official at the Hangchow Painting Academy. This picture, however, places him in quite
Chen 35
a different group, that of the Literati Painters: note the resemblances to Chao Meng-chien (No. 67)
in the strong, outlined grasses and flowers, and to Chao Meng-fu (No. 90a), in other features…
The reference to Ts’ui Po (No. 23) is understandable when we compare the outlines of bank and
leaves…” All these names would confuse a general reader, and the confident tone that the
cataloguer talked with would make this confusion seem like the fault of the visitor. Despite the
popularity of this exhibition among the public and the multiple reprints of this catalogue, the
museum culture the exhibition embodied, as shown in this paragraph, was elitist, researchoriented and unfriendly to the audience experience.
American art historians who drove the organization of the exhibition specialized in
paintings, such as Lippe and Cahill, and took this exhibition as an opportunity to bring the finest
Chinese paintings to the West for studying. They elevated Chinese paintings to a branch of art
history that worthy of scholarly investigation, and approached it with Western notion of the
“period style.” Despite the unfamiliarity with paintings of the general public, the curators
considered the audience experience secondary to the fulfillment of academic interests, and
disdained the practice of catering to the public taste. While academic interests led the preparation
of the exhibition, political factors set the undertone and lubricated the collaboration. In the
context of the Cold War, both governments sought to reinforce their alliance through this cultural
event. Furthermore, how the exhibition presented paintings enhanced the ROC’s claim of
ownership over China’s past. The newly established National Palace Museum (NPM) lent the
best of the early paintings, a genre of which no museum owned a better collection, and mystified
the spirituality of the landscape paintings to enhance the cultural sophistication. As for the
American government, marking the ROC as the true and only inheritor of the ancient civilization
justified its hostility to the PRC, a member of the Soviet Camp.
Chen 36
CHAPTER III SPLENDORS OF IMPERIAL CHINA, 1996
The exhibition “Splendors of Imperial China” held in 1996-7 left a strong impression of Chinese
art in living memory. The year-long travelling exhibition started from the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York, made stops at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Asian Art Museum of San
Francisco, and closed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The exhibition attracted
huge crowds, drawing an audience of over 800,000 people at the Metropolitan alone, along with
massive media coverage.49 While the popularity of the exhibition in the United States primarily
stemmed from its high quality, controversy over whether some fragile exhibits should travel
overseas contributed to the publicity in Taiwan, as well as in the United States. Disputes
culminated in a civil protest in front of the National Palace Museum and resulted in the
withdrawal of 23 exhibits one week before the opening. The decreasing number of exhibits at
each museum, from 452 at the Metropolitan to 331 at the National Gallery, revealed the concern
for the condition of the paintings and the objects.50 51
However, the root of the disputes resided outside the museum world. Domestic political
struggles between parties in Taiwan, an enflamed cross-strait relationship with mainland China,
and a weakened tie with the United States all dogged the exhibition and almost pushed it to
cancellation during the preparation stage. Oscillation what it meant to be Taiwan, which
accompanied the changing diplomatic and political situations, elevated social sentiments towards
a technical debate within the museum and raised the issue of cultural patrimony. On the other
hand, the negative impact and even the withdrawal of 23 finest objects did not undermine the
49
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Wen C. Fong To Retire From Metropolitan Museum After Three Decades Of
Pioneering Leadership In The Field Of Asian Art,” 2000.
50
Hua Hai-yen, newspaper clips published on the website of the Hai-yen Institute of the Conservation of Works of
Art.
51
National Gallery of Art, “Past Exhibitions: Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace
Museum, Taipei,” 1997.
Chen 37
huge success that the exhibition achieved in all criteria of art historians and museum practitioners:
promoting Chinese art to an American audience, reconnecting American Chinese with their
mother culture, fostering academic communication, and demonstrating high-standard curatorial
practices. Western scholars, some of whom were Chinese-born and active in Western academia,
shifted their interests from connoisseurship to the context of art, and approached Chinese art in
an interpretive manner.52 The exhibition served as a testimony of the progress of research. It also
illustrated the more frequent academic communication between the Chinese and the Western
view of Chinese art, especially of Chinese paintings. Interestingly, the emerging academic
interest in comprehending the political context of Chinese art production paralleled the political
turmoil that beleaguered the exhibition, which linked the dual forces intertwining and combatting
throughout the exhibition.
On Jan. 6th, 1996, a crowd of hundreds of people gathered in front of the National Palace
Museum and carried out a sit-in protest against the NPM’s decision to lend 27 “restricted items”
to the Metropolitan. Protesters waved banners with the slogan “Rescue National Treasures”.
