Baroque and beyond

The National Palace Museum's new exhibition displays works collected by the Hapsburg royal family

By Ian Bartholomew
Staff Reporter, Taipei Times
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007, Page 15

Four years in the making, Baroque and Beyond: Great Hapsburg Collectors finally makes its debut at the National Palace Museum. Photos: courtesy of NPM

Taipei's National Palace Museum (NPM, 國立故宮博物院) has long since established itself as a repository for Chinese art; with its newest exhibit, Splendor of the Baroque and Beyond: Great Hapsburg Collectors, it proves it is much more than that.

According to Wilfried Seipel, director of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM), who was in Taipei for the opening of the exhibition, the aim of the show is not just a tour of grand masters from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The Hapsburg emperors amassed huge collections, and the exhibition is an insight into the emperors as collectors of art and their individual tastes. In an age when the very understanding of what it was to be human underwent radical change, these works, the cutting edge of artistic expression at the time, reveal much.

This exhibition, which runs until Feb. 24, displays 67 works from KHM, and is part of a cultural exchange project in which the NPM will exhibit part of its collection in Vienna next year.

The exhibition is being held in the NPM's second exhibition area, now routinely used for special events. With relatively few items, each work is given ample space, encouraging museumgoers to enjoy the complexity and intricacy of each work.

Four years in the making, Baroque and Beyond: Great Hapsburg Collectors finally makes its debut at the National Palace Museum. Photos: courtesy of NPM

Four years in the making, the exhibition is a follow-up to a proposal made 15 years ago, but which for "various political reasons," said Seipel, did not get off the ground. For the first time, the originals of some of the best-known works of the Baroque era are on display at the NPM.

Of particular interest to art history students and hobbyists, is the use of color and movement by artists like Titian (circa 1488-1576), the almost photographic realism achieved by Balthasar Denner (1685-1747), the sheer exuberance of Bartholomaus Spranger (1546-1611) and the endless bold and bizarre experiments in perspective by Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-1606), Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (1580-1649) and others.

In this age, during which the dominance of religion was giving way to humanism, subject matter was diverse, ranging from works conventionally lauding the power and magnificence of the royal house, to others showing the lives of common people and portraiture.

The curators have provided adequate explanations in English and Chinese for each section of the exhibition, but detailed notes on individual paintings are in Chinese only. To get the most out of the show, audio tours have been made available in Chinese. An English audio tour is expected to be available in two to three weeks. Audio tours cost NT$100 and require a deposit. There is also an excellent Web site with an English introduction and photos of the works at www.mediasphere.com.tw/vieena/zh-en/vienna_overview.html.