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The Shanghai Museum Holds an Exhibition and Symposium
on Its Treasures of Painting and Calligraphy
Xue Yongnian
China Central Academy of Fine Arts
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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic
of China, every major museum in China (such as the Palace Museum, the
Liaoning Provincial Museum, the Nanjing Museum and the Tianjin Art Museum)
held special painting and calligraphy exhibitions. In the southern half
of China, the Shanghai Museum not only selected well- known paintings
and calligraphy from past dynasties to present its "Exhibition of Treasures
of Painting and Calligraphy," but also invited scholars from Beijing,
Tianjin, Liaoning, and Shanghai to present a "Symposium on Treasures
of Painting and Calligraphy." Because of the ingenuity of this symposium,
its influence in the field was far-reaching.
The exhibition displayed fifty famous works of calligraphy, starting
with the Eastern Jin (317-420) calligrapher Wang Xianzhi's Duck Head
Pill . . . , and ending with the hanging scroll Golden Pheasant,
Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum by Hua Yan (1682-1756). Also among the
works exhibited were the handscroll Bitter Bamboo Shoots by the
Tang calligrapher Huaisu, 725-785), the handscroll Refined Leisure
by Sun Wei of the Tang (618-907), the handscroll in Cha huang ji
dao in Regular Script by Su Shi (1036-1101) of the Song;
Snow and Bamboo by an anonymous painter of the Song dynasty (960-1279);
and the handscroll Living in Seclusion in the Qingbian Mountains
by Wang Meng (ca. 1308-1385) of the Yuan. Furthermore, the exhibition
contained the infrequently exhibited works Poem on the Pavilion of
Many Views in Running Script by the Song painter Mi Fu (1051-1151);
the handscroll Fishermen by Wu Zhen (1280-1354) of the Yuan;
and the handscroll Pine and Cypress in Spring by the early Qing
artist Zhu Da (Bada Shanren, 1626-1705).
Experts attending the symposium included Zhu Jiajin, Yang Xin, and Shan
Guoqiang of the Palace Museum in Beijing; Jin Weinuo and Xue Yongnian
of the China Central Institute of Fine Arts; Feng Qiyong of the Chinese
Academy of Arts; Cui Jin of the Tianjin Art Museum; Lin Shuzhong and
Zhou Jiyin of the Nanjing Art Institute; Zheng Qi of the Nanjing Museum;
Shao Luoyang, Chen Peiqiu, Xu Jianrong, Lu Pusheng, Li Weikun, Huang
Ke, and Wang Kewen from Shanghai; and Zheng Wei of the Shanghai Museum.
The symposium was led by Chen Xiejun, newly appointed Vice-Director
for museum affairs, and the museum Vice-Director Wang Qingzheng, in
cooperation with Shan Guolin, Director of the Department of Painting
and Calligraphy. They emphasized that the Shanghai Museum, established
as an art museum, hoped to adopt an open attitude towards developing
a tradition of nurturing excellent art in the context of the close relationship
between academics and artists. At the same time, these experts and scholars
admired, appraised, and deliberated on the treasures while meandering
through the exhibition.
New and insightful views were expressed on such topics as: the value
and direction acquisition of painting and calligraphy by the Shanghai
Museum; the importance of authentication in art historical research;
the similarities and differences between court paintings of the Song
and Ming dynasties; elements of freer brushwork in traditional realistic
paintings; issues surrounding brush-and-ink paintings; and the complete
repair and restoration of objects in the collection. By incorporating
into the discussion two current artistic discourses regarding the value
of brush-and-ink -- "Brush-and-ink [painting] amounts to nothing" and
"Abide by and advocate the bottom line of Chinese painting" -- the debate
became quite heated. Apparently, this symposium facilitated the opening
of yet another symposium on paintings and calligraphy at the Palace
Museum on 27 October, to which scholars from China and abroad were invited.
See also Xue Yongnian's state-of the field summary in "Scholarship
of the History of Ancient Painting in the 1990s."
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Yin Jinan
China Central Institute of Fine Arts
Nixi Cura
On the State of the Field
Scholarship in the History of Ancient Painting in the 1990s
by Xue Yongnian
Puyi's Legacy
New Discoveries of Calligraphy
and Painting from the Palace Museum's "List of Lost Works"
by Liu Jianlong
A Record-Breaking Purchase by the Palace Museum
Zhang Xian's Ten Odes
by Yang Lili
Zhang Xian's Ten Odes: Counterpoint
On the Inauthenticity of Ten
Odes by Zhang Xian of the Northern Song Dynasty
by Wu Gan
Select Bibliography on Chinese Painting
Palace Museum Exhibition
"Treasures of Painting
and Calligraphy Acquired by the Palace Museum over the Last 50 Years"
by Fu Dongguang
Palace Museum Exhibition
"Grand Exhibition
of Cultural Relics Collected over the Last 50 Years"
Palace Museum Symposium
Academic Symposium Accompanying
the "Grand
Exhibition of Cultural Relics Collected over the Last 50 Years" at the Palace
Museum
by Wang Qi
Shanghai Museum
The Shanghai Museum
Holds A Symposium on Its Exhibition of Masterpieces
by Xue Yongnian
Liaoning Provincial Museum
An Assembly of Masterpieces,
Presented in Radiant Splendor: Record of the "Exhibition of Treasures from
the Ten Great Archaeological Discoveries in Liaoning"
by Ma Cheng
Important
Results from the Liao Tomb Excavation at Jarud Qi
by Tala, Yang Jie, and Dong Linxin
Three Eastern
Han Tombs with Wall Paintings at Otog
by Wang Dafang and Yang Zemeng
"Appreciation
and Analysis of the Murals Unearthed from a Song Tomb at Wang Shang Village
in Dengfeng, Henan Province
by Zhang Songlin and Zhang Deshui
"A
Breakthrough in the Interpretation of the 'Stone Carvings' at Junshan"
by Chen Xiangyuan
"Notes
on the Excavation of Han Tomb No. 1 at Huxi Mountain, Yuanling"
by Guo Weimin
"Animal
Designs and Chinese Script on the 'Five Stars of the East Favor the Central
Kingdom' Brocade"
by Li Ling
Extracts
from China Archaeology and Art Digest 3:2/3 (January 2000): Painting
and Pictorial Arts
Ding Xiyuan on Quehua
qiuse tu
Hao Junhong on Ma
Shouzhen
Shan Guoqiang on "Haipai"
Yu Hui on Yuan court artists
Macao Art Museum
"The Efflorescence of a Prosperous Age: Fine Works of Qing Dynasty Painting
and Objects of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong Reigns in the Collection
of the Palace Museum"
National Gallery, Washington, DC
"The Golden
Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People's Republic
of China"
by Andrew K. Y. Leung
The
Qingming shanghe Scroll and Qingming shanghe Studies
by Wang Qi
On Qingming
shanghe Studies
by Nie Chongzheng
Chai Zejun: Collected
Works on Ancient Architecture
Fifty
Years of Archaeology in New China
Volume 1, Issue 1 (October 1999)
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