The Joint Board was formed in 1949, when more than 3,800 crates of Chinese art treasures belonging to the National Palace Museum of Peiping and the National Central Museum of Nanking were moved to Taiwan with the government. The thousands of pieces in the collections were classified and catalogued, and properly stored in a warehouse adjoining a cave dug into the hill near Wu-feng, in central Taiwan. Since 1957, a display room was built with the assistance of the Asis Foundation, and the treasures were partly open to the public, the items on display being changed at regular intervals. In the last several years, there have been published Palace Museum Calligraphy and Painting, a three-volume catalog, Illustrations of Palace Museum's Bronze Articles, A Collection of Chinese Cultural Treasures, and A Photographic Reproduction of Chinese Cultural Objects. However, the most significant achievement of the Joint Board so far is undoubtedly their successful completion of this publishing project, which may rank with the International Exhibition of Chinese Art held in London in 1935 as a major event in Chinese art history.
Few will doubt that the collection of these two museums, inherited directly from the imperial treasures accumulated over a period of 700 years, from the emperors of the Southern Sung Dynasty (1127-1205 A.D.) to the Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1911 A.D.), is the richest and most representative of Chinese art anywhere in the world. Aside from painting and calligraphy, there are bronze, jade, porcelain, carvings, lacquer ware, tapestry, and hundreds of other objet d'art, the finest of the art of Cathay through the last 30 centuries. What the Chinese Communists were able to seize on the mainland were only items of secondary value or outright imitations.
It was this priceless collection which attracted art experts and connoisseurs from every corner of the world to visit Taiwan in the last few years. To name just a few, there were Sir Percival and Lady David from London, Professor Oswald Siren from Stockholm, Mr. Al Lipee from New York, Mr. Kojiro Tomita from Boston, Mr. L. Sickman from Kansas City, and Professor D.M. Sullivan from Kuala Lumpur. Now, those who have not had the opportunity to see the original pieces may compose themselves at home with the folios, in a convenient size of 44 cm. by 31.4 cm., and study the representative works of the masters as well as trace the historical development of Chinese painting.
If any piece of creative art is the crystallization of the culture of a nation, painting among all the arts gives the best representation of the philosophy of life of its people. Extant records show that Confucius (551-479 B.C.) had seen wall paintings. Going back still further" the earliest patterns of Chinese painting can be discerned from the bronzes and jades excavated in Anyang, site of the Shang (Yin) Dynasty (1766-1121 B.C.), now in the collection of the National Central Museum and the Academia Sinica. For western art students, early Chinese patterns may by found in the engravings and pictures on the vessels in the Pillsbury Collection of Minneapolis, the lacquer box in the J.H. Cox Collection of Washington, and the lien or toilet box of the Musee Guimet of Paris, all of the Late Chou Dynasty ( -256 B.C.). In the Ross Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston can be witnessed the art of painting on painted tiles of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-221 A.D.), not to mention the fresco and scrolls found in Tunhuang caves, available in many museums of the world.
The oldest Chinese painting on fine scroll known to the world is the hand scroll by Ku K'ai-chih (active 380 A.D.), entitled Nii Shih Cheng, or "Admonition of the Imperial Preceptress," now in the Victoria and Albert Museum of London. Another painting of the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), the "Portrait of the Emperors" by Yen Li-pen, is in the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. It is generally agreed that no painting of the pre- T'ang period' exists today. The panel of experts who carefully reviewed the thousands of paintings in the collection of the National Palace and Central Museum and selected 1,300 pieces from them as priceless, placed those paintings formerly attributed to times before the advent of the T'ang Dynasty as really T'ang or post- T'ang creations. The present folios therefore begin with two of Yen Li-pen's masterpieces (plates 1 and 2).
The 300 paintings in these volumes were further selected from 1,300 pieces mentioned above, their authenticity being painstakingly established by a screening committee composed of Messrs. Wang Yun-wu, Lo Chia-luen, Han Lih-wu, Chang Tao-fan, Li Chi, Chang Chi-yun, George K.C. Yeh, K'ung Teh-cheng and Wang Shih-chieh. The works of art chosen by them are the best available here and now, and the most representative of the individual genius. On each piece of painting, reflecting the epoch in which artist lived, can be discerned his theory of art as well as its application.
Chinese art theory also began early. Hsieh Huh in 425 A.D. had already laid down his "Six Canons of Painting." They were of course originally meant for figure painting, since in the fifth century landscape painting had barely made its start in China. The application of Hsieh's principles, especially that of chi yun sheng tung - maintenance of vitality in atmosphere and rhythmic movement-is evident in Yen Li-pen's two figure studies. It was probably pure coincidence that Leonardo de Vinci wrote in his Notebooks on the Requisites of Painting: "The first requisite of painting is that the bodies which it represents should appear in relief, and that the scenes which surround them with effects of distance should seem to enter into the plane in which the picture is produced by means of the three parts of perspective.... The second requisite of painting is that the actions should be appropriate and have a variety in the figures, so that the men may not all look as though they were brothers."
