The born again National Palace Museum (NPM) celebrates today the end of three years of renovations with a first-class exhibition of artifacts loaned by the British Museum, some historical gems from its own vaults and a lively series of outdoor cultural events.
Treasures of the World's Cultures: The British Museum after 250 Years is a show comprising 271 works with an estimated value of NT$5 billion, stretching back from the "dawn of human civilization" in Africa to the "unraveling cultures of the Americas." Must-see items include the "Unlucky Mummy," one of the world's earliest instruments, busts from Greece and Rome, a reliquary, Mayan statues and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci.
Putting together Chinese history from the National Palace Museum (NPM) with artifacts from other equally ancient civilizations collected by the British Museum provides a unique chance to view first-hand the fruits of 5,000 years of civilization.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF NPM
"This is the world's heritage on one site. There's always a risk with touring exhibitions of this kind that we are not seeing the original items or second- or third-rate examples from a collection. This is the genuine stuff and though I think, personally, it is a bit of risk for ancient pieces like this to go on display so close to the general public, it is a wonderful opportunity to look around here and then go around the Palace Museum to compare articles from China from a given period," said the director of the British Trade and Cultural Office Michael Reilly.
"We often think about what it is about our country that makes us unique but actually, by looking around at these artifacts on the same site, you realize that it may have been cross-fertilization that led to many advances."
For example, Reilly said, the concurrent Sung Dynasty Rare Books exhibition has records from the imperial Chinese court showing officials traveled widely to disperse and gather information that led to significant cultural development.
Deputy director of the British Museum, Andrew Burnett, emphasized that seeing a copy or looking at pictures on the Internet was "no substitute for viewing the real object, such as the tools used by the first humans or the great drawings by Da Vinci."
"These achievements of man show that Africa is so much more than just a place of famine, that Islam has produced fantastic instruments of significance and that Iraq was one of the earliest sources of civilization and not just the place we know now," Burnett said, amplifying his theme of history being able to teach us about the present and increase understanding between cultures.
NPM has conveniently organized 30-, 60- and 120-minute visiting plans of the exhibition to cover the best-known artifacts. It has also split the Treasures of the World's Cultures into 13 sections that are given imaginative titles such as "glimpses of morning glory," "in pursuit of immortality" (ancient Egypt), "land of the gods" (Greece and Rome) or "tranquil and profound" (Southeast Asia).
Starting with stone chopping tools from around 2.5 million years ago we are offered a package tour-like view of history. A beautifully restored lyre, which is estimated to be 4,500 years old, is one of two retrieved from the grave of Queen Puabi. It was found with a sacrificial victim lying against it, the bones of her hand placed against where the strings would have been.
With history comes legend, but the "Unlucky Mummy" story is apocryphal. Supposedly, the case contained the remains of the Princess of Amen-Ra and was bought by an Englishman in the 1890s. The curse of the mummy killed him and many other people and subsequently watchmen at the British Museum refused to go near it. Eventually, it was sold to an American who went down with the Titanic. Actually, the story was a newspaper hoax and the mummy never left the British Museum … until now.
Back to reality, the Statuette of Hermes is an outstanding example of classical art, which even now informs our idea of the perfect body. History would not be complete without the rise and fall of civilizations and the section on Rome has an impressive selection of treasures. Though global in its scope the exhibition is Eurocentric. This is to be expected. After all, when the British Museum was founded in 1753 Britain was developing its own empire and saw the world in its own image.
As such, the sections that cover India and Japan are not the strongest parts of the exhibition with a headless Indian goddess and paintings from the Edo period. These familiar items reinforce stereotypical views of the countries' cultures. This is not a criticism, however, since many visitors would be disappointed if these iconic objects held by the British Museum were not on view.
The Islamic (in particular) African, Pacific and American sections are more illuminating, since they include objects that have not had such popular public exposure. Labeling of the works is in Chinese and English and there are descriptive introductions to the various sections of the exhibition that frame the works well. Best of all, you won't get a better chance to get up close to history, as many items are not behind glass and have not been fenced off.
Introducing the exhibition, NPM Director Lin Mun-lee (林曼麗) said it was designed to celebrate the end of renovations to the museum that opened in a Taipei suburb, 1965. The original National Palace Museum was founded 1925, in Beijing, but the collection dates as far back as the Sung Dynasty (960 AD to 1279) when the Emperor Taizong (太宗) started hoarding the finest examples of Chinese art.
In addition to earthquake proofing the main gallery areas, Lin said the new exhibition spaces, digital learning areas, multimedia screening room and children's learning area would make NPM more than just a repository for history, but also a place where education and socializing would take place.
Three "Grand View" exhibits set up for the reopening complement the permanent displays and will run until the end of March. The grand view includes Ju Ware from the Northern Sung Dynasty, Painting and Calligraphy of the Northern Sung and Sung Dynasty Rare Books.
Additionally, NPM has set out a weeklong series of outdoor concerts and activities in the museum's front plaza. An arts fun fair inspired by Sung dynasty lifestyles will feature handicrafts from local artists. On Friday, there will be a performance (4:30pm onward) by Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera troupe, the Ju Percussion Group will play on Feb. 10 and U-Theatre is on Feb. 11.
When 17-year-old Lin Shih (林石) crossed the Taiwan Strait in 1746 with a group of settlers, he could hardly have known the magnitude of wealth and influence his family would later amass on the island, or that one day tourists would be walking through the home of his descendants in central Taiwan. He might also have been surprised to see the family home located in Wufeng District (霧峰) of Taichung, as Lin initially settled further north in what is now Dali District (大里). However, after the Qing executed him for his alleged participation in the Lin Shuang-Wen Rebellion (林爽文事件), his grandsons were
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
I am kneeling quite awkwardly on a cushion in a yoga studio in London’s Shoreditch on an unseasonably chilly Wednesday and wondering when exactly will be the optimum time to rearrange my legs. I have an ice-cold mango and passion fruit kombucha beside me and an agonising case of pins and needles. The solution to pins and needles, I learned a few years ago, is to directly confront the agony: pull your legs out from underneath you, bend your toes up as high as they can reach, and yes, it will hurt far more initially, but then the pain subsides.
RSS