中国国家博物馆 | |
Established | 2003 |
---|---|
Location | Beijing |
Type | Art museum, history museum |
Collections | Chinese art |
Collection size | 1.3 million |
Visitors | 2,377,600 (2021) [1] |
Director | Wang Chunfa [2] |
Owner | Ministry of Culture and Tourism |
Public transit access | 1 Tian'anmen East |
Website | en |
The National Museum of China is an art and history museum located on the eastern side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The National Museum of China has a total construction area of about 200,000 square meters, a collection of more than 1.4 million items, and 48 exhibition halls. It is the museum with the largest single building area in the world and the museum with the richest collection of Chinese cultural relics. [3] It is a level-1 public welfare institution funded by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. [4]
The current form of the legal entity of the museum was established in 2003 [5] by the merger of the two museums that had occupied the same building since 1959: the Museum of the Chinese Revolution in the northern wing (originating in the Office of the National Museum of the Revolution founded in 1950 to preserve the legacy of the 1949 revolution) and the National Museum of Chinese History in the southern wing (with origins in both the Beijing National History Museum, founded in 1949, and the Preliminary Office of the National History Museum, founded in 1912, tasked to safeguard China's larger historical legacy).
The building was completed in 1959 as one of the Ten Great Buildings celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. It complements the opposing Great Hall of the People that was built at the same time. The structure sits on 6.5 hectares (16 acres) and has a frontal length of 313 metres (1,027 ft), a height of four stories totaling 40 metres (130 ft), and a width of 149 metres (489 ft). [6] The front displays ten square pillars at its center.
After four years of renovation, the museum reopened on March 17, 2011, with 28 new exhibition halls, more than triple the previous exhibition space, and state of the art exhibition and storage facilities. It has a total floor space of nearly 200,000 m2 (2.2 million square feet) to display. [7] The renovations were designed by the German firm Gerkan, Marg and Partners. [8]
The museum's "Road to Rejuvenation" exhibit was the site for Xi Jinping's November 2012 articulation of the Chinese Dream political concept. [9] : 56 The first half of the exhibit documented China's century of humiliation. [9] : 56 The second half depicted China's virtues in overcoming that adversity, the Chinese Communist Revolution, and establishing the People's Republic of China. [9] : 56-57 After touring the exhibit, Xi addressed the media, announcing, "Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the greatest dream of the Chinese nation in modern times." [9] : 57
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum was closed for a large part of 2020, and attendance plunged by 78 percent to 1,600,000. Nonetheless, in 2021 it was in second place in the list of most-visited art museums, after the Louvre Museum. [10]
The museum, covering Chinese history from the Yuanmou Man of 1.7 million years ago to the end of the Qing dynasty (the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history), has a permanent collection of 1,050,000 items, [11] with many precious and rare artifacts not to be found in museums anywhere else in China or the rest of the world.
Among the most important items in the National Museum of China are the "Houmuwu Ding" from the Shang dynasty (the heaviest piece of ancient bronzeware in the world, at 832.84 kg), [12] the square shaped Shang dynasty bronze zun decorated with four sheep heads, [12] a large and rare inscribed Western Zhou dynasty bronze water pan, [12] a gold-inlaid Qin dynasty bronze tally in the shape of a tiger, [12] Han dynasty jade burial suits sewn with gold thread, [12] and a comprehensive collection of Tang dynasty tri-colored glazed sancai and Song dynasty ceramics. [12] The museum also has an important numismatic collection, including 15,000 coins donated by Luo Bozhao. [13]
The museum has a permanent exhibition called The Road to Rejuvenation, which presents the recent history of China since the beginning of the First Opium War, with an emphasis on the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its political achievements. [14]
The exhibit hall addressing the life of Deng Xiaoping includes the Stetson hat he was given during at a rodeo during his 1979 visit to the United States. [15] Pictures of Deng donning the hat became a famous image of the visit. [15]
On April 9, 2021, the exhibition "Field of Hope: A National Photographic Exhibition on 'Poverty Alleviation and Sharing a Moderately Prosperous Society'" opened at the museum. The exhibition, hosted by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the National Museum of China and the China Photographers Association, features 180 photographs by nearly 150 different photographers, showcasing the country's effort in alleviating poverty. [16]
Because of its central location in Tiananmen Square, the front of the museum has been used since the 1990s for the display of countdown clocks relating to occasions of national importance, including the 1997 transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, the 1999 transfer of sovereignty over Macau, the beginning of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the opening of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.