Politicians stepped in quickly. One of the two independent Presidential candidates and the Vice
Presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party brought food and water to the
protesters and voiced their support for the movement. Several parades and sit-ins broke out in the
subsequent days in universities and public squares in Taipei. On January 23rd, the Ministry of
Education ruled to withdraw 23 objects from the list of 475 originally determined by the NPM
and the Metropolitan, including 8 of the 27 “restricted items”. As for the other 19 “restricted
52
Maxwell Hearn et al., “Foreword,” Arts of the Sung and Yüan: papers prepared for an international symposium
organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition Splendors of Imperial China:
treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996).
Chen 38
items” that embarked on the trans-pacific trip, each could only be put on view for 40 days, and
the four American museums divided the 19 pieces among themselves.
It appeared that the 27 “restricted items” caused all the riots, yet closer examinations
revealed deeper and more complicated causes of the incident. In mid-1980s, director of the NPM
at the time, Chin Hsiao-yi, designated some tens of scrolls of early periods as “A-list” items, and
limited the length of time on view of these items to 40 days every 3 years. According to a
Taiwanese-born conservator who worked at the Mannheim Museum in Germany, Hai-yan HuaStrofer, the length of life of silk was 800 years, and the age of every Song paintings had
exceeded the period. The Fragility and the condition of these early paintings certainly
contributed to the restriction. The incentive of designing this list also stemmed from the fact that
visiting researchers frequently requested to view these famous scrolls, the rolling and unrolling
of which harmed the fragile fabrics. Therefore rareness and fame also constituted the criteria for
“A-list” items.
The NPM, still directed by Chin Hsiao-yi, decided to override its own policy for the
“Splendors of Imperial China” exhibition. Conservators and critics had condemned the NPM for
the lack of transparency of the conditions of the antiques, the unscientific method of making
conservational decisions, and the lack of expertise among the people who made important
decisions. Yet technical issues did not concern the public as much as that of sovereignty. The
idea that the NPM would send fragile “national treasures”, which the Taiwanese themselves
could hardly see, overseas for a whole year to please the Americans at the expense of potentially
damaging the treasures irritated the masses. According to both Taiwanese newspapers and an
American journalist, Andrew Solomon, the restricted paintings did not receive much domestic
awareness when they appeared at the special exhibition celebrating the 70th anniversary of the
Chen 39
founding of the NPM in 1995. Yet their absence at the preview exhibition of the “Splendors of
Imperial China” at the NPM in January 1996, which Chin justified as too close in date to their
last appearance to exhibit again, agitated several art lovers, whose protests soon caught media
report and public attention. Suddenly everyone in Taiwan knew, while not necessarily
understanding, the significance of the Fan Kuan, Guo Xi and Li Tang paintings, and started to
“rescue” them.
At first, the protesters constituted mostly of people of the “arts community” (藝文界),
such as art lovers, artists, and former employees of NPM. Solomon suggested that these people
did not genuinely have concern for the paintings but protested to release “personal grudges”
against Chin Hsiao-yi or Wen Fong, professor at Princeton University and curator at the
Metropolitan who led the organization of this exhibition. Solomon recalled that an oil painter
who protested “had learned to mistrust the United States when a New York gallery dealt with
him shoddily”. Whether or not Solomon’s sarcasm held true, the fact that so many Taiwanese
who barely knew Fan Kuan before quickly echoed with the arts community indicated that the
“grudges” existed in the public sphere over matters not so “personal”. Indeed, if one correlated
the incident with the international and domestic political situation, what Chin Hsiao-yi and Wen
Fong stood for became clear: the internal political struggles and the ambiguous trilateral
relationship with the United States and mainland China.
The United States established formal diplomatic relations with PRC in 1979, after the
exclusion of Taiwan/ROC from the United Nations in 1971. However, the United States still
maintained economic and cultural exchanges with Taiwan. The NPM lent objects to the “Circa
1491: Art in the Age of Exploration” exhibition held by the National Gallery of Art in
Washington D.C in 1991. President Clinton even invited President Lee Tung-hui of Taiwan to
Chen 40
attend the anniversary of the Cornell University, where Lee graduated, in 1995. When the PRC
responded to Lee’s trip with a missile test near the Taiwan Strait, the United States dispatched
military vessels to deter PRC from forcing a reunification with Taiwan. The decline in
international recognition, unsettled relationship with the United States and the threat of a rising
PRC all evinced to the Taiwanese an imbalance in power with themselves on the weakest end.
These circumstances nurtured anti-American sentiments, and a rumor that President Clinton
would return to Taiwan forgeries and send the original paintings to the PRC after the exhibition.
