There is There is a terrific show of Chinese art and architecture at PEM, The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The full name of the exhibition is, The Emperor’s Private Paradise, Treasures from the Forbidden City. The exhibition studies the Qianlong Emperor’s (1736 – 1769) retirement garden intended to be a peaceful retreat from 60 years of his active reign. The show will be there until January 9, 2011 and it is well worth a visit, I have already been twice and I intend to go back again to study and enjoy the collections on loan from the Palace Museum, Beijing, China.

If you don’t know, PEM is one of the great museums of New England. It was founded in 1799 as the East India Marine Society by a group of Salem based captains. It is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States. Its collections include American decorative art, Asian export art, Japanese art , Korean art ,Chinese art , Native American art ,Oceanic art, African art, Indian contemporary art, and that’s only the beginning!

In 2003 the Museum opened a new wing designed by Moshe Safdie which references the maritime heritage of Salem in the atrium’s soaring glass ceiling shaped like clipper ship sails swollen by trade winds. The supporting brick walls, banded with brownstone, reference the federalist architecture of the merchant captains mansions’ standing proudly around the common a few blocks away. Incorporated in the Safdie wing is Ying Yu Tang, an 18th-century Chinese merchant’s house transported from China. The whole ensemble is stunning inside and out, comfortably accommodating periodic theme festivals attended by festive crowds or equally inviting on a calm afternoon when only a few visitors are present.

The Qianlong Emperor designed and built his garden complex consisting of 4 courtyards and twenty-seven pavilions on a two acre site in the northeastern quarter of the Forbidden City. It is now referred to as the Qianlong Garden. The project took five years to complete (1771-1776) and incorporates a wealth of architectural elaborations densely wrapped around a staggering variety of garden features forming an ideal paradise for the emperor’s intended retirement.

To the western eye the term “garden” may be a bit perplexing for this jam packed environment because the actual plantings are seemingly secondary to the rockeries, and architectural structures that surround and dominate the composition. But there is a reverence in the Qianlong Garden for the natural world that references the viewpoint of the traditional scholar poet of past centuries who eschewed power politics of the warring states and retreated to the more eternal realms of mountain wilderness to contemplate ultimate reality present in nature. It is this region of monumental and indeed magical mountain landscapes that is painstakingly recreated with collections and constructions of “awkward” stones that evoke the vast mountain wilderness of the Chinese sub-continent.

In ancient China a mirror was intended for introspection rather than reflection and likewise the intention of the individual in his encounter with the immense power of “Cold Mountain” was to be absorbed in the veiled space of mist where eternal mountains appeared and retreated from sight, ever changing, always present.

Thirty spokes converge on a hub
but it’s the emptiness
that makes a wheel work
pots are fashioned from clay
but it’s the hollow
that makes a pot work
windows and doors are carved for a house
but it’s the spaces
that make a house work
existence makes something useful
but nonexistence makes it work
Daode jing, verse 11 (tr. Bill Porter)

The Qianlong Emperor’s scholarly proclivities blended a through study of classical Chinese literature based in Taoism, Confucianism and esoteric Tibetan Buddhism with European artistic constructs of perspective and volume as well as a flirtation with European technology exhibited in clocks and automatons. This mélange created an international sophistication that is evident throughout the Qianlong Garden.

The thoughtful installation of the exhibit is dispersed in spacious galleries where the walls are painted with silhouettes of the pavilions comprising the Qianlong garden complex. These shadow buildings with their distinctive up curved tiled roof tops are decorated by lines of protective gargoyle-like animals that ride the roof ridges adding whimsy to the architecture.

An aspect of the exhibit that subliminally enhances the atmosphere of the galleries is a faint and drifting recording of different bird songs broadcast in the background of the galleries transporting the visitor inside the Qianlong Garden,. This delightfully subtle enhancement brings a smile to your face if you are sharp enough to notice.

The background colors of the galleries start with imperial golden yellow introducing the Qianlong Emperor, then blending into light blue/green that gives way to rooms painted a bricky red/orange, evolving into other spaces painted a soothing shade of apple green. Throughout the exhibit some of the walls are decorated with reproductions block printed wall papers used inside the actual pavilions of the garden.

Incorporated into the galleries’ interior walls are intricately carved wooden wall screens and window panels selected from a few of the pavilions of the Qianlong Garden. Some of these are decorated with cloisonné plaques depicting auspicious symbols or lacquer pictures depicting wizened sages. There is a section of wall lattice that is inset with glazed porcelain plaques adorned with flowers and good luck symbols set in decorative boarders. The visitor passes through a few of these elaborate door ways of precious tropical hardwoods allowing one to study the details closely. There is one especially charming portal that represents a lotus blossom framing a meditation area used by the Qianlong Emperor. The lotus blossom is a Buddhist symbol indicating the potential of the individual to attain perfection as does the pure white blossom sprouting from a plant rooted underwater in the mud. There are also alcoves with trompe l’oeil illusions of fantasy rooms and gardens enticingly beyond reach in a nether world of perpetual blossoming springtime.

All these structures and transitions are further enhanced by silk screened panels evoking the complex mullion patterns of windows and wall panels that are so integral a part of classical Chinese architecture. Photo panels of actual garden views are arranged behind these “windows and doors” as if one were actually inside a garden building looking out to one of the intended “surprise” vistas.

