The Times (10.11.)
Xinhua (9.11.)
China Daily (8.11.)
The Times (8.11.)
The Economist (5.11.)

++++++++++++

The Times (London), November 10, 2005
From the land of a billion cheap toys: exquisite jade, maps and silken robes
Michael Binyon

AS HE GAZED at the rare white hawk, perched imperiously on the rocky crag in the shadow of a gnarled pine, President Hu Jintao must have felt a surge of pride.

This masterpiece of Chinese art, dating from 1724, the second year of the Yongzheng Emperor's reign, was painted as a birthday present, honouring the Emperor with an auspicious sign that signalled his virtue and conferred his right to rule.

China is now more powerful than at any time since the Qing dynasty, and President Hu, its latter-day emperor, is being honoured here with a full state visit.

Yesterday, a day after the state banquet, he took time to admire the gifts he had sent on ahead -the cultural glories of the dynasty's three great emperors that, from Saturday, will be on magnificent display at the Royal Academy.

Come the ruler, come his artistic heritage. Important exhibitions are now timed to coincide with state visits or to focus attention behind the latest headlines.

China today casts a long shadow: across the globe its products fill the markets, its military power commands respect and its drive to get rich underpins our prosperity. But who is Hu? And what is the civilisation encompassing a fifth of the world's population?

There is no better way to buff up an image and inculcate respect than a grand cultural exhibition. The Royal Academy knows this. It has therefore been able to persuade Beijing to lend not only the pick of 400 works from the Palace Museum's holding of more than a million artefacts but many items never previously taken out of the Forbidden City.

What is the effect? We see China not as a thrusting manufacturer of shoes, radios, bras and toys but the land where potters fashioned exquisite bowls, cartographers mapped the scenery of imperial journeys, craftsmen scooped landscapes out of blocks of jade and tailors stitched yellow silken robes for court occasions.

Scrolls, thrones, vases and portraits add to the delicacy, poise and symbolism of a world where ritual, honour and grandeur predominated.

The RA has had some practice at this. "The Turks are coming!" was the battle cry of Christendom for centuries -from the fall of Byzantium up to the gates of Vienna. And still the Turks are coming, knocking now on the doors of the European Union. It was Tony Blair who stood ready to open that door. What therefore could be a more appropriate explanation of this quest than Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, tracing the westward migration of the Turkic tribes? It is no secret that Britain's Ambassador in Ankara saw a chance for the Turks to make a cultural splash in the country that would hold the EU presidency, and persuaded them to loan some of their rarest treasures from the Topkapi museum. The exhibition opened in January, and British public opinion -almost alone in Europe -was largely suppportive of Turkey's EU accession talks that began last month.

Big exhibitions make the news, and both lenders and galleries want publicity in London, a global crossroads and showcase. This is no less true when political relations are bad as when they are good. Iran is a case in point. Tehran's relations with Britain could hardly be worse -with angry disagreements over Iran's nuclear ambitions, its policies in the Middle East and its influence and role in Iraq. Yet Iran has sent valuable and rarely seen treasures from Persepolis to the British Museum for one of the largest exhibitions of the riches of ancient Persia. The sweep of glory is there -gold drinking vessels, lions of lapis lazuli, torcs, bracelets, gilded amphora and testaments to the power of Darius, Xerxes and Cyrus the Great. The clear message is that, whatever the tensions today, Iran, by its heritage alone, should be seen for the power it was and insists it remains.

Precisely when the Islamic world is in uproar, Islamic art has found a receptive audience in Britain. The incomparable collections of David Khalili have been shown at the Hermitage Rooms in Somerset House, and he is about to launch a lavishly illustrated time chart of his unique Muslim art holdings. Africa, the theme of Britain's G8 presidency, was on display last year at the British Museum. Even smaller cultures get a look-in. As demonstrators gather along President Hu's route, the Sweet Tea House, a small pioneering Tibetan gallery in Bethnal Green, is staging its latest show of contemporary Tibetan art, quietly and without any political fuss.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1865513,00.html

*****************************

Xinhua, November 9, 2005
China's Qing Dynasty exhibition opens in London

A number of London's iconic landmarks turned red on Tuesday night to celebrate the opening of the "once in a lifetime" exhibition titled "China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795."

