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| Magazine |
| Exhibition Announcement |  |
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| The
Palace Museum Held a "Special Exhibition of Buildings and Pavilions
in Paintings" by Fu Dongguang Department of Calligraphy and Painting Palace Museum In conjunction with the opening of the 1999 Annual World Architects' Congress in Beijing, the "Special Exhibition of Buildings and Pavilions in Paintings" opened on 22 June in the Paintings Hall of the Palace Museum. Chinese painting has a long history, and architectural elements, an important component of Chinese paintings, are often incorporated by the painter into the scenery. There is a kind of Chinese painting called "boundary painting," which includes architectural features as the primary subject matter. Some painters even borrowed architects' plans to create their own compositions. Because of this, ancient Chinese paintings preserve a wealth of information on historical architecture. But holding an exhibition of paintings from the point of view of architecture is still a first for the Palace Museum. For this special exhibition, nearly seventy fine architectural paintings from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties were selected. Objects in the special exhibit from before the Yuan Dynasty were on exhibit for only one week. The paintings depict palaces, temples, gardens, and vernacular dwellings. Architectural forms include pavilions, terraces, storied buildings, two-storied pavilions, pagodas, and bridges. Naturally, some of the "buildings and pavilions in paintings" are based on sketches of real scenes, while others sprung out of the painters' imaginations. But in terms of architectural composition, the painters could not have imagined these forms without foundation in reality. It is simply that their works are more extravagant than in actuality. Based on this special exhibit, fittingly concurrent with the World Architects' Congress in Beijing, the Palace Museum will take advantage of this opportunity to supply a forthcoming reference volume to scholars of architectural history. |
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