A three-month exhibition of the luxury brand Louis Vuitton in 2011 led to some complaints of commercialism at the museum, with Peking University professor Xia Xueluan stating that as a state-level public museum, it "should in fact only be dedicating itself to non-profit cultural promotion." [17] Yves Carcelle, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton Malletier, defended the exhibition by stating: "What's important is what you are going to discover. I think before money, there's history: 157 years of creativity and craftsmanship." [17]
Some critics have also alleged the museum's modern historiography tends to focus on the triumphs of the CCP, while minimizing or ignoring politically sensitive subjects such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. [18]
Chinese art is visual art that originated in or is practiced in China, Greater China or by Chinese artists. Art created by Chinese residing outside of China can also be considered a part of Chinese art when it is based on or draws on Chinese culture, heritage, and history. Early "Stone Age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. After that period, Chinese art, like Chinese history, was typically classified by the succession of ruling dynasties of Chinese emperors, most of which lasted several hundred years. The Palace Museum in Beijing and the National Palace Museum in Taipei contains extensive collections of Chinese art.
The Shanghai Museum is a municipal public museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. It is funded by the Shanghai Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau.
Shaanxi History Museum, which is located to the northwest of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in the ancient city Xi'an, in the Shaanxi province of China, is one of the first huge state museums with modern facilities in China and one of the largest. The museum houses over 370,000 items, including murals, paintings, pottery, coins, as well as bronze, gold, and silver objects. The modern museum was built between 1983 and 2001 and its appearance recalls the architectural style of the Tang dynasty.
The zun or yi, used until the Northern Song (960–1126) is a type of Chinese ritual bronze or ceramic wine vessel with a round or square vase-like form, sometimes in the shape of an animal, first appearing in the Shang dynasty. Used in religious ceremonies to hold wine, the zun has a wide lip to facilitate pouring. Vessels have been found in the shape of a dragon, an ox, a goose, and more. One notable zun is the He zun from the Western Zhou.
Ding are prehistoric and ancient Chinese cauldrons standing upon legs with a lid and two fancy facing handles. They are one of the most important shapes used in Chinese ritual bronzes. They were made in two shapes: round vessels with three legs and rectangular ones with four, the latter often called fāng dǐng "square ding (方鼎. They were used for cooking, storage, and ritual offerings to the gods or to ancestors.
A guang or gong is a particular shape used in Chinese art for vessels, originally made as Chinese ritual bronzes in the Shang dynasty, and sometimes later in Chinese porcelain. They are a type of ewer which was used for pouring rice wine at ritual banquets, and often deposited as grave goods in high-status burial. Examples of the shape may be described as ewers, ritual wine vessels, wine pourers and similar terms, though all of these terms are also used of a number of other shapes, especially the smaller tripod jue and the larger zun.
The Liaoning Provincial Museum is a prominent museum of history and fine arts located in Shenyang, the capital of China's Liaoning province.
Ancient Chinese urban planning encompasses the diverse set of cultural beliefs, social and economic structures, and technological capacities that influenced urban design in the early period of Chinese civilization. Factors that have shaped the development of Chinese urbanism include: fengshui, and astronomy; the well-field system; the cosmological belief that Heaven is round, and the Earth is square, the concept of qi ; political power shared between a ruling house and educated advisers; the holy place bo; a three-tiered economic system under state control; early writing; and the walled capital city as a diagram of political power.
A hu is a type of wine vessel that has a pear-shaped cross-section. Its body swells and flares into a narrow neck, creating S-shaped profile. While it is similar to you vessel, hu usually has a longer body and neck. The shape of hu probably derives from its ceramic prototype prior to the Shang dynasty. They usually have handles on the top or rings attached to each side of neck. Many extant hu lack lids while those excavated in such tombs as Fu Hao's indicate that this type of vessel might be originally made with lids. Although it is more often to see hu having a circular body, there also appears hu in square and flat rectangular forms, called fang hu and bian huArchived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine in Chinese. In addition, hu often came to be found in a pair or in a set together with other types of vessels. As wine had played an important part in the Shang ritual, the hu vessel might be placed in the grave of an ancestor as part of ritual in order to ensure a good relationship with ancestor's spirit.
A jia is a ritual vessel type found in both pottery and bronze forms; it was used to hold libations of wine for the veneration of ancestors. It was made either with four legs or in the form of a tripod and included two pillar-like protrusions on the rim that were possibly used to suspend the vessel over heat. The earliest evidence of the Jia vessel type appears during the Neolithic Period. It was a prominent form during the Shang and early Western Zhou dynasties, but had disappeared by the mid-Western Zhou.
Luoyang Museum is a historical museum in Luoyang, Henan Province, China. Situated in the Yellow River valley. It offers exhibits of the rich cultural heritage of Luoyang, a major Chinese cultural centre, which was the capital of several Chinese dynasties including the Eastern Zhou and the Eastern Han.
A dui is a type of Chinese ritual bronze vessel used in the late Zhou dynasty and the Warring States period of ancient China. It was a food container used as a ritual vessel. Most dui consist of two bowls supported on three legs.
A gu is a type of ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessel from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It was used to drink wine or to offer ritual libations.
The Western Zhou Yan State Capital Museum is an archaeological museum in southwestern Beijing Municipality at the site of the capital of the ancient State of Yan during the Western Zhou dynasty. The site is located in Dongjialin Village, just north of Liulihe Township (琉璃河镇), in Fangshan District, 43 km (27 mi) south of Beijing's city centre. During the Western Zhou dynasty, over 3,000 years ago, the walled settlement at Liulihe, as the site is also known, served as the capital of the Yan, a vassal state of the Zhou dynasty. The discovery of the site in 1962 is considered to be one of the 100 major archaeological discoveries in China during the 20th century. Artifacts from the site including engraved bronze ware and chariots provide the earliest archaeological evidence of urban settlement in Beijing Municipality. The museum at the site, operated by the municipal government, opened in 1995.
Ma Chengyuan was a Chinese archaeologist, epigrapher, and president of the Shanghai Museum. He was credited with saving priceless artifacts from destruction during the Cultural Revolution, and was instrumental in raising funds and support for the rebuilding of the Shanghai Museum. He was a recipient of the John D. Rockefeller III Award, and was awarded the Legion of Honour by French President Jacques Chirac.
The Houmuwu ding, also called Simuwu ding, is a rectangular bronze ding of the ancient Chinese Shang dynasty. It is the heaviest piece of bronzeware to survive from anywhere in the ancient world. It was unearthed in 1939 in Wuguan Village, Anyang, Henan, near Yinxu, the site of the last Shang dynasty capital.
The Changsha Museum is a history museum located at Beichen Delta in Kaifu District, Changsha, Hunan, China. It is adjacent to the Changsha Concert Hall, Changsha Planning Exhibition Hall and Changsha Library. It has a constructed area of 24,000 square metres (260,000 sq ft).
Yueyang Museum is a historical museum in Yueyang, Hunan, China. It covers a total area of 11,000-square-metre (2.7-acre) with a building area of 6,600-square-metre (1.6-acre). The museum has a collection of more than 20,000 objects, including 6 national first level protected cultural relics.
Wenzhou Museum is a museum run by the city of Wenzhou, located on Shifu Road, Lucheng District.
The earliest human occupation of what is now China dates to the Lower Paleolithic c. 1.7 million years ago—attested by archaeological finds such as the Yuanmou Man. The Erlitou and Erligang cultures inhabiting the Yellow River valley were Bronze Age civilizations predating the historical record—which first emerges c. 1250 – c. 1200 BCE at Yinxu, during the Late Shang.
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