The star-studded opening reception at the Royal Academy of Arts was adorned with oriental decorations and red courtyard fountains while lighting turned landmarks of Somerset House and London Eye red for the night.

During the opening week of the exhibition, there will be a series of special events at The British Museum, Olympia, Christie's, Bonhams, Sotheby's and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London University, focusing on the themes of the exhibition.

Fashion company Shanghai Tang will launch its "Forbidden City" Imperial Tailoring collection with designs inspired by the sumptuous decorations of the Qing Dynasty, including those from the emperors of Kangxi and Qianlong.

The piece de resistance of the collection is a full-length shearling coat, encrusted with over 90,000 pieces of Swarovski crystals and decorated with the image of a dragon, a symbol of supreme power in China's ancient imperial times.

The exhibition, which opens to the public on Nov. 12 and ends in April, 2006, will present imperial treasures of the Qing Dynasty.

Drawn largely from the remarkable collections of the Palace Museum, Beijing, the exhibition will focus on the artistic and cultural riches of the three most powerful emperors of China's last dynasty: the Kangxi Emperor (16621722), the Yongzheng Emperor (17231735) and the Qianlong Emperor (17361795).

Some 400 works on display include paintings and painted scrolls, jades and bronzes, porcelain and lacquer ware, precious robes, palace furnishings, scientific instruments, weapons and ceremonial armour. Many of these unique objects have never been shown outside China.

"Great exhibitions at the Royal Academy in 1935 and 1973 showed that the British have always been fascinated by China. However, this exhibition comes at a different time; at no other moment in history has there been such an explosion of interest in China," said Chief Curator Jessica Rawson.

"This show is emblematic of an extraordinary moment in Britain's continuing relationship with China," she added.

The exhibition also constitutes a major part of "China in London 2006," a season of events and activities to be held from January to March, which will feature Chinese arts and culture and the historical links between Britain and China.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone said: "The next few months will offer Londoners and visitors to the capital an unparalleled opportunity to experience the richness of Chinese culture right here in the city."

"Turning some of the capital's iconic buildings red is a fantastic way to mark the opening of the Three Emperors exhibition, which will be a key part of the 'China in London 2006' season," he said.

********************************

China Daily, November 8, 2005
RARE COURT ART GOES ON SHOW AT BRITISH ROYAL ACADEMY

The Royal Academy of Arts in London is staging an exhibition in the United Kingdom to be dedicated to Chinese Court Art.

Entitled "China: The Three Emperors 1662-1795," the exhibition features more than 400 treasures with blockbuster potential.

The exhibition runs from this coming Saturday to April 17, 2006 at the main galleries of the Royal Academy.

The focus of the exhibition is the artistic and cultural riches of the three most powerful emperors of China's last feudal dynasty Emperor Kangxi (reign 1662-1722), Emperor Yongzheng (reign 1723-1735) and Emperor Qianlong (reign 1736-1795).

Most of the works on display are drawn from the remarkable collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Others are chosen from British public and private collections, including the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Library, according to sources at the academy.

The works include such treasures as paintings and silk scrolls, jade and bronze, porcelain and lacquer ware, precious robes, palace furnishings, scientific in-struments, weapons and ceremonial armour.

"Many of these unique objects have never been shown outside China," said Liu Yanmin, spokeswoman for the Palace Museum.

The exhibition opens with formal ritual portraits of the three emperors, depicted on dragon thrones and dressed in ceremonial robes of embroidered yellow silk.

One of the highlights is the court paintings commissioned to illustrate the many aspects of royal life.

Hanging scrolls, hand scrolls and albums show imperial palaces, hunting ex-peditions to the north and long journeys undertaken by Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong to southern China, particularly the Yangtze River Delta.

Also on display are two scrolls depicting the emperors' birthday party celebrations and a set of six paintings illustrating their private lives.

