dumbfoundry

From A 'palace coup':

"Splendors of China's Forbidden City: the Glorious Reign of Emperor Qianlong" (1736-1795) opens tonight with great fanfare at The Field Museum. [...]

The exhibition goes well beyond defining Qianlong's statesmanship, it reveals his private persona -- both the image and reality. Not only was he a scholar, a great patron of the arts, an art critic, an essayist, a poet (he wrote more than 40,000 poems), Qianlong was also a calligrapher, a hunter and a horseman. His wide-ranging interests and eclectic collections form the bulk of China's two major state museums today. This exhibition features prime selections from his jade, snuff bottle (he had 10,000), and pottery collections. A man ahead of his time, he pushed his team of artisans to develop new ceramic glazes and jade carving techniques, and introduced European aesthetics into Chinese art.

On the flipside, Qianlong demanded nothing less than cultural perfection -- he had zero tolerance for artistic mistakes. Literally one wrong word in a calligraphic work could be considered "subversive" and land the "perpetrator" a night in jail. Nearly 100 intellectuals were executed under his reign for not towing the emperor's line of thinking. A contrary or presumptuous book against the dynasty was confiscated and harsh penalties exacted. As culturally inquisitive as he was, Qianlong had an unprecedented mean streak when it came to freedom of artistic expression. It was his way or no way.

He lived 88 years and wrote (?) 40,000 (or 46,000 or 30,000) poems. That's one or two poems a day.

From Imperial Treasures On Show:

The jade artefacts kept in the Summer Palace were mostly produced under Emperor Qianlong. As a matter of fact, a unique school of jade carving came into being, at that time named after the emperor. Emperor Qianlong wrote numerous poems in praise of jade artefacts.

"When he took a special liking for a jade article," Liu said, "he would compose a poem to express his happiness and order the poem written on it."

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Friday, March 12, 2004 at 2:45 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.