By Peter Galuszka
The Forbidden City has come to Virginia and it’s definitely worth a look.
Rarely-seen works from the Palace Museum in Beijing’s Forbidden City, the imperial residence of Chinese emperors from the Ming to the end of the Qing Dynasty (roughly from about 1406 to 1912) go on display tomorrow at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond.
Putting the exhibits together took lots of work and diplomacy, VMFA Alex Nygeres told guests and the news media Wednesday at a morning event. There were plenty of visits back and forth and there are plans for the VMFA to reciprocate by sending its famed Faberge Egg exhibit from the Russian Romanov era to China. The Ambassador from the People’s Republic of China to the U.S. attended a gala, $10,000 a table event the evening of Oct. 14.
I’m no expert of Chinese art, but the exhibit was highly impressive. The many works included court paintings, religious artifacts and costumes, including an early form of body armor for soldiers which consisted of layers of tough cloth protecting vital organs and appendages.
The exhibit opens at a time of unsettled relations between the U.S. and the People’s Republic. China has been torn by pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Workers’ expectations are rising as China’s economy is slowing. Beijing is becoming more aggressive as a regional military power and its efforts to censor Web-based information and launch cyber spying are worrisome.
Another issue is that given the tough, expansionist diplomacy of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the negative reaction from the West, Moscow is looking for more links with China. Relations between the two have always been up and down. Not that long ago, experts believed that if there were a nuclear weapons attacks, it might occur between those two countries. Now, peace has returned and both may be able to exploit their close geography and relative strengths in energy and population in a way based on economics and not Communist ideology.
On the bright side, China does have money and is fast developing expertise. China’s Shandong Tranlin paper company is investing $2 billion in a modern paper plant in eastern Chesterfield County that will employ 2,000. It won’t use trees, but leftovers from farm fields and is supposed to be less polluting than paper mills most Americans are familiar with. What’s more, Gov. Terry McAuliffe is off on a trade mission to China in a few days.
In any event, the Forbidden City is worth a look. It runs until Jan. 11.