Critics and newspapers straightforwardly pointed out the changing international status of
Taiwan/ROC compared to that in 1935 and 1961, and referred to the lending of the “national
treasures” as a “cultural tribute”. The fact that the Kuomintang government would afford half of
the cost of the exhibition attenuated the sense of a tribune over that of communication. Anger of
the protesters stemmed not only from an imagined adulatory attitude of the NPM, but also how
this action confirmed their anxiety over the feebleness of Taiwan.
While the international political environment influenced public opinions on the overseas
exhibition, domestic political transformation gradually shaped perceptions of the restricted
paintings and the related issues of “national treasures”. The imposition of martial law by the
ruling party Kuomintang, which deprived citizens of any political freedom and banned the
formation of new political parties, relaxed after Chiang’s death and officially ended in 1987
within the term of presidency of Chiang’s son. Chiang’s son died in 1988, and his successor Lee
Tung-hui promoted democratization and indigenization of Taiwan. While Lee and Chiang’s son
both came from Kuomintang, they differed significantly for the Taiwanese because of Lee’s
identity as an indigenous Taiwanese. The term “wai sheng ren” (outer provincial people) refers
to immigrants who moved to Taiwan after the defeat of Japanese in 1945, especially those who
Chen 41
retreated with Kuomintang in 1949. Wai sheng ren related to and identified themselves tightly
with the Han culture and language, at least compared to their counterparts “ben sheng ren” (local
provincial people). Ben sheng ren, who had settled in Taiwan at the latest during the Japanese
occupation, mostly constituted of Holos, Hakkas and people of indigenous minor ethnicity
groups. While Holos and Hakkas are ethnically Han, their languages differed substantially from
Mandarin, and they seldom identified themselves as Chinese.
During the oppressive rule of Taiwan by the Chiang family, Chiang Kai-shek firmly
established the identity of the island as part of China, which included both Taiwan and the
mainland. He banned speaking vernacular Taiwanese languages in public, which subdued the
cultures of the local provincial people. After Chiang’s son died during his presidency term in
1988, Lee succeeded him without going through election. He began to liberalize Taiwan and to
advocate the revival of indigenous Taiwanese culture, speaking vernacular Taiwanese in the
public himself. Sensing Lee’s intention of leading Taiwan to independence, some members of
Kuomintang who firmly believed in a “Chinese” Taiwan withdrew and established the New
Party to combat him in the first public presidency election in Taiwan in 1996, the date of which
was only four days before the opening of the “Splendors of Imperial China”. Chou Chuan, a high
official of the New Party, demonstrated high passion for protecting the national treasures and
actually protested at the NPM in before the sit-in movement took place.
The struggle between the Han Chinese and the local Taiwanese identities triggered the
question of whose national treasures were the paintings. To people like Chou Chuan, artists like
Fan Kuan, Guo Xi and Li Tang certainly represented Han culture, and this fight over Chinese
paintings with the NPM and the Metropolitan became a great political tool to leverage
nationalism that resided with the Chinese identity. To the indigenous people, artifacts from the
Chen 42
Forbidden City did not hold much cultural significance. The cry to “rescue national treasures”
implicitly supported the statement that those legacies of the Han culture were the cultural
patrimonies of the nation, which was Chinese. Even though the production and collection of
these paintings had nothing to do with the island, Taiwan had the responsibility to preserve these
“national treasures” as part of the Chinese nation. This was the claim that Chou attempted to
make.
Corporate sponsorship issues reflected another angle how politics impacted the exhibition.
As Beijing objected to the lending of treasures that Kuomintang “stole” from the PRC, Citigroup
withdrew their sponsorship to protect its massive business in mainland China. Acer backed off
soon after the Taiwanese protests broke out due to similar considerations. The withdrawal of
these two corporates left a 1.5-million-dollar financial hole for the Metropolitan and the
Taiwanese government to make up, which nearly pushed the exhibition to cancellation. 53 The
fact that the Taiwanese government did step up to fix the hole with more funding further irritated
the public and led to more intense protests. The crisis illustrated the increased reliance of
museums on corporate patios compared to the situation in 1935 and in 1961, as well as the
multifold impact of the reactions in Asia on the exhibition taking place in the United States.
While social trends external to the exhibition motivated the protest, individuals at the
core of controversy, Chin Hsiao-yi and Wen Fong, unintentionally exacerbated the situation.
Chin had no professional training in art or conservation, despite his mastery of calligraphy and
deep knowledge of Chinese traditional culture. He served as Chiang Kai-shek’s secretary and
trustworthy adviser for an extended period, and he even drafted the latter’s last will. Chin’s
political career defined his view of cultural artifacts during his directorship at the NPM. After
successfully collaborating with the National Gallery on the Columbus exhibition in 1991, he
53
Solomon, “Don’t Mess,” 44.