A careful look at Yen Li-pen's "Foreign Envoy arriving with Tribute" and "Hsiao Yih Trying to Locate a Masterpiece;" the first two pieces in the first volume, will find how alive those figures appear and how different one is from the other. The artistic theory of the 16th century de Vinci was already being practiced by a Chinese painter in the 7th century. The aliveness of expression in Western figure painting prior to Renaissance, what is comparable to Yen's achievement, can probably be found only in the "Expulsion of Adam and Eve" by Tommasa Guidi Masaccio (1401-1428 A.D.).
The earliest Chinese painters concentrated on human figures. In the T'ang Dynasty, artists began to take an interest in painting horses. Thus the only piece by Han Kan (eighth century) extant in this part of the world is included in this collection-"Two Horses and a Groom'" (plate 16). Han was one of the first realists. When, in 742 A.D., he was called into the palace and ordered by Emperor Hsuan Tsung to study the painting of horses under Ch'en Hung, a prominent court painter, he replied: "I have my own teacher-all those horses in Your Majesty's stables are my teachers." His famous and frequently reprinted "White Horse" now be longs to Sir Percival David in London.
"Early Snow on the River" (plate 50) by Chao Kan (950 A.D.) and "General Kuo Meeting the Uigurs" (plate 85) by Li Kung-lin are also well-known pieces worthy of minute study.
Chao Kan was a student of the academy of painting under the last emperor of the Southern T'ang Dynasty (923-975 A.D.). The emperors of Southern T'ang were great lovers of art, and poetry and painting flourished under their royal patronage. The picture portrays a scene of early snow, showing pedestrians walking along the· side of a river, and fishing boats here and there in parts of the river where yellow rushes dance and flutter in the wind. With reference to "early" snow, the picture merely shows a great deal of infinitesimal dots, but the expressions and gestures of the people are unmistakable reactions to the cold weather. The donkeys also show their fear of the wintry blast, and the viewer can almost hear the sound of their labored respiration.
The subject of Li Kung-lin's drawing, a long hand scroll, is an exciting incident in the history of the T'ang Dynasty. In 765 A.D., there was a joint invasion of Uigur and Turfan tribesmen who besieged Chingyang in what is now Shensi province. To relieve the beleaguered city, General Kuo Tzu-yi was sent with a small force of men. Kuo went to visit the Uigur camp without military escort, and he was himself unarmed. When the Uigur chieftains saw the approach of this legendary fighter, they all dismounted and knelt down to greet him. As a result of his prestige and great courage, the invaders withdrew and the city was saved. Here in this magnificent picture, the artist not only caught the expressions of surprise mixed with delight on the Uigur and Turfan officers, but also seemed to have captured the puzzled look of the horses.
In present-day terms, Chao Kan and Li Kuang-lin might be called "expressionists," a word which is not altogether strange to the Chinese. Ni Tsan (1301-1374 A.D.) declared that: "When I paint the bamboos, I do not care whether the onlookers might taken them for weeds or bamboos. What I do care in painting is to express my feelings and myself." But long before that, this idea had already been put into practice by many of the masters before him. Shelden Cheney in 1934, in his great book Expressionism in Art, called attention to the fact that "Chinese books of wisdom speak in terms strangely paralleling the pronouncements of cubists and expressionists." It was also of interest that he included two Chinese landscape paintings in his book for illustration.
For landscape painting, there are countless gems in these volumes. In Folio I may be found "Ten Scenes of a Thatched Hall" (plates 5-14) by Lu Hung (active 720 A.D.O., “Sailing Boats and Riverside Mansion" (plate 3) by Li Ssu-hsun (651-716 A.D.), "Landscape of Lu Shan" (plate 37) by Ching Hao, and the representative works of Kuan T'ung (plates 38-40), Tung Yuan (plates 42 and 43), and Chu Jan (plates 44-49) of the Period of the Five Dynasties (907-960 A.D.). The Northern Sung Dynasty (960-1127 A.D.) landscape painters, Li Ch'eng (916-975 A.D.) (plates 61-61), Fan K'uan (active 960 A.D.) (plates 64-68), Kuo Hsi (active 1072 A.D.) (plates 76-79) and Mi Fei (1051-1107 A.D.) are all well represented. It is easy to see that the T'ang efforts in landscape painting were just a beginning, with the mountain looking like stone, and outlined without shading. The plates 4, 35, 37 and 42 in their present sequence make a series showing the progress in the techniques of landscape painting. The first successful artist in the field of landscape was probably Ching Hao of the Five Dynasties, while Ting Yuan and Chu Jan both had their hand in laying the foundation of this important branch of Chinese painting.
