Editorials

Cross-Straits art reunion

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-19 07:56

Taiwan people are the envy of the nation, as they will have the chance to see a really rare piece of art in Taipei next month till September.

The upcoming exhibition marks an unusual cultural exchange between Taiwan and the mainland.

The Zhejiang Provincial Museum handed over one part of Huang Gongwang's (1269-1354) magnum opus Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains - which was torn into two when it was about to be burnt so the then owner could take it with him at his death - to Taiwan on Tuesday, to be reunited with the other piece for an exhibition.

No work of art carries more anecdotes than this one does. Several noted artists have owned the painting through the ages. One short piece of this ink landscape is held by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. The larger piece was taken to Taiwan in the last stages of the civil war in 1949, along with about 600,000 other treasures now held by Taiwan's National Palace Museum.

Related readings:  Mainland calls for more co-op with Taiwan on tourism safety  Changing Taiwan Communities: Treasure hill  Faces of Taiwan

The reunion of the two pieces of the painting is a new chapter in its story. As an innovative landscape painter, Huang Gongwang was the eldest and the most prominent of the four great painters of the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368). This scroll is among the most famous paintings in Chinese history. It is considered an epitome of literati landscape painting and had enormous influence on the painters that followed.

No wonder even famous artists in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) made copies of it. A copy of the painting entered the imperial collection in the 17th century. Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) believing the copy to be the original heavily inscribed it, sparing the original his excessive appreciation.

Now both the Palace Museum in Beijing and the National Palace Museum in Taipei keep one famous copy.

A glimpse of the painting - be it a fragment, or whole - is a rare chance. Now the mainland is waiting its turn, so that we can see the whole painting in Beijing.

Yet the reunion of the two pieces is not simply a getting-together of the two pieces. It goes far beyond the art front and Premier Wen Jiabao hopes it will deliver a message more than cultural.

A wild dream it may be, but there are hopes that the joint exhibition and subsequent ones in years ahead will result in a real reunion of the Chinese nation - we are from the same ancestors, we share the same culture.

This is the reason that both sides cherish the painting so much - On that day "a complete painting will be placed together forever," as Wen put it early this year.

(China Daily 05/19/2011 page8)