Chen 43
outspokenly advocated cultural diplomacy with the United States. In regard to this exhibition, he
stressed the political consequences of the exhibition more than the culture ones. For example,
Chin expressed to the Metropolitan Museum that the travelling exhibition would not take place if
the venues did not include the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. He insisted on
exhibiting in Washington D.C. because of the city’s importance as the heart of the United States,
and he took the location of the United Nations in New York into consideration when he approved
cooperation with the Metropolitan. Such a figure neither stood in favor of advocates of
indigenous culture nor those of Chinese. Many youths in Taiwan, especially at the eve of a free
presidential election, distrusted a senior man coming from the oppressive past of Chiang. Other
criticism Chin induced ranged from snobbishness to whether political authorities had too much
say over technical issues like conservation. 54 Sentiments against Wen Fong appeared more
intense, his name crossed out on waving banners. Fong booked flights to Taiwan several times
yet eventually did not come since his presence would exacerbate the situation. People hated Fong
not only for the fact that he was a mainlander who worked for the Americans and potentially
conspired evil plans, but also by his “condescending” attitude. Fong’s words that if the restricted
items did not come, it would be better to cancel the exhibition appeared to the Taiwanese as that
he completely devalued the other 400 objects.
Instead of suggesting that the rest of objects carried no value, Fong actually meant to say
that the exhibition would fail to reach the original curatorial objective if certain objects went
missing. The director of the Metropolitan, de Montebello, mentioned that when they made up a
list of what the show could not live without, the list was “not of objects but of relationships
among objects”. Here what he referred to as “relationships” were the continuity of period and the
comprehensiveness of genres. The “Splendors of Imperial China” aimed to provide a
54
Zhongguo Shibao, January 15, 1996.
Chen 44
comprehensive survey of Chinese art. Song landscape paintings constituted an indispensable, if
not the most important, category, not only due to the high quality of the collection of Song
landscape paintings at the NPM, but also because landscape began to rise to its significant status
in Chinese painting during the Song dynasty. However, the 27 restricted items primarily
comprised of paintings of this genre. Furthermore, the traditional strength and interest in the
research of Chinese paintings in the American academia necessitated the inclusion of early
paintings. Wen Fong specialized in paintings, and so did Maxwell Hearn, who worked under
Fong at the Metropolitan. Among the three main curators of the exhibition, only James C. Y.
Watt, born in Hong Kong and educated at Oxford, specialized in decorative arts.55
However, it would fail to do Fong full justice if one only saw the emphasis on certain
objects or genres. Whereas the public and authorities in Taiwan concerned with the political
connotation of the exhibition, the American side strove to realize art historical values of the
exhibition. While all three exhibitions attempted to cover a comprehensive history of Chinese art,
“Splendors of Imperial China” is distinguished from the other two by its emphasis on
comprehending the dynamics between art and its social and cultural context. From the catalogue
writing and the installation of the exhibition to scholarly symposiums, the Metropolitan strove to
put individual works of art from the same period into dialogue with each other. Maxwell Hearn
handpicked and rearranged 107 finest objects in an abridged version of the catalogue, Splendors
of Imperial China. Each pairing or grouping of paintings artifacts illustrate on the stylistic
aesthetics or artistic practices of a period. For example, the rigid contours of rocks in Li Tang’s
Wind in the Pines Amid Ten Thousand Valleys and the stylized mountains in the tapestry
Immortals in a Mountain Pavilion share the archaistic interest that gained popularity in court
55
Watt’s education in Oxford matches the British focus on the decorative arts as opposed to the American focus on
the paintings. That interest in decorative arts evinced in the 1935 exhibition indeed clanged on to the geography
rather than the time period.
Chen 45
during the Northern Song period. The juxtaposition of a Kuan-ware porcelain covered in a
network of decorative cracks and Ma Lin’s Waiting for Guests by Candlelight illustrates on the
pursuit of refinement: the delicate crazing of the porcelain and the refined activity of blossomwatching depicted in the painting. Hearn both contextualized works of art and illustrated
practices in the past with art.56
The installation of the exhibition visualized the unconventional pairing of art and the idea
of contextualization in the catalogue text. A prominent example came from the juxtaposition of
the massive portrait of Emperor Song Taizu and a landscape painting of a mountain by Fan Kuan,
painted in roughly the same period. Both scrolls overwhelmed the viewers with their gigantic
scales and richness in visual information. The stateliness of the seated emperor resonated with
the sublimity of the mountain, which soared high and dwarfed figures in the foreground. The
grouping of the two scrolls helped the spectators to reimagine the visual culture of the time
during which the painters created the works. On the other hand, the comparison of the two
paintings suggested an aesthetic preference for monumentality, especially in imperial portraits, in
early Northern Song dynasty.