In plates 3, 4 and 35, all attributed to T'ang, the sky is painted in color, and so is it the case with plates 42 and 43 by Tung Yuan of the Five Dynasties. But the sky is left blank in the monochrome landscape plates 37,39,44 and others of Ching Hao, Kuan rung and Chu Jan. This is the so-called "empty space in design," which came into use in the Five Dynasties for monochrome landscape. It is of interest to note that in the entire space of a painting in color, nowhere is left blank. The sky is painted in light gray even in a snowscape (see plate 50, by Chao Kan).
Two schools of landscape painting, the Northern and the Southern, came into being in rang. The Northern School, founded by Li Ssu-hsun (651-716 A.D.) and his son, emphasized the use of color, with blue and deep green as their favorites, and sometimes outlined with the color of gold. The opposing Southern School, with Wang Wei as its most prominent leader, preferred monochrome. Wang believed that superior landscape painting should be done in a single color, with different shades of gray.
No authentic piece by Wang Wei exists today, but there are many good monochrome landscapes done in the Five Dynasties (see plates 37-39 and 44-49) and excellent ones were again found after Northern Sung (see plates 61-68 and 76-79). The art of landscape painting reached its peak in Southern Sung (1127-1279 A.D.), see plates 95-98 of Li T'ang (1049-1130 A.D.), 104 of Li Ti (965-1034 A.D.), 111-113 of Ma Yuan (active 1195 A.D.) and 114-115 of Hsia Kuei (active 1205 A.D.).
Following the development of landscape painting, there appeared in China the scholar-painters or non-professional painters. The earlier ones were poets, such as Wen T'ung (active 1059 A.D.), Su Shih (1036-1101 A.D.) and Mi Fei (1051-1107 A.D.). To them, painting is a means to express their mood, their momentary interest. They painted for their own intellectual pleasure, and composed and wrote inscriptions or colophons or verse on their paintings. They established a branch of painting of their own, "playing in ink," intended to convey the joy of expression through the medium of rhythmic brush strokes rapidly executed.
The new subjects most favored for their "ink play" included the plum blossom (see plate 131 of Chao Meng-chien, 1199-1295 A.D., plate 199 of Wang Mien, 1335-1407 A.D., plate 199 of Wang Mien, 1335-1407 A.D., plate 216 of Ch'en Hsien-chang, 1428-1500 A. D.), the orchid (plate 289 of Yuan Chi and Wang Yuan-chi, 1642-1715 A.D.), the bamboo (plate 83 and 84 of Wen T'ung) and the chrysanthemum. These four plants came to be known as "the four gentlemen," for they symbolize the qualities most beloved by scholars and artists: courage in the plum blossom, because they brave the cold winds of winter; a host of virtues in the bamboo, for instance, it is upright, its hollow body represents tolerance, its robust knots show the spirit of endurance; in the orchid, humility combined with beauty, modesty, and delicacy; and in the chrysanthemum, integrity steadfastly kept in spite of temptations. These explained why there were so many flower and bamboo painters in China, who may in a way be compared to the "symbolists."
The Chinese in general are lovers of Nature and of the beautiful things manifested in Nature. In landscape paintings, personal sentiments are attached to every blade of grass, every tree, every piece of stone and every little stream. After careful observation of an animate or inanimate object, the artist would try to convey how he feels about his subject on a scroll. The painter gives his full attention to the job at hand, whatever the subject might be: an animal, a bird, an insect, or a flower. Instances of such perfect devotion are found in the collection, see plate 73, "Monkey and Cats" by I Yuan-chu (active 1064 A.D.); plate 138, "Romping Monkeys"; also see plates 54, 57, 69, 80, 81, 89, 90, 94 and 106 for flowers and birds; and plates 128, "Autumn Melon," and plate 129, "Lichee Tree" of Ch'ien Hsuan (1232-1300 A.D.).
Architectural painting requires the finest brush work and knowledge of perspective, which some erroneously thought does not exist in Chinese painting. Palace buildings, halls, arbors or boats sometimes form part of a landscape painting. In this particular kind of works, the painters since T'ang excelled. They are sometimes thought of as belonging to the Northern School. As a matter of fact, only professionals would venture to paint subjects which require the most accurate and exquisite brush technique. Buildings and such seldom appear in the works of scholar-painters. For examples of fine architectural painting, see Li Ssu-hsun, plate 3, and Kuo Hsi, plate 77.
