Name/Title
Possessing the past : treasures from the National Palace Museum, TaipeiEntry/Object ID
N3750.T32.A8 1996Description
"Only two major exhibitions from the fabled Chinese Palace Museum collections have been seen in the West - the first in London in 1935-36 and the second in the United States in 1961-62. These two exhibitions provided an extraordinary stimulus to the study of Chinese culture, revolutionized Asian art studies in the West, and opened the eyes of the public to the artistic traditions of Chinese civilization. Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei is the publication that accompanies the third great exhibition of Chinese masterworks to travel to the West." "Written by scholars of both Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds and conceived as a cultural history, the book tells the story of Chinese art from its foundations in the Bronze Age and the first empires through the rich diversity of art produced during the Sung, Yuan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties, contrasting China's absolutist political structure with the humanism of its artistic and moral philosophy. Synthesizing scholarship of the past three decades, the authors present not only the historical and cultural significance of individual works of art and analyses of their aesthetic content, but a reevaluation of the cultural dynamics of Chinese history, reflecting a fundamental shift in the study of Chinese art from a focus on documentation and connoisseurship to an emphasis on the cultural significance of the visual arts." -- BOOK JACKETContext
Issued in conjunction with an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Mar. 19 - May 19, 1996; The Art Institute of Chicago, Jun. 29 - Aug. 25, 1996; the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Oct. 14 - Dec. 8, 1996; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Jan. 26 - Apr. 6, 1997.Lexicon
Search Terms
art--china--exhibitions, art, chinese--exhibitions, art--taiwan--taipei--exhibitionsLegacy Lexicon
Category
Exhibition catalogBook Details
Author
Wen C. Fong, James C.Y. WattPublisher
Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Palace MuseumDate Published
1996ISBN
0810964945Notes
Length: 648General Notes
Note Type
ContentsNote
The National Palace Museum: A History of the Collection / Chang Lin-sheng -- Chinese Art and Cross-Cultural Understanding / Wen C. Fong -- 1. Jade / James C. Y. Watt -- 2. The Bronze Age and the First Empires / James C. Y. Watt -- 3. The Imperial Cult / Wen C. Fong -- 4. Some Cultural Prototypes / Wen C. Fong -- 5. Monumental Landscape Painting / Wen C. Fong -- 6. Sung Imperial Portraits / Wen C. Fong -- 7. The Scholar-Official as Artist / Wen C. Fong -- 8. The Imperial Painting Academy / James Cahill -- 9. Some Buddhist Images / Wai-kam Ho and Wen C. Fong -- 10. Antiquarianism and Naturalism / James C. Y. Watt -- 11. The Orthodox Lineage of Tao / Wen C. Fong -- 12. Imperial Portraits of the Yuan Court / Wen C. Fong and Maxwell K. Hearn -- 13. Reunification and Revival / Maxwell K. Hearn -- 14. The Artist as Hero / Maxwell K. Hearn -- 15. Imperial Portraiture of the Ming Dynasty / Wen C. Fong -- 16. The Return of the Academy / Richard M. Barnhart -- 17. The Literati Artists of the Ming Dynasty / Wen C. Fong -- 18. The Expanding Literati Culture / Wen C. Fong -- 19. Creating a Synthesis / Wen C. Fong -- 20. Official Art and Commercial Art / James C. Y. Watt -- 21. The Orthodox School of Painting / Wen C. Fong -- 22. The Individualist Masters / Wen C. Fong -- 23. The Antique-Elegant / James C. Y. Watt -- 24. Imperial Patronage of the Arts Under the Ch'ing / Wen C. Fong.