The NPM's will be presenting the following two calligraphy and painting exhibitions--"Thousand Character Classic in Chinese Calligraphy" and "The Calligraphy and Painting Art and Collection of the Xiang Yuanbian Family during Ming Dynasty" from today, which both present the beauty of ancient calligraphy and its influences on the calligraphies and paintings in the following generations.
The "Thousand Character Classic in Chinese Calligraphy" has been passed on for over 1,400 years. It is said that in order to instruct his descendants in calligraphy, the Liang dynasty Emperor
Wudi excerpted 1,000 unrepeated characters from the calligraphy work of Hsi-chih Wang in Chin Dynasty and ordered Hsing-ssu Chou, an attendant to put them to rhythm, forming the "Thousand Character Classic", a four-character rhyme book which touches on the following topics: nature, society, history and ethics. In addition to a representation of ancient works of children's enlightenment works, "Thousand Character Classic in Chinese Calligraphy" also enjoys the fame of being widely used in numbering in our daily life such as the numbering of military works, the original numbering of NPM's cultural heritages and even the collection numbering of art collectors. Therefore, the NPM has presented the "Thousand Character Classic in Chinese Calligraphy" during the summer to present the beauty of calligraphy of different forms and styles in the works imitated those of the previous well-known calligraphers through 16 excellent calligraphy works of Thousand Character Classic. Some examples are the representative masterpieces of the Thousand Character Classic calligraphy works of Wu Pien in Yuen Dynasty, Yun-ming Chu in Ming Dynasty, Cheng-ming Wen, Chi-Chang Tung and Chao Chang in Ching Dynasty.
In addition to the "Thousand Character Classic in Chinese Calligraphy", the NPM also runs the special exhibition of "The Calligraphy and Painting Art and Collection of the Xiang Yuanbian Family during Ming Dynasty" to present the application of the "Thousand Character Classic" in art collection. It is often regarded that approximately 120 works with the serial numbers of the Thousand Character Classic in the collection of Xiang Yuanbian Family during Ming Dynasty still exist today. The NPM has a collection 30 works while 26 will be presented in this exhibition, enabling the audience to understand the paintings and calligraphy collection of the Hsiang family. This is an excellent exhibition; in addition to the works of Hsiang and his sons, cousins and other offspring, the NPM will also be presenting fine paintings and calligraphy works such as "Spring Dawn in the Han Palace" by Ying Chou from Ming Dynasty, which was regarded as "An eternal treasure for the offspring, which is worth of great value" (with the serial number of the character "Lu") and "Shu Ci Yun San She Ren Shang Shang Shi” by Shih Shu from Song Dynasty (with the serial number of the character "Shu"), which show the unique and high-quality collection of Xiang Yuanbian.
The special exhibition of Thousand Character Classic in Chinese Calligraphy and Xiang Yuanbian's collection starts from today and ends on September 25, 2009.
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