The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors

At the Vancouver Art Gallery until January 11

Art, money, and power—rarely have the three been so conspicuously linked at the Vancouver Art Gallery as at the unveiling of The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors. Rarely, too, has an exhibition’s media preview, held on October 16, been so noticeably attended by representatives of business and government. Speakers included not only the usual VAG lineup—board member, gallery director, exhibition curators—but also the mayor of Vancouver, a provincial cabinet minister, the CEO of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, and the CEO of Calgary-based Nexen Energy ULC, a wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited, with interests in Western Canada’s oil sands and “shale” (read “fracking”) gas. CNOOC stands for China National Offshore Oil Corporation, which is owned by the government of the People’s Republic of China, and which is one of two major sponsors of The Forbidden City (to the tune of $1 million). But, hey, let’s not get into the environmental, human-rights, and political controversies that might attach themselves to such sponsorship. Let’s just accede to the perky view of Coralee Oakes, minister of community, sport, and cultural development, who asserted the importance of art and culture in building economic relations. Economic relations. Right.

As for the show, well, it is visually engaging, intelligently curated, and attractively designed and installed. Some 200 objects are on view from the collection of Beijing’s Palace Museum, previously the walled and guarded Forbidden City. Located in the heart of Beijing and now a UNESCO World Heri-tage Site, the Forbidden City was, from 1420 to 1911, the seat of imperial power in China. With some 9,000 rooms built on 72 hectares, it was the largest palace in the world, housing not only the emperor, his wife, concubines, children, servants, and court officials, but also more than a million ceremonial, diplomatic, and domestic artifacts, including paintings, ceramics, textiles, calligraphy, gold and silver wares, jade, cloisonné, and bronzes. Examples of all these forms and materials are on view at the VAG.

For all its grand history, the Palace Museum does not boast the most stellar collection of historic Chinese art and artifacts. (Apparently, the best objects from the imperial collection were spirited off to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek and now reside in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.) There are many works here that impress you with the time and talent invested by their anonymous makers, but don’t expect any one of them to knock your socks off. In fact, the most valuable object on display (valuable with respect to its rarity, its craftsmanship, and the price it would command at auction) is not a Yuan dynasty jar, a Ming dynasty vase, or a Qing dynasty gold cup and saucer inlaid with pearls. Nor is it a tripod vessel cast in bronze some 1,900 years ago, but an unprepossessing little porcelain wine cup, made in the late 1400s and decorated with colourful images of chickens. Of almost equal value is a plain Song dynasty Ru-ware dish, underglazed in blue. Again, it is esteemed for its rarity and technical accomplishment.

The objects in the exhibition are organized as if the viewer were progressing from the Outer Court, where the daily business of empire took place, to the Inner Court, where the emperor lived and the women of the Forbidden City were sequestered. You enter to the sight and (recorded) sound of jade chimes and gilded bronze bells, and then encounter painted portraits of three Qing dynasty emperors, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong, upon whose long and successful reigns the show is focused. Qianlong’s beautifully realized portrait shows the influence (or perhaps hand) of the 18th-century Italian court painter Giuseppe Castiglione, as does a lovely and intriguing painting on silk of an unnamed concubine, seen in the Inner Court section of the exhibition.

On your way to the Inner Court, you pass by an imperial throne, with its attendant dragons, cranes, elephants, lions, and mythical beasts. You also see a gilded and lacquered sedan chair, an imperial seal carved in jade, ceremonial arms and armour, and paintings of emperors hunting, drinking, and communing with nature. Imperial textiles, mostly silk robes, cloaks, and jackets, are, of course, sumptuous—elaborately and labour-intensively embroidered with hierarchical and auspicious symbols. Two ink-on-paper depictions of the Qianlong Emperor’s troops violently crushing a rebellion in Taiwan in 1786 are titled Battle Scenes From the Pacification of Taiwan. Pacification is an interesting word. Perhaps it loses something in translation.

The show ends in a gallery filled with collections of art, ceramics, jade, and gold, amassed by Ming and Qing emperors intent on enhancing their reputations. The catalogue tells us that “The Forbidden City was not just a palace where the emperor and his attendants lived, nor was it simply the administrative headquarters of the vast realm he ruled. It was a stage where wealth was put on display and power was performed.” Which brings us back to the money and power at the media preview of this exhibition. Art, it seems, was ever thus entangled.