Belgian art lovers get a rare chance of watching some of the
most precious collections of China's top museum when they were put
on display in a Brussels art center on Wednesday.
Eighty-five paintings by Chinese masters from the 15th to the
20th century, drawn from the collection of the Palace Museum in
Beijing, stood side by side with 92 works by Belgian painters
during the same period, such as Pieter Brueghel and Peter Paul
Rubens, in an unique exhibition in the Brussels Center for Fine
Arts.
The exhibition, the "Forbidden Empire," was designed so that
visitors can observe both the relationships and the differences
between the two groups' painters in terms of themes, techniques,
and visions, said Yu Hui, the Chinese curator of the show.
He said that although Chinese ancient art works had been
exhibited in many countries, such parallel presentation was
unprecedented.
As oil painting on canvas came into an interesting confrontation
with works on paper and silk from the Ming and Qing dynasties and
from the early days of the Chinese Republic, viewers can get a
better understanding of the two nations and their civilizations by
comparing their distinct cultures and their conceptions of the
world.
Yu, who heads the research department of the Palace Museum, said
it was also the first time that the museum organized an exhibition
in Europe that shows paintings covering more than 500 years of
history.
A majority of the works on show had never been displayed in
Europe and have high artistic value, he said, naming items like
Clouded Mountains by Shi Tao from the Qing Dynasty, and
Mandarin Ducks and Lotus Flowers by Chen Hongshou in
the Ming Dynasty.
The show, which will run through May 6, was a co-production of
the Palace Museum and the Center for Fine Arts in Brussels, with
the participation of a number of Belgian and foreign museums,
including the Albertina in Vienna, Austria and the Boijmans van
Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The exhibition will travel to the Palace Museum in June.
Bert Anciaux, cultural minister of the Flanders region, Belgium,
said the show was another example of intercultural
cross-fertilization between Flanders and China, at a time when
China's artistic significance increases.
The Flemish region supports exchanges and the development of
networks with China in the fields of arts and heritage, he
said.
The Palace Museum, situated in the heart of the Forbidden City
in Beijing, is one of the most prestigious institutions in China
where more than one million of treasures of Chinese art were
conserved.
(Xinhua News Agency February 16, 2007)