Academic symposiums held in conjunction with the exhibitions centered on the studies of
dynasties and periods, which parallels the tones in the catalogue and the installation. The
Metropolitan Museum held an international symposium titled ‘Arts of the Sung and Yuan’, and
published papers prepared for the symposium.57 Instead of trying to identify a “period style”, the
symposium sought to portray the society at the time from all angles and to contextualize art in
this panorama. Categories listed in the contents included rituals, politics, religion, literati ideals
and cross-cultural influences. Princeton University, where Wen Fong taught, held another
56
57
Maxwell Hearn, Splendors of Imperial China (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996).
Hearn et al., Arts of the Sung and Yüan.
Chen 46
symposium immediately after the New York one, also concentrating on the Song and the Yuan
dynasties. Despite the fact that the symposium only discussed paintings, it engaged with issues of
rituals, ethnicity and style and closely related to the sociopolitical context of the period. For
example, the keynote paper analyzed how landscape paintings held by the NPM, Fishing in a
Cold River and Sitting Alone by a Stream, resembled Song masters’ paintings in style but
represented the moods of Han loyalists living in the Yuan dynasty, one ruled by Mongols. 58 A
symposium concentrating on the Ming and Qing period accompanied the exhibition at the Art
Institute of Chicago.
The emerging interest in relationship and context manifested an interpretative approach
towards the study of Chinese art, while the previous two exhibitions primarily focused on
connoisseurship and followed the model of stylistic development. The transformation partially
evinced in the exhibition of 1961, the catalogue of which examined paintings in the light of the
aesthetics of the patrons. Two factors contributed to this transformation. The first one was the
movement towards a social history of art in the Western academia. Starting from 1960s, the
relationship between art and society became central to discussions in the discipline. Michael
Baxandall published his revolutionary idea of the “period eye” in 1971 and proposed to
contextualize paintings in the visual culture of the period, whose argument was seconded by
Patricia Brown in her articles on Venetian art.59 60T. J. Clark focused attention to how social and
political context influenced artists and impacted on the creation of individual paintings. 61
Scholarly interests in how patronage, social conditions and visual repertoire shaped artistic
58
Richard Barnhart, “Patriarchs in Another Age – In Search of Style and Meaning in Two Sung-Yuan Paintings,” in
Arts of the Sung and Yuan: Ritual, Ethnicity and Style in Painting (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton
University, 1999), ed. Cary Y Liu et al.
59
Michael Baxandall, Painting and experience in fifteenth century Italy: a primer in the social history of pictorial
style (New York : Oxford University Press, 1988)
60
Patricia F Brown, Venetian narrative painting in the age of Carpaccio (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
61
T. J. Clark, Image of the people: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 revolution (London: Thames & Hudson, 1973).
Chen 47
production emerged and fermented.62 Originated in studies of Western Art, the trend swept over
the entire discipline of History of Art and influenced the study of East Asian Art. James Cahill,
who taught at BERKELEY WITH Baxandall, published The Painter's Practice: How Artists
Lived and Worked in Traditional China in 1994. While this book itself serves as an example of
the contextualization of Chinese art, Cahill observes the blossoming of academic writings that
attempt to interpret the socioeconomic contexts of the creation of Chinese paintings in early
1990s in the preface of the book.63
Equally important, the second factor was the academic development in the subject of
Chinese Art, especially in the study of paintings in American institutions. Wen Fong
acknowledged this trend of contextualization and the contribution of Western scholarship in
comprehending Chinese art in the introductory essay of Possessing the Past. He wrote, “[i]n the
decades between the 1950s and the early 1990s, Western scholarship did much to advance the
study of Chinese art as a discipline, both through stylistic analysis and through the exploration of
socioeconomic context. And more recently, the focus of East Asian studies has turned to an
interpretive rather than a positivistic approach to the study of cultural meaning.” 64 Western
scholars advanced to the stage of interpretation after undergoing the phase of identification of
hands and familiarization with Chinese esthetics in 1930s. Such progress resulted from the
increased research interests burgeoned after the 1961 exhibition and the more frequent
communication between ethnically Chinese scholars and Western scholars. The 1961 exhibition
62
Peter Burke, “The Social History of Art,” The Historical Journal 33 (4), Cambridge University Press: 989–92.
