Rare scroll 'unified' for Taipei show
Source: Xinhua |
June 2, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
VISITORS to Taipei's Palace Museum can now view a Chinese painting in its entirety for the first time since it was burnt into two pieces 360 years ago.
"Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" by famous Yuan Dynasty painter Huang Gongwang, was once obtained by Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) collector Wu Hongyu. However, Wu loved this artwork so much that he ordered on his deathbed in 1650 that the painting should be burnt. Although his nephew managed to salvage it, the painting was left in two pieces, with a section about dozens of centimeters long in the middle burnt to ashes.
After changing hands many times, the right part, known as "The Remaining Mountain," 51.4cm long, was kept in the mainland's Zhejiang Museum, while the left part, or "The Wuyong Version," 636.9cm long, was held in Taipei's Palace Museum.
An exhibition, displaying both parts of the scroll painting, opened at the Palace Museum yesterday and will run until September 25.
The left part of the painting was among some 600,000 items shipped by the Kuomintang government to Taipei from the Forbidden City, or the former imperial palace, before it fled to Taiwan in 1949. Based on this collection, Taipei's Palace Museum was founded in 1965.
The scroll painting vividly depicts an early autumn scene on the banks of the Fuchun River in Zhejiang Province. It is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of the traditional Chinese landscape painting technique.
"As a painter of traditional Chinese ink painting, I have never seen this masterpiece before. It's like a dream come true," said He Shuifa, a renowned painter from the Chinese mainland, at the exhibition's opening ceremony.
The artist completed the painting when he was 82, and could be considered an abstract representation of his whole life, He said. "Only a dozen of Huang's paintings have survived until now."
Huang's work marked the start of a new Chinese painting school, Literati Painting, which dominated the Chinese art scene for centuries.
Painters of the school were also poets, intellectuals and calligraphers, not just artists. They turned painting into a comprehensive means of self-expression by writing poems and short essays on the sides of their works.
"However, my dream has not been fully fulfilled. I would like to see the two parts of the painting brought together at Fuyang where it was painted," He said.
"Without improvement in cross-Strait relations, we would not have had the chance to see the reunion," Professor Li Daoxiang of the Academy of Chinese Culture said.
The Chinese mainland and Taiwan have been estranged since a civil war in the late 1940s. In the 1980s the two sides resumed exchanges of people and eased restrictions on transport, post and trade. In 2008, they finally rebuilt direct links of transport, post and trade.
In 2009, Taipei's Palace Museum first hosted a joint exhibition with the Palace Museum in Beijing. "The two museums have made great efforts to settle differences on sensitive issues, which laid the foundation for cross-Strait cooperation," Li said.
Premier Wen Jiabao first called for a "reunification" of the scroll's two pieces in March last year. After several rounds of talks, the Zhejiang Museum and the Taipei museum signed a memorandum and finally secured the exhibition in January.
"Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" by famous Yuan Dynasty painter Huang Gongwang, was once obtained by Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) collector Wu Hongyu. However, Wu loved this artwork so much that he ordered on his deathbed in 1650 that the painting should be burnt. Although his nephew managed to salvage it, the painting was left in two pieces, with a section about dozens of centimeters long in the middle burnt to ashes.
After changing hands many times, the right part, known as "The Remaining Mountain," 51.4cm long, was kept in the mainland's Zhejiang Museum, while the left part, or "The Wuyong Version," 636.9cm long, was held in Taipei's Palace Museum.
An exhibition, displaying both parts of the scroll painting, opened at the Palace Museum yesterday and will run until September 25.
The left part of the painting was among some 600,000 items shipped by the Kuomintang government to Taipei from the Forbidden City, or the former imperial palace, before it fled to Taiwan in 1949. Based on this collection, Taipei's Palace Museum was founded in 1965.
The scroll painting vividly depicts an early autumn scene on the banks of the Fuchun River in Zhejiang Province. It is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of the traditional Chinese landscape painting technique.
"As a painter of traditional Chinese ink painting, I have never seen this masterpiece before. It's like a dream come true," said He Shuifa, a renowned painter from the Chinese mainland, at the exhibition's opening ceremony.
The artist completed the painting when he was 82, and could be considered an abstract representation of his whole life, He said. "Only a dozen of Huang's paintings have survived until now."
Huang's work marked the start of a new Chinese painting school, Literati Painting, which dominated the Chinese art scene for centuries.
Painters of the school were also poets, intellectuals and calligraphers, not just artists. They turned painting into a comprehensive means of self-expression by writing poems and short essays on the sides of their works.
"However, my dream has not been fully fulfilled. I would like to see the two parts of the painting brought together at Fuyang where it was painted," He said.
"Without improvement in cross-Strait relations, we would not have had the chance to see the reunion," Professor Li Daoxiang of the Academy of Chinese Culture said.
The Chinese mainland and Taiwan have been estranged since a civil war in the late 1940s. In the 1980s the two sides resumed exchanges of people and eased restrictions on transport, post and trade. In 2008, they finally rebuilt direct links of transport, post and trade.
In 2009, Taipei's Palace Museum first hosted a joint exhibition with the Palace Museum in Beijing. "The two museums have made great efforts to settle differences on sensitive issues, which laid the foundation for cross-Strait cooperation," Li said.
Premier Wen Jiabao first called for a "reunification" of the scroll's two pieces in March last year. After several rounds of talks, the Zhejiang Museum and the Taipei museum signed a memorandum and finally secured the exhibition in January.
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