Introduction

The collection of painting and calligraphy in the National Palace Museum includes not only rare, early treasures of the Chin and T'ang dynasties, but also many great works by masters from later in the Sung, Yüan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties. The total number of these artworks exceeds ten thousand, making it a grand synthesis gathered from the imperial collections over the dynasties.

The development of Chinese painting can be likened to a symphony, in which the patterns of style in the subjects of figure, bird-and-flower, and landscape genres form several major movements with many variations over the course of history. Calligraphy, the art of writing, is also one of the most distinctive and highly regarded aesthetic features of Chinese cultural spheres. Written characters in various seal, clerical, cursive, running, and standard script forms not only serve the practical function of conveying information and emotions, they also lend themselves to visual manipulation into aesthetically pleasing forms. In calligraphy and painting, the brush serves as a tool for both, and when painting alone is insufficient to convey ideas, it can also be used to add inscriptions or poetry. In fact, the appearance of poetry as calligraphy on a painting represents these “Three Perfections” combined into a single work. Likewise, painting based on poetry yields great lyrical content without having to add a single character. Thus, the Three Perfections, in addition to the art of seal carving seen as impressions in red, make Chinese painting and calligraphy stand out among art forms in the world in both form and spirit.