The intention of this complex installation is to evoke the imperial magnificence of the Qianlong Garden with its wealth of superb architecture set in a labyrinth of garden courtyards in a way that a modern visitor can comprehend and study the garden in comfort and ease. The exhibit design completely succeeds in this intention and goes even further with special areas that add depth to the experience. One corner is given over to a comfortable seating area provided with interesting books including the superb catalogue of the show as well as other titles pertaining to Chinese garden culture, history and art.

My favorite adjunct display is the calligraphy demonstration. You sit on a sturdy porcelain garden stool at a bench that is inset with two large computer screens for a lesson in Chinese brush painting using an actual composition of the Qianlong Emperor. The visitor activates the lesson by touching the screen and selecting a character group. With a bamboo and hair brush, you follow, step by step, the direction of the strokes involved in creating the characters. The brush’s stroke “inks” in the outline of the character and before long you have written a phrase of the composition.

Calligraphy and brush painting are ultimate essences of learned refinement in Chinese culture. The grace and skill of the individual to master the power of the brush is of paramount importance. The master becomes the medium and his hand and his heart are the brush and ink, reflecting the nature of the universe - allowing him to be absorbed into the harmony of oneness.

To be enabled to glimpse the potential of creating a beautiful work of calligraphic art is an opportunity that allows us to enter into the highest aspiration of the Chinese culture and the most essential aspect of the Qianlong Emperor. To me this little aside exhibit is worth the price of admission and although I see it as profound, there is nothing ponderous about it; rather it is a fun puzzle that everyone can enjoy. The calligraphy screens are simply one of the ingenious tools of the exhibit that illuminates the rich material presented.

There are 90 items listed in the catalogue on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing displayed in the exhibit. These collections are enhanced by art works drawn from the Peabody’s collections and other museums. They range from a small exquisitely carved jade brush pot to immense architectural elements from the palace such as room divider screen that raps around one of the Emperor’s thrones displaying precious objets d’art on a myriad of shelves forming an elaborate display case. The range of materials incorporates rare woods, lacquer, porcelain, embroidered silk, cloisonné enameled plaques, carved marble garden furniture, wooden furniture, gilded bronze sculpture and large calligraphic scrolls of paper as well as huge wall panels of trompe l’oiel paintings on paper.

Of all the treasures in the Emperor’s private paradise one that I particularly enjoyed is a wall panel from the Juanqinzhai pavilion (Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service). This 38 X 25 inch panel is composed of sandalwood, jade, lapis lazuli, malachite, zitan wood, kingfisher feathers and glass. It depicts an ancient plum tree in full bloom with birds and butterflies flitting about the black lacquered sky. Inscriptions incised in gold into the deep blue Lapis lazuli “rocks” at the base of the gnarled tree tell how the thousand year-old plum tree located in Yunnan Province still blooms each spring. The ideal represented here is, “The individual keeps on blooming even in old age.”

The most dramatic aspects of this work of art are the rich contrasts of texture, color and luminosity that emanate from the precious materials used. After that, I am attracted to the twisted and convoluted form of the ancient plum tree. Time and the rigorous elements of changing seasons have twisted the path the tree must follow telling the story of its personal history. By yielding to these unavoidable forces with perseverance and purity of purpose the plum tree has survived to be a testament and guide towards the true essence of beauty. In my walks in nature I see this story told again and again etched in the rocks of mountains where trees and bushes cling with tenacity to the rough currents of life.

One of the major components of the whole exhibit is the recently restored wall mural from the garden pavilion, Yucuixuan, (trans.) Bower of Purest Jade. This Mural depicts a domestic scene of a court lady surrounded by children with a couple of attendants in an intimate chamber. The mural utilizes European constructs of perspective and volume by use of shading. At the same time the mural incorporates 17 paintings in traditional Chinese styles and techniques and, of course, the lady, her court attendants and the 10 children are all Chinese in appearance and costume.

Within the galleries where this large (aprox.) 10 X 12 foot mural is exhibited there is a small “theatre” with comfortable seating where a fascinating and informative video is shown about the complex restoration of this work painted on paper some 230 years ago. The restoration of the Qianlong Garden was begun in 2001 after exhaustive preparatory planning and is expected to last about 15 years. The project is headed by the Palace Museum, Beijing, conservation team joined by a group of master craftsman culled from all over China and China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage. These agencies are collaborating with the World Monuments Fund joined by international conservation institutions and experts, many of whom are from the United States.

In this way the international quality of the Qianlong Garden which was always present, is being perpetuated and the preservation of cultural heritage around the world is further advanced by the shared efforts of a team scholars, scientists and craftsmen devoted to the nurturing of artistic excellence. This is a profoundly important enterprise in our present world state of conflict, war and discord when the creative urge of all people is at jeopardy from over-aggressive competition, distrust and greed.

Whether or not we of the West or East, living in the twenty-first century, see the Qianlong Emperor as entirely just and enlightened in his long prosperous reign, the historic evidence is at hand in places such as the Qianlong Garden that tell us that he had the ambition to rule with high ideals. The traditional Chinese values of family, education and refinement of the individual to perpetuate harmony in society are goals we may all benefit from. The generosity of the Palace Museum and the people of China to share this view of paradise with us is a delight and a joy and I heartily thank them and the Peabody Essex Museum for inviting us to be their guest.