One of the galleries will focus on the emperors' interest in Western technical expertise. It will explore the courtly relations with Jesuits, who came to China to seek converts to Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries.

These envoys remained important members of the Qing court, both as advisors on scientific instruments and as painters that inspired Chinese court artists to emulate foreign styles.

The exhibition will include a display of magnificent paintings by the famous Jesuit court artist Lang Shining (1688-1766), who was also known by his Western name Giuseppe Castiglione, alongside examples by Chinese court artists.

"China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795" is the second major Chinese art exhibition hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts.

The first took place in 1935. It won great acclaim and remained one of the top 20 exhibitions in the history of the academy.

******************************

The Times, November 08, 2005
Minted imperials
Michael Glover

Opulent Chinese artefacts grace the Royal Academy

On July 2, 1644, Parliamentary forces inflicted a crushing defeat upon the troops of Charles I at the Battle of Marston Moor, ending the monarch’s hold on the north of England. In October of that same year, some distance away, the seven-year-old Manchu Shunzhi Emperor, first ruler of the new Qing Dynasty, assumed the Mandate of Heaven by performing an ancient Chinese sacrifice to the supreme ruler of the universe just outside the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Almost 300 years later, in 1924, the last Qing ruler, the already dethroned Xuantong Emperor Puyi, left the Forbidden City for good. This brilliant show of Chinese artefacts — paintings, ritual objects, ceramics, bronzes, painted scrolls, palace furnishings, precious robes and much else, lent for the most part by the National Museum in Beijing — spans the lives of three of the most important of the Qing dynasty emperors, the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722), the Yongzheng Emperor (1732-35) and the Qianlong Emperor (1736-95).

This is an exhibition of boundless panache, sumptuous, overawing, self-consciously grave and ritualistic in its presentation. It begins, low-lit, with a display of imperial portraits of the three emperors, seated on their dragon thrones. The manner of painting intrigues us — there are European influences at work here, in the use of perspective, for example. We then turn into one of the best rooms of all, a magnificent display of paintings, from wall-hung silk pieces to long scrolls displayed in cabinets. The theme is the imperial progress, how the emperors made great tours throughout their vast domains so as to impress, overawe and stamp their authority upon their numerous subject peoples — the Qianlong empire exceeded in size China as it is today.

These emperors combined diplomacy and martial prowess with high levels of connoisseurship, and none more so than the Qianlong Emperor, who was not only an obsessive collector of bronzes, jade, porcelain and much else, but who was also a painter, a calligrapher and a poet in his own right — he is said to have written more than 30,000 poems.

His habits were often curious and fascinating. He added his own comments and poems to paintings by inscribing on them repeatedly. What would have been the world’s verdict upon his contemporary George III had he mused with an ink brush across the face of a Rembrandt? Qianlong loved things European. One of the most tender and intimate of the many magnificent paintings in this show depicts the Qianlong Emperor with his father. The older man is passing a sprig of bamboo to his son. The younger man inclines slightly forward, like a devoted supplicant. The green of the towering bamboo plant is beautifully and roundedly rendered against a blue sky, which looks almost Western medieval in its hallowed brilliance and intensity — almost Fra Angelico-like. The sacred moment is heavy with symbolic meaning — as are so many of the works in this show. The two men are dressed like Confucian sages, and the painting’s subject is the transmission of power.

This show manages to be two things at once. It is an important contribution to our understanding of a great civilisationand it is also a significant political act. That so much has been lent for public display represents an important reaching-out by China. It seems to proclaim: the Qing dynasty emperors reverenced the past. They acknowledged that there was a continuity between the past and the present which was a guarantor of the stability of Chinese civilisation.

Does this mean that China is telling the world that the murderously destructive excesses of the Cultural Revolution, with its torching of T’ang temples, was a terrible aberration? That the continuities with its own great civilisation, even as it hurtles headlong into the future, have not been broken? For it is still Chairman Mao’s portrait which hangs at the entrance to the Forbidden City. The rich and troubling paradoxes still shine through all the magnificence.