In the period of the Five Dynasties, Kuo Chung-shu (active 960 A.D.) painted a boat (plate 52), an early example of realistic work with architectural accuracy. Excellence in sketching is seen in "Regatta on the Dragon Lake" (plate 160) of Wang Chen-p'eng (active 1270 A.D.) of the Yuan Dynasty. Generally recognized as a fine artist in architectural subjects in color is Ch'iu Ying of the late Ming Dynasty (see plates 241 and 243 in Folio VI).
Never to be slighted in any historical study of Chinese painting is Liang K'ai (active 1204 A.D.) of Southern Sung. He is best known for his "economy" with the ink he used. His paintings are finished with the least number of brush strokes, but the subjects so presented convey a complete situation or mood. Many of his works are found in Japanese collections; the beauty of simplicity has been well appreciated by Japanese connoisseurs. The "Ink Portrait of an Immortal" (plate 118) is a masterpiece in "ink play." The aliveness of the' subject is expressed in the simplest possible manner. In this connection, it is natural to think of "A Man with a Beer Keg" by Frans Hals (1580-1666 A.D.). If was as if the Dutch master had seen Liang's "Immortal."
Works of several of the Yuan Dynasty's hermit-scholar-painters, Huang Kung-wang (1269-1354 A.D.), see plates 160-161, Wu Chen (1280-1354 A.D.), plates 162-167, Ni Tsan, plates 184-187, and Wang Meng (active 1360 A.D.), plates 188-195, are represented in' Folio IV. These four scholars and Chao Meng-fu (1254 1322 A.D.), see plates 145-149, Chu Te-jun (1294-1365 A.D.), plate 169, and rang Ti (1296-1353 A.D.), see plate 171, among others, resented the rule of the Mongol emperors. They directed their mind and energy to efforts in painting. Their age was one in which the artistic achievement of the scholar-painters reached its zenith. Their paintings reproduced in the collection are representative of their best work.
The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) produced a number of masters in bamboo painting (plates 209-210) and flowers and birds (plates 215-218). Their best works available in the museums in Taichung have been included in the folios. Four of Ming's most famous scholar-painters: Shen Chou (1427-1509 A.D.), plates 219-228, T'ang Yin (1470-1523 A.D.), plates 229-234, Wen Cheng-ming (1470 1559 A.D.), plates 235-240 and Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636 A.D.) plates 247-249 are amply represented. So are Wang Shih-min (1592-1680A.D.), plates 254-255, Wang Chien (1598-1677 A.D.), plates 256-257, and the works of the two younger Wangs of the Ch'ing Dynasty (Wang Hui, 1632-1720 A.D., and Wang Yuan-ch'i, 1642-1715 A.D.). Easy to appreciate and worthy of serious study is the "boneless technique" of Yun Shou-p'ing (1633-1690 A.D.), who is most famous for his flowers and grass and his use of color, see plates 262, 265-268. The paintings of a Chinese Catholic, Wu Li (1632 1718 A.D.), and an Italian Jesuit father, Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766 A.D.), who served as a court artist under Emperor Ch'ien Lung, are also found in the last folio, on plates 273-274 and 278-288, respectively.
Those portraits of emperors and empresses originally collected in the palace of Ch'ing were painted by Ming artists. There are eleven portraits of this kind reproduced in Folio VI.
The distribution by periods of the 300 pieces in the six folios is as follows: 60 plates of the period of the Five Dynasties or earlier, 84 of the Sung period, 60 of Yuan, 85 of Ming and Ch'ing, and eleven portraits of emperors and empresses of diverse dynasties. Forty of these are in color.
The collection gives examples of all subjects, styles and techniques employed in Chinese painting, which had reached a high degree of excellence even before the 14th century. The contents of these folios make it a definitive textbook for the study of the history of Chinese painting. The volumes are bound in Chinese style, with silk covers modeled on an ancient Sung design of Khe-ssu (Chinese tapestry). Biographical data and critical comments, in both Chinese and English, accompany each plate. The commentary contains detailed information regarding the size and content of the picture, the material of the original scroll, the inscription and the seals, all being information valuable to connoisseurs and serious students of art or its history. If a reader insists on finding fault with this reproduction of 300 masterpieces of Chinese painting, he may wish to have the plates come in loose leaves so that they may be framed and hung on the walls of his study, or he may like to see a bilingual index at the end of the collection for easier reference. Aside from these, this can justifiably be termed the book of the century in the history of Chinese art.
* Hwa Kuo Publishing Co., Taipei, and Cafa Company, Ltd., Hongkong, NT$5,400.00 or US$150.00.