A Public Cultural Feast
AT the National Museum of China (NMC), a splendid visual feast entitled Treasures from Chopin’s Country: Polish Art from the 15th to 20th Century has just concluded. The exhibition marked the first large-scale presentation of Polish art in China. It featured approximately 350 artworks dating from the 15th to 20th centuries on loan from collections at 17 first-class museums in Poland, notably Teofil Kwiatkowski’s Chopin’s Polonaise (1859), in which ancient heroes in the form of angels and knights that signify national pride and unity, which was for the first time to a Chinese audience.
According to a report released by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA), the National Museum of China ranked third among the 20 most-visited museums worldwide in 2013.
Fast Development
The National Museum of China was established in 2003 by merging Beijing’s two main art institutes – the Museum of Chinese History and the National Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History. In 2011, the museum re-opened after renovation and expansion. It now covers 200,000 square meters, and is the world’s largest modern museum in terms of building area.
The museum’s history can be traced back a century to when the National History Museum Preparatory Office was established on July 9, 1912 by the then president of Peking University, Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940). Its location at Guozijian, site of the Imperial Academy, was chosen by Lu Xun (1881-1936), widely considered to be China’s greatest modern writer. In 1925, the institute moved to the Duan (Upright) Gate of the Forbidden City. This was the birthplace of the National Museum of China according to curator Lü Zhangshen.
On the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the NMC was established on the eastern side of Tian’anmen Square, becoming one of Beijing’s 10 architectural landmarks. The museum’s fast development came after China adopted the policies of reform and opening-up – its infrastructure and collections have since been significantly improved.
There are now 48 display halls in the museum, two permanent exhibitions – Ancient China and The Road of Rejuvenation – and 10 themed exhibitions including Ancient Chinese Bronze Art and Ancient Chinese Porcelain Art, comprising altogether over 1.2 million items spanning pre-history artifacts to contemporary masterpieces.
Bronze pieces from the Shang (1600-1100 BC) and Zhou (1100-256 BC) dynasties are the pride of the NMC’s collections, decoding ancient rituals and musical systems, and representing the best bronze workmanship of the time. Among these works are multiple national treasures. The most precious is the grand Houmuwu Ding (a ding is a ritual or cooking vessel), the largest and heaviest bronze ware found in China; the Zilong Ding, the largest round bronze tripod from the Shang Dynasty; the Dayu Ding with a 291-character inscription inside the body; and the Four-ram Fangzun (square vessel).
“In recent years, the museum has added nearly 500,000 pieces to its collections,” said Lü. Among these priceless treasures, the Zilong Ding was purchased from abroad in 2006 together with a wood-carved figure of Guanyin, Boddisattva of compassion, of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Contributions from art collectors all over the world, which include masterpieces by Western artists, have streamed into the NMC, as its reputation grows globally. In 2013, two bronze sculptures of a rat and a rabbit head looted from the Old Summer Palace’s zodiac fountain, and masterpieces by Pan Tianshou, Chen Zhifo, and Salvador Dalí were donated to the museum. Lü said that in 2014 alone, more than 500 pieces or sets of art were contributed by the families of such artists as Huang Yongyu, Fan Zeng, Liu Kaiqu and Jean Cardot.
A Channel of Exchange
“At least three big exhibitions are held annually at the NMC in cooperation with world-renowned museums. In 2014, we actually held five.” Lü added that the museum served as a vital window and platform for cultural exchange between China and the world.
A recent highlight of the NMC was the Rome and Baroque Art Exhibition, held from December 6, 2013 to December 6, 2014. The Baroque arts represented a prevailing style in 17th-century Europe when Rome, as the birthplace of the Baroque style, regained its position as the art center of Italy and Europe as a whole. To fully represent this golden age, China and Italy jointly selected 50 sets of 17th-century Italian paintings and sculptures from Italy’s prestigious museums and art galleries that epitomize the artistic aesthetic of that period. This exhibition introduced Chinese audiences to original Baroque works and provided them a great opportunity to better understand Italian history and culture.
In recent years, the NMC in collaboration with institutes in the U.K., the U.S., and Mexico held over 20 international exhibitions. In 2011, it joined hands with three German museum bodies in hosting the Art of the Enlightenment exhibition after seven years in the planning. Curators from Germany regarded it as one of the world’s top cultural exchange and cooperation programs.
This exchange project fell under the joint auspices of German Federal President Christian Wulff and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.
The German museums that collaborated with the NMC were heavyweights in the German art circle – the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), and the Bavarian State Painting Collections (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen). The sponsor was the Mercator Foundation, the first European private foundation to open an office in China, which paid US $1.5 million towards the Enlightenment in Dialogue forum.
Passion for Porcelain: Masterpieces of Ceramics from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum held from June 2012 to January 2013, hosted by the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Museum of China, opened another window onto Chinese-European cultural exchanges. A total of 148 exquisite sets of porcelain including exported porcelain ware of the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), those made to Western orders in China, porcelain inspired by Chinese ceramics made in Europe in the mid-Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and porcelain ware produced by China’s official kilns collected from the U.K. were exhibited. The exhibition shed light on the ancient Chinese history of exporting porcelain products, the unique designs, and the influences thus exerted upon the porcelain-making industry and social customs of the West. Chinese porcelain and its interaction with Western markets served as an important tool in global communications.
In 2015, more international exhibitions are to be expected at the NMC, including Echoes from the Volga River: Masterpieces of the Peredvizhniki from the Tretyakov Gallery, a Disney animation exhibition, a display of some collections of the National Museum of Nepal, and an exhibition of treasures from Romania.
The NMC has exhibited its treasures abroad, too. Seductions of the Palate – Eating and Cooking in China held at the Musée Du Quai Branly and an exhibition of porcelain masterpieces from East Asia, a joint project with Tokyo National Museum and the National Museum of Korea, held in Japan in 2013, are but two examples of the NMC’s successful tours outside of China.
Booming Audience
“The constant increase in visitors is evidence of the museum’s fast development,” said Lü. Four years since the new museum opened, over 170 themed exhibitions have attracted more than 24 million visitors, among which 7.6 million came in 2014 including 300,000 from abroad. “Art lovers’ appetites keep growing. And there is much more choice for them now when they are deciding which exhibitions to see,” said Lü.
Lü innumerated the contributions that China’s leaders have made. On November 29 2012, General Secretary of CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping together with other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee paid a visit to The Road of Rejuvenation exhibition and delivered a speech on the Chinese Dream, which drew even more visitors to the museum.
Lü admitted that Chinese audiences are less enthusiastic than other nationalities about art. “Westerners may visit museums six times personally per year, while in China one in six people may come once annually.” A huge gap still exists. Therefore, the NMC especially sets up interaction areas for children and cooperates with Beijing’s educational authority to organize trips to the museum for primary and secondary school students. In addition, the museum has cooperated with Shijia Primary School in Dongcheng District on compiling a textbook that aims to nurture students’ understanding of Chinese history and relics.
To gain popularity among university researchers and students, the National Museum of China has established a forum that regularly invites experts in various artistic fields to share their studies and discoveries. Lü believes that such exquisite exhibitions and considerate services are sure to attract more visitors.
