Word: taipei
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...visual arts, nothing beats 4,000 years of rigorous bureaucratic feudalism presided over by a lofty elite of scholars with a divine Emperor on top. Such is the lesson of the Metropolitan Museum's present exhibition, "Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei." Normally when those spavined cliches "treasure," "splendor" or "masterpiece" occur in the name of an exhibition, doubt rises: Methinks the museum doth protest too much. Not this time. In terms of sheer quality, this show can claim to be the greatest conspectus of Chinese art ever held in America...
...have 22 other choice items gone missing, while the main original sponsors, Mobil and Citibank, pulled out under mainland Chinese pressure as the long process of negotiation and selection was nearing its end? Politics, alas. The loan of these works of art has become a large hot potato in Taipei. And negotiating it proved a diplomatic nightmare for the Met, a four-year walk on eggshells...
...side there are the Taiwanese officials and others who view the loan to America as a politically essential gesture of cultural goodwill, especially now that mainland China is rattling its missiles and threatening once more to retake what Beijing regards as a runaway province. (Probably the Taipei museum would never have lent the material if the Taiwan government hadn't wanted to stick a finger up Beijing's nostril.) However, Taiwanese cultural nationalists have denounced the loan as a cynical game with irreplaceable national symbols whose meaning cannot in any case be appreciated by the round-eyed barbarians who will...
...face of this tangle of politico-cultural emotions, concessions had to be made. The 11th century painting often considered to be the greatest masterpiece of Northern Sung dynasty landscape, Fan K'uan's Travelers Amid Streams and Mountains, stayed in Taipei, as did the hardly less important scroll by Kuo Hsi, Early Spring, 1072, which graces the catalog's cover. Moreover, there are time limits within the show itself. Its paintings and calligraphies--because of their age and fragility--have to be removed and replaced periodically by others of similar quality and era during the show...
...democracy of Taiwan is special. It is a germ of democracy that will fool China's immune system if China insists on taking us on. David will once again win the battle over Goliath. MING-JING HWANG Taipei Via E-mail...