“Specialists in Chinese art who are disinclined toward socioeconomic approaches, and who may be encouraged by
recent methodological shifts away from those concerns in Western art studies, are already pronouncing such
investigations as old hat, when in fact for the Chinese painting field they are still in their infancy … Writing aimed
at deeper interpretations of individual works, on the other hand, and at defining the contexts of their creation, has
appeared in significant quantity only quite recently.” Cahill, James. The Painter's Practice : How Artists Lived and
Worked In Traditional China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
64
Wen C. Fong, “Chinese Art and Cross-Cultural Understanding,” Possessing the Past (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art: 1996), 27.
63
Chen 48
accelerated the studies of Chinese paintings in the United States not only because the exposure of
scholars to original masterpieces, which they photographed for further researches, 65 but also
because it inspired thousands of young art historians, such as Richard Barnhart.66
Cross-cultural communication between Chinese-born scholars and their Western
counterparts created synergies between knowledge of traditional Chinese civilizations and
Western methodology, which advanced studies of Chinese paintings in both China and the
United States. The emigration movement in the 1980s as a result of the economic reformation in
1978 enabled Chinese scholars and students to participate in the conversation in the Western
academia. The number of high-level Chinese and Taiwanese museum officials and specialists
auditing Cahill’s lecture series “The Painters’ Practices” in 1994 provides an evidence of the
communication. Meanwhile the Western world became more interested in hearing voices from
the East. In the published papers of the Arts of the Sung and Yuan symposium, native Chinese
museum practitioners contributed half of the articles, which drastically contrasted with the single
Chinese speaker in the lecture list of the 1935 exhibition.
The increased academic communication enabled native Chinese to introduce more
cultural concepts into the study of Chinese paintings in the United States. While previous
catalogues simply touched upon Hsieh Ho and the spirituality of Chinese paintings, Fong was
able to give a full review of Chinese philosophy, Confucianism and their influences on the
methodologies of paintings in his introductory essay of Possessing the Past. Chinese-born,
Western-educated scholars contributed their understanding of Chinese culture through publishing
in exhibition catalogues, symposium publications and scholarly journals. On the other hand,
these Western-educated scholars in turn also passed Western methodologies to native scholars
65
66
Li, Guo bao fu mei.
Wen Fong, “Memories of the National Palace Museum,” Gugong Wenwu Journal (271).
Chen 49
based in China and Taiwan. Students of Art History in the National University of Taiwan
travelled to Princeton to study with Wen Fong, after which they returned to Taiwan and became
professors, museum specialists, and even the Director of the NPM. The dichotomy between the
East and West gradually gave way to a more collaborative, well-informed scholarly community,
which concurrently shared an interest in the context of art.
Art critic Holland Cotter sharply summarized the exhibition with the word “power”,
“[t]he exhibition has many stories to tell, and most of them are about power: about 3,000 years of
imperial rule, about the amassing of a fabulous collection and about an American art museum
with sufficient institutional clout to negotiate an enviable ‘treasures’ show and bring it to New
York.”67 The former part of the comment refers to the ability of Chinese emperors to garner and
to keep the most respected works of art, a sense of power connoted by the collection itself and
increasingly studied in social art history; the latter part refers to the institutional power of the
Metropolitan Museum to bring out the exhibition, which nevertheless rested upon the political
power of the United States. While this comment relates to larger issues discussed above, it also
serves as an accurate observation of presentations of individual paintings in the exhibition.
Almost every exhibition review in major media, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The
Burlington Magazine, to name a few, elaborates on the practice of Chinese emperors holding on
to art “patrimony” to claim authority and authenticity of their reigns. Jades and bronzes
traditionally carried symbolic meanings, but possessions of masterworks of paintings and
calligraphy could also serve as testimonials of an emperor’s power. A notable example comes
from Emperor Qianlong’s collection of three pieces of calligraphies by Wang Xizhi, Wang Xun
and Wang Xianzhi. Qianlong left his marks on the calligraphies and sheltered them in the Hall of
Three Rarities, where only he had access. Fan Kuan belongs to a desired group of masters, and
67
Holland Cotter, “China’s Self-Portrait: Power and Subtlety,” New York Times, March 22, 1996.
Chen 50
one can interpret the protest in Taiwan that prevented the most famous work of his, Travelers
Amid Streams and Mountains, from leaving Taiwan as a modern version of limiting access to
demonstrate power.
Fig. 10 Fan Kuan, Travelers Amid Streams and Mountains, National Palace Museum,
Taipei.
Chen 51
Fig. 11 Anonymous, Sitting Alone by a Stream, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
However, Sitting Alone by a Stream, a work formerly attributed to Fan Kuan, did make
the trip to New York. The ambiguity of the authorship might ease the restriction. Scholars
attributed the work to an anonymous painter in early 12th century, during the Southern Song
dynasty. Sixty-one-and-a-half-inches in height and around forty-two-inches in width, the
monumental landscape painting resembled the Travelers for its composition and subject matter.
Immense mountains occupy the middle ground and the background, the scale of which enhanced
by the miniscule pavilions and figures in the foreground. Jagged outlines enliven rocks and trees;
tiny brushstrokes and the combined application of dark and light ink brought out the textures of
the mountain. One could only fully appreciate the beauty of the painting by beholding the
Chen 52
physical object, because either photos of the entire painting, showing the massiveness and the
carefully arranged composition, or those of details, boasting the delicate brushstrokes, sacrifice
the other part. Several poems filled the blank space left by the painter on the top and upper left
corner of the scroll. In the left corner, a man who sits alone with his back facing the viewer,
almost invisible among the colossal and visually complicated mountains, gave the painting its
title.
The withdrawal of the 23 paintings made Sitting Alone one of the closest things that the
Metropolitan could get for an early landscape. However, Western scholars fully explored the art
historical values of the painting, the study of which concentrated on contextualization, and
demonstrated an intellectual power equally strong as the political one in Taiwan. The
Metropolitan hung the scroll in a dim yet spacious room, allowing space and a sense of intimacy
for beholding. In the catalogue, Fong related the melancholy atmosphere around the sitting man
to the nostalgia of intellectuals lamenting lost territories in the Southern Song, providing the
historical and cultural context for interpretation. Richard Barnhart fully brought out the research
value of the painting at the symposium organized by Wen Fong at the Princeton University. He
rendered a thorough analysis of the identity of the painter by using evidence found in style and in
the inscribed poems.68 He juxtaposed a landscape painting of the same period, Fishing in a Cold
River, and Sitting Alone, and attributed both to Song loyalists who lived a reclusive life in the
Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty. He convincingly interprets the absence of a signature as a result of
the painter’s fear of revealing his identity and of political prosecution. Regarding a painting with
ambiguous authorship, Barnhart’s article exemplifies how stylistic analysis in conjunction with
contextualization shed light on a more traditional task of identifying the painter.
68
Barnhart, “Patriarchs in Another Age.”
Chen 53
The Burlington Magazine mentions another form of generating political legitimacy from
cultural patrimonies by referring to a set of portraits of ancient sages painted by Ma Lin and
commissioned by Emperor Lizong of the Southern Song dynasty. The Confucian Sages and
Worthies comprised of thirteen two-and-a-half-meter tall hanging scrolls portraying earliest
emperors in the Han civilization, and Confucius and his followers. Five of these massive
portraits joined the exhibition. The near-life-size figures, all except one, stand in three-quarter
views, and they all pose differently. They occupy the bottom three-quarter of the composition
and stand against an empty background, a timeless space. All figures share idealized facial
characteristics. King Yu of the Xia Dynasty and King Tang of the Shang Dynasty dress up in
ceremonial robes and crowns. Thick lines accentuate the weight of the fabrics, while fine ones
delineate the elaborated patterns on the robes in vibrant colors, which emphasized their
stateliness. King Yao and King Wu of the Zhou dynasty wear casual gowns and handkerchief, an
informal way of wrapping hair. Fluid lines outline the swinging gowns, which give the figures a
sense of otherworldliness. Different outfits highlight the wisdom or the solemnity of the
philosophers and rulers, while the antique style of the clothes reminds the viewers in the Song
dynasty of their common identity: authentic ancestors of the Han civilization. On the empty
space above the head of each figure, Emperor Lizong inscribed his name and a tribute praising
his virtues. Emperor Lizong also presented the thirteen tributes at the national academy and had
them engraved on stones, while the portraits themselves decorated state ceremonial halls and
temples.69
69
Fong, Possessing the Past, 257.
Chen 54
Fig. 12 Ma Lin, Emperor Yu of the Confucian Sages and Worthies, National Palace
Museum, Taipei.
Contextualization provides the key to interpret this set of paintings. During the Song
dynasty, Mongols cast their shadow upon the court and occupied half of China for a prolonged
period of time. The encroachment of Mongols even forced the court to transfer its capital, which
marked the chronological division of the Song dynasty into Northern and Southern Song. Facing
an empire falling apart, Emperor Lizong strove to re-justify the rule of the court through
commissioning this set of portraits punctuating the orthodox lineage, hence the display of these
portraits in ritualistic spaces and the promotion of the tributes. The display in the exhibition
mimicked the intended environment of these portraits, for practical or for curatorial reasons. In
Chen 55
the National Gallery of Art, the gigantic portraits occupied one of the largest galleries.70 Curators
did not overcrowd the gallery, which allowed space to mediate and to behold. The massive scale
and the confrontation with these figures created a visual impact and a sense of awe, exactly what
Emperor Lizong attempted to achieve.
Fig. 13 Portrait of Song Renzong, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
The portraits of two emperors of the Song dynasty, Song Taizu and Song Renzong,
conveyed a similar idea about power, the installation of which communicated this idea visually
to the viewers. Multiple venues, including the National Gallery of Art, displayed one of these
two portraits at the entrance of the exhibition. Besides the practical requirement of large space
due to their scales, the opening of the visitor’s experience of Chinese art with portraits of
emperors prompted the audience to think of the imperial nature of the collection. The emperors
had their aesthetic preferences of genres and styles. The court Painting Academy, which
flourished in the Song dynasty and made huge contributions to the development of Chinese art,
expressed those preferences. Therefore, the emperors’ taste heavily influenced what was
70
The Burlington Magazine.
Chen 56
preserved and promoted in Chinese art history, long before any modern scholar or curator could
put their hands on. As the viewers wandered through galleries, the encounter with the emperors
and the implications of the imperial essence of the art collection resided at the back of their
minds. At the Art Institute of Chicago, the audience experienced the imperial portrait of Song
Taizu differently, the arrangement of which spoke to the relationship between patrimony and
political legitimacy. The portrait of Song Taizu hung beyond an array of bronzes and jades,
which held significant cultural monumentality and represented the orthodoxy of rulers. The
visitor would see the emperor from afar, glimpse his presence as they behold the bronzes and
jades, and in the meantime approach him. Such an experience constantly reminded the visitors
that this man at once possessed these artifacts, and the act of possession itself became a political
device. Here, curatorial arrangement of objects came together with the scholarly interests in
contextualization, and enhanced the concept of patrimony that parallelingly held significance
inside and outside the museum.
Wen Fong recalled in a later reflection essay that he selected the title of the catalogue,
Possessing the Past, for two-fold reasons: the first one relates to the imperial practice of
collecting antiques to inherit from (“拥有”) the past; the second one refers to the mission today
to comprehend(“掌握”) the past to rejuvenate Chinese traditional culture.71 The dual meanings
played out throughout the exhibition in the paintings themselves, the writings about the paintings
and the curatorial arrangements. Furthermore, the retrospective and prospective implications of
“possession” tied the collection and the exhibition together – Chinese emperors, the
Chinese/Taiwanese and the Westerners today seek different ways of possessing these works of
art, which keeps adding new layers of meanings to them as time passes by.
71
Fong, “Memories of the National Palace Museum.”
Chen 57
Fig. 14 Portrait of Song Taizu as seen in the “Splendors of Imperial China” exhibition in
the Art Institute of Chicago.
Chen 58
Fig. 15 “Splendors of the Imperial China” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Fig. 16 “Splendors of the Imperial China” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Portrait of
Song Renzong facing Emperor Yao by Ma Lin.
Chen 59
CONCLUSION
Over the course of the 20th century, exhibitions of Chinese art in the Western world
migrated from a spectacle which featured Chinese art as foreign wonders, to a modern exhibition
that served both scholarly inquiries and public interests. These transitions paralleled movements
in other social sectors since the museum world, where influences of multiple social forces
intersect, responded to both the history and the trend in the specific country at the particular
moment. The international exhibition of Chinese art responded to the lingering Orientalism left
by the colonialist history in the 19th century in Britain, and reflected the passion for decorative
arts, especially ceramics, that was specific to this Western country. The Chinese Art Treasures
exhibition responded to the bipolar political structure unique to the Cold War period, and
illustrated the American appreciation of paintings and the academic interest in stylistic analysis
at the time. The Splendors of Imperial China exhibition responded to the trend towards
contextualization in American academia, as well as the political liberating trend in Taiwan.
While the Western imagination of China experienced gradual transitions regarding the art
historical value of Chinese art, especially paintings, the Chinese government constantly held onto
the diplomatic values of these exhibitions, as well as their effects on fortifying nationalism.
Not only did these exhibitions mirror social conditions, they also served as agents and
actively shaped the contexts in which they were situated. The 1935 exhibition raised
international attention to Chinese art, which contributed to the organization of the 1961
exhibition; the 1961 one incentivized a group of young art historians on pursuing the study of
Chinese paintings, which modernized the perspective on Chinese paintings in 1996. Similarly,
works of art from the Palace Museum constituted these exhibitions, and the latter bestowed these
Chen 60
works of art new meanings. To the Chinese people, these works of art transformed from private
collections of the emperors and then to national treasures owned by the public. Some interpreted
these exhibitions as cultural tributes of the government to foreign powers, while some others
viewed these exhibitions as venues of cultural promotion. Either way, the cultural significances
of these artworks increased as they gradually acquired more symbolic meanings along the way of
the travels.
Chen 61
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