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Ox or donkey? Tiny animal stirs art debate
By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-12-16 00:58
A donkey or an ox -- the question is still open -- may be at the heart of a
controversy surrounding one of China's most treasured national art works.
The
dilemma is whether repairs made over the centuries to a Northern Song Dynasty
masterpiece simply added images that were not there. If so, should those repairs
be undone or did they become part of the work?
Qingming Shanghe Tu was painted by 12th century imperial court painter Zhang
Zeduