Beijing Palace Museum
The Beijing Palace Museum ( Chinese 北京 故宮 博物院 / 北京 故宫 博物院 , Pinyin Běijīng Gùgōng Bówùyuàn ) is the most important museum in the People's Republic of China . In 1925 it was established in the buildings of the former imperial palace . It contains important parts of the extensive art collection of Chinese emperors as well as valuable household and representational objects from the last imperial dynasties .
The museum
The genesis
The extensive palace district of the two imperial dynasties Ming and Qing was built between 1406 and 1420. It covered an area of 72 hectares and was divided into an external, official and an internal, private area. In 1911 Sun Yat-sen proclaimed the Chinese Republic, the following year the emperor abdicated, but kept his previous residence. The buildings of the palace and the works of art kept in them gradually became state property. A permanent exhibition was set up in the front area of the palace in 1914 - for the first time in many centuries the rulers' art treasures were generally accessible.
Puyi , the last emperor, finally left the private domain of the palace in 1924. In previous years he had sold or pledged over 1200 of the most valuable works of art to finance his court. To this day, the museum management tries to buy back these pieces at auctions. In 1925 the palace museum was officially founded in the former imperial living area. For a long time, two collections existed side by side in the so-called “ Forbidden City ”. Both museums merged in 1947 and the name “Palace Museum” was retained.
The division
In 1931, Japanese troops had invaded northeast China, occupied Manchuria and threatened the rest of the country. The ruling national party Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek decided to outsource the most important pieces of the palace museum as a precaution. More than 2,000 boxes arrived on adventurous routes via Shanghai to the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing , the provisional capital. After the defeat of the Japanese in World War II , the civil war between Chinese nationalists and communists began again , which was interrupted during the war against the common enemy. In 1949 the Kuomintang and its supporters had to withdraw to the island of Taiwan . The treasures of the palace museum that were carried along were also brought there.
When it became clear that the reunification of China was not possible in the foreseeable future according to the ideas of the national Chinese, they founded the " National Palace Museum " in Taipei in 1965 . In Beijing, as in Taipei, multi-storey underground depots were set up and comprehensive security systems were installed. The directors of both museums have the rank of ministers. The Imperial Collections also serve as tools in the ideological dispute between the Republic of China in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, founded in 1949.
The objects of use
Each Chinese emperor held different secular and religious titles. Over the course of a year, he had to complete a few dozen ceremonies in which he was either the focus of worship or the one who performed the rituals . In the Confucian system of rule of the Chinese imperial era, such rites, especially the court ceremony, were of great importance. In this context, the emperors' conduct of life had to be visibly magnificent and impressive. The furnishings and utensils in the palace as well as the clothing of the ruler and high officials were objects of the highest quality from the hands of the best artisans in the country. Today they are part of the museum's holdings.
The art collection
Chinese history conveys the rare image of long-term coherence , togetherness and development of cultural traditions over a long historical period. No other great ancient culture has achieved anything like it. This was largely due to the fact that valuable objects that were felt to be significant for Chinese identity were persistently collected and handed down - within certain families, but especially, and to a large extent, by the emperors of all dynasties since the unification of the empire in 221 BC. Chr.
In the beginning it wasn't about aesthetic quality. In the Chinese imagination, every dynasty received a heavenly mandate, every emperor was a "son of heaven," and possession of ritual objects was one of the insignia of his power. According to the instructions of Confucius, however, the ruler should also be an art connoisseur and, if possible, master calligraphy , painting and poetry himself . So the collection was increasingly supplemented by objects whose artistic perfection became the essential criterion for their acquisition. Large stocks of paintings, calligraphy, porcelain objects, bronzes, lacquer and enamel work , tapestries as well as wood and jade carvings came together. At the beginning of his reign, the respective ruler demonstratively took possession of the collection. He put his seal on pictures or scrolls and added comments or calligraphic additions. While the ritual objects had previously guaranteed a heavenly mandate, the works of art now became a symbol of the legitimate claims of their owner to rule in the secular state.
Hence, great importance was attached to the fate of the great imperial collections in the ups and downs of Chinese history. Under weak rulers, parts of the holdings were lost, and occasionally court officials even had to be paid with works of art because they lacked money. Strong emperors tried to replenish the collection and thus underline their legitimacy . Some pieces disappeared four or five times over time and then returned again. The condition of the imperial collection was a fairly reliable indicator of the strength of the respective central authority. This traditional connection continues to this day and partly explains the special commitment with which Beijing and Taipei appear in the question of their palace museums.
literature
- Lothar Ledderose (Editor): Beijing Palace Museum. Treasures from the Forbidden City . Insel Verlag Frankfurt am Main, 1985. ISBN 3-458-14266-5
Movie
- The documentary "Inside the Forbidden City" (F, 2006, 47 min .; English and German) directed by Bing ZHOU and Huan XU shows recordings of the history of the collections and the renovation of the museum rooms ( Forbidden City ) in the 1950s and 2000s.
Web links
Coordinates: 39 ° 55 ′ 8 ″ N , 116 ° 23 ′ 28 ″ E