China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795 is at the Royal Academy, W1 (020-7300 8000), from Saturday until April 17

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,266-1861567,00.html

****************************

The Economist, November 5, 2005
Chinese treasures

A rare display of the grand imperial art that was created for China's Qing emperors makes for one of the finest, and most unusual shows of the season

THE three Qing emperors who reigned for 133 years, until 1795, were among the greatest rulers ever. Under their influence, China's empire doubled in size, becoming one of the most powerful and prosperous nations of its time. To reinforce control of their newly minted multi-ethnic realm, the Qing rulers commissioned a spectacular and highly diverse art that can be seen in a new exhibition in London.

The Qing (pronounced "ching") were Manchu warriors from the north, who wrested power from the Ming empire in 1644. Instead of destroying the Chinese culture they had conquered, the Qing embraced it, learning Chinese, moving into the Forbidden City, maintaining its Confucian bureaucracy and practising the various sects of Buddhism found throughout the empire. The only Chinese custom they did not adopt was foot-binding for women, which they regarded as barbaric.

Leading the trio was the Kangxi emperor, who ascended the throne as a child in 1662. For Kangxi and his two heirs, Yongzheng and Qianlong, the mastery of Chinese art, culture and religion proved their legitimate right to rule as the "sons of heaven", the mediators between the heavenly and natural realms.

Some of the most dramatic pieces in the show are the painted scrolls that portray Kangxi on his inspection tours of southern China, commemorative images that were commissioned after he had quelled rebellions there. Up to 70 metres long, they depict in such intricate detail the various episodes in the journey that they make the viewer feel almost physically part of the picture. These, together with over 100 other court paintings, are the stars of the exhibition, all of them displayed in galleries that evoke a mini-Imperial City. Because of their scale and fragility, most have never been seen before, not even in China.

After the British Museum cancelled a smaller show of Qing dynasty art a few years ago, Dame Jessica Rawson, then the keeper of oriental antiquities at the British Museum and now warden of Merton College, Oxford, knew that the Chinese were still keen to display their treasures abroad. The new exhibition is the result of a sustained and careful campaign of negotiation led by Dame Jessica, who has been travelling to China for three decades and is very well connected there. "I am known as a person who can be trusted," she says. "And for my steely resolve, which is respected in China."

Dame Jessica also knew that the Palace Museum in Beijing, from which most of these treasures have been sent, wants to market itself as an important international lending museum; it can only show a fraction of its collection of over 1m objects at any one time. The Royal Academy has strong historical links with the museum; in 1935 it was the first foreign gallery to show treasures from the Forbidden City, something that the Chinese had not forgotten. This year also marks the museum's 80th birthday, and an impressive overseas show was felt to be an appropriate way to celebrate. (Chinese officials made a special visit to London last year to check that the Royal Academy was sufficiently grand.)

However, the negotiations over which pieces should be there were still complex. There is no inventory of the Palace Museum collection, so Dame Jessica put together a team of expert co-curators, each of whom acted like a detective, scouring the published sources to select objects. When the museum refused Dame Jessica's request for an octagonal lacquer box, claiming it had been taken to Taiwan by Chiang Kai Shek in 1949, one of the curators was able to cite an article from a Japanese journal locating the piece in the Palace Museum, and it was produced. Some requests were refused by the museum, which then found itself overruled by the Department of Culture and Heritage, proving that at the highest levels there was an interest in making this exhibition a success.

Indeed, the Chinese government sets such store by this show that it asked the Royal Academy to open it two months early to coincide with the state visit of President Hu Jintao. What connection could the president of the People's Republic of China feel with the emperors who ruled the Celestial Kingdom? More than you might think, says Dame Jessica. "The past is a valuable part of the present in China[#x2014]much more so than it would have been 50 years ago. The Chinese want to make a huge impression with this show." Which is why Tony Blair will be standing alongside Mr Hu when they cut the ribbon.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=S%27%28H%28%2CQ%21%23%23%21%20 %23T%0A&CFID=66764800&CFTOKEN=59fac48-48b9b448-ed94-4467-9238-54229674a27a&tran Mode=none

 

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is
available at:
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html
For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm