A great exhibition to be held in the British Museum in 2014

by fulltimestudent 8 Replies latest social current

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  fulltimestudent

  Image a book that begins like this:

  This book is about an age of discovery. It tells the story of:

  Fleets consisting of great ships, manned by intrepid visionaries, sail further than any ship had sailed before. They brought back to their national leaders (sponsors of their voyages) information of new lands, people, and trade opportunities.

  Merchants follow and trade across the great oceans bring greeat wealth to some and economic dislocation to others.

  But it was also an age of internal discovery. Thinkers ranged more deeply than ever into what it meant to be human, and there was unprecendented vitality to the new arts of the novel and drama. A vibrant printing industry got more books into the hands of more people than at any previous time in history, and the expansion of literacy meant that not merely a small elite read the new printed books, but for the first time there was a diverse, mass audience.

  Who will the book discuss?
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  fulltimestudent

  Back at last -

  I used the word picture in the first post to describe the Ming era in China. I can't claim to be original in that description. It was used by Professor Craig Clunas, Professor of History of Art at the University of Oxford in intoducing his book, entitled: 'Empire of Great Brightness. Visual and Material Cultures of Ming Chinas, 1368-1644.'(Reaktion Books, 2008).

  I wanted to try to convey some of the intellectual and political power of this era in order to draw attention to the British Museum Exhibition to be held later in 2014. This is how the Museum envisages the era:

  

  This major exhibition will explore a golden age in China’s history.

  Between AD 1400 and 1450, China was a global superpower run by one family – the Ming dynasty – who established Beijing as the capital and built the Forbidden City. During this period, Ming China was thoroughly connected with the outside world. Chinese artists absorbed many fascinating influences, and created some of the most beautiful objects and paintings ever made.

  The exhibition will feature a range of these spectacular objects – including exquisite porcelain, gold, jewellery, furniture, paintings, sculptures and textiles – from museums across China and the rest of the world. Many of them have only been very recently discovered and have never been seen outside China.

  You can see the exhibited items between 18 September 2014 – 5 January 2015. I can asssure you that it will be worth seeing.
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  Band on the Run

  I've known that Ming Dynasty vases are very valuable. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY has had special China exhibits in the past. Bloomingdale's turned its store over to Chinese wares after the Nixon trip. It was part museum, part store. The prices were so low. It seemed magical. I cried that I did not have more money to purchase some antiques.

  You are fortunate. Maybe some East Coast museums will host the exhibit here.
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  cantleave

  I think I will take gander to that exhibition. Haven't been to the BM for a year or so.
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  LongHairGal

  Too bad that exhibition wasn't there back when I visited.

  The British Museum is a very impressive place!
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  fulltimestudent

  Here's some more information on the items to be exhibited:

  

  7th or 8th C tomb figurines - certainly not Ming at the age, so I'm unsure of their significance to this exhibition

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  16th C Stone figure

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  A tomb guardian from 7th or 8th C - Certainly not from the ming era, so I'm usure of the significance

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  fulltimestudent

  From News Network Archeology:

  British Museum launches major exhibition celebrating China’s Ming dynasty Posted by TANNBreakingnews, China, Exhibitions, Travel, UK 5:00 PM In September 2014 the British Museum will stage a major exhibition in the new Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery on a golden age in China’s history. The exhibition will explore the years 1400 – 1450, a pivotal 50 year period that transformed China during the rule of the Ming dynasty. In this period the capital is established in Beijing and the borders of China are fixed as they are today.

  Bureaucrats replace military leaders in the hierarchy of power, the emperor’s role changes from autocrat to icon, and the decision is taken to centralise, rather than devolve, power. The exhibition will include rare loans of some of the finest objects ever made in China, shedding light on this important part of world history that is little known in Europe. China’s internal transformation and connections with the rest of the world led to a flourishing of creativity from what was, at the time, the only global superpower. This period for China was a time of extraordinary engagement with the world and of fascinating cultural diversity. The explorer Zheng He pioneered China’s maritime history, sending treasure ships to South East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. China enjoyed a period of unprecedented global contacts from Kyoto to Mogadishu, through trade and diplomacy evidenced through gifts of gold, silver, paintings, porcelains, weapons, costume and furniture. This is the first exhibition to explore the great social and cultural changes in China that established Beijing as a capital city and the building of the Forbidden City - still the national emblem on coins and military uniforms today.

  As well as the imperial courts, the exhibition will focus on finds from three regional princely tombs: in Sichuan, Shandong and Hubei covering East, Southwest and Central China. Four emperors ruled China in this period. The exhibition will include the sword of the Yongle Emperor, “the Warrior”; the handwriting of the Hongxi emperor, “the bureaucrat”; the paintings of the Xuande emperor, “the aesthete”; and the portraits of the regents who ruled while the Zhengtong emperor was a boy. There will also be costumes of the princes, their gold and jewellery, and furniture. The exhibition covers court life, the military, culture, beliefs, trade and diplomacy. The exhibition covers a period when there was unprecedented contact with the world beyond the Ming Empire, through embassies, an assertive military policy, and court-sponsored maritime expeditions. Early Ming imperial courts enjoyed an unparalleled range of contacts with other Asian rulers: the Timurids in Iran and Central Asia; the Ashikaga in Japan and Joseon Korea. Contacts extended to Bengal, Sri Lanka, Africa, and even to Mecca at the heart of the Islamic world.

  The exhibition aims to replace older histories of China that over-emphasise contact with Europe after 1500 by highlighting complex and longer-lasting intra-Asian connections that played a key role in the formation of the Chinese state, society and culture. At the same time, the exhibition will explore the diversity within the Ming Empire itself, and the idea that it is multiple courts, and not one single, monolithic, imperial court, that are important in this period. Here, the recent spectacular gains of archaeology, in revealing the culture of the regional princely courts of the early Ming, enable art and material culture to significantly alter our view of the period. Made in China: an imperial Ming vase Opens on 12 April at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow This Spotlight tour is supported by BP and is organised to compliment the BP exhibition: Ming: 50 years that changed China at the British Museum. The tour will feature an iconic blue-and-white Ming vase from the British Museum to be displayed alongside regional collections in four partner museums across the UK. Contemporary artists will be invited to create new work in response to the vase to be shown alongside it. The exhibition is part of a wider research project in association with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) which seeks to provide a new perspective on a period of crucial importance to China and the wider world, a history that for the first time fully integrates the evidence of material culture with the enormous textual record. The early Ming period defines contemporary Chinese conceptions of their own history, and China’s relations to the rest of the world.

  Read more at: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/british-museum-launches-major.html#.UtN_Sp6Sx8G
  Follow us: @ArchaeoNewsNet on Twitter | groups/thearchaeologynewsnetwork/ on Facebook
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  fulltimestudent

  In the first post I used Professor Craig Clunas' thoughts on the Ming Dynasty. One point made was of the maritime exploration undertaken during that time.

  Its difficult (for some at least) to understand the size of the ships that were used - this sketch compares one of the largest ships in the exploration fleet with the Santa Maria, used by Columbus.

  

  I've been to the dockyard in Nanjing where, at least some of these ships were built.

  If you'd like to know more about the shipyard(s) here's where to access an academic study:

  http://www.shipwreckasia.org/wp-content/uploads/Chapter3.pdf

  And here's a visual guide to the voyages:

  

  There are suggestions that some of the ships went further afield. This is quite controversial and there is little academic support for such suggestions. There is little doubt that the ships and their navigators were capable (for example) of rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing on to the America's. But there is a great lack of supporting evidence. Much more likely (if the Chinese did the America's) would be that they visited the Pacific coast, and there is some evidence that such visits were made, but who and when is unknown.

  We can also appreciate that if these huge fleets could visit Java (Indonesia) - then little effort would be involved in reaching Australia. But again, where's the supporting evidence?
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  fulltimestudent

  There is a pik of two models on flikr, one image of Zheng He's capital ships and one of Columbus' Santa Maria that give a better idea of what they may have looked like:

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/criminalintent/361639903/in/photostream/

  You can also pick up the threads of an argument over whether or not the dimensions of Zheng's capital ships are accurate.

  For a better overview, I think that Louise Levathes, 'When China Ruled the Seas,' may still be the best overview. Gavin Menzies, '1421' is still controversial in its claim of global voyages.

  This is Amazon's overview of When China Ruled the Seas:

  A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's "four corners." It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas , Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China's enigmatic history, focusing on China's rise as a naval power that literally could have ruled the world and at its precipitious plunge into isolation when a new emperor ascended the Dragon Throne.
  During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven epic expeditions brought China's "treasure ships" across the China Seas and the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the African coast, China's "El Dorado," and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook was credited with its discovery. With over 300 ships-some measuring as much as 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, with upwards of nine masts and twelve sails, and combined crews sometimes numbering over 28,000 men-the emperor Zhu Di's fantastic fleet was a virtual floating city, a naval expression of his Forbidden City in Beijing. The largest wooden boats ever built, these extraordinary ships were the most technically superior vessels in the world with innovations such as balanced rudders and bulwarked compartments that predated European ships by centuries. For thirty years foreign goods, medicines, geographic knowledge, and cultural insights flowed into China at an extraordinary rate, and China extended its sphere of political power and influence throughout the Indian Ocean.

  http://www.amazon.com/When-China-Ruled-Seas-1405-1433/dp/0195112075

  Compare that description to the Amazon review of Menzies, 1421:

  From Publishers Weekly

  A former submarine commander in Britain's Royal Navy, Menzies must enjoy doing battle. The amateur historian's lightly footnoted, heavily speculative re-creation of little-known voyages made by Chinese ships in the early 1400s goes far beyond what most experts in and outside of China are willing to assert and will surely set tongues wagging. According to Menzies's brazen but dull account of the Middle Kingdom's exploits at sea, Magellan, Dias, da Gama, Cabral and Cook only "discovered" lands the Chinese had already visited, and they sailed with maps drawn from Chinese charts. Menzies alleges that the Chinese not only discovered America, but also established colonies here long before Columbus set out to sea. Because China burned the records of its historic expeditions led by Zheng He, the famed eunuch admiral and the focus of this account, Menzies is forced to defend his argument by compiling a tedious package of circumstantial evidence that ranges from reasonable to ridiculous. While the book does contain some compelling claims-for example, that the Chinese were able to calculate longitude long before Western explorers-drawn from Menzies's experiences at sea, his overall credibility is undermined by dubious research methods. In just one instance, when confounded by the derivation of cryptic words on a Venetian map, Menzies first consults an expert at crossword puzzles rather than an etymologist. Such an approach to scholarship, along with a promise of more proof to come in the paperback edition, casts a shadow of doubt over Menzies's discoveries. 32 pages of color illus., 27 maps and diagrams. Book-of-the-Month Club alternate.
  Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  From Booklist

  Menzies makes the fascinating argument that the Chinese discovered the Americas a full 70 years before Columbus. Not only did the Chinese discover America first, but they also, according to the author, established a number of subsequently lost colonies in the Caribbean. Furthermore, he asserts that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe, desalinated water, and perfected the art of cartography. In fact, he believes that most of the renowned European explorers actually sailed with maps charted by the Chinese. Though most historical records were destroyed during centuries of turmoil in the Far East, he manages to cobble together some feasible evidence supporting his controversial conclusions. Sure to cause a stir among historians, this questionable tale of adventure on the high seas will be hotly debated in academic circles. Margaret Flanagan
  Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  IMO - while we cannot rule out more extensive exploration by the Zheng He fleets, we also cannot demonstrate more than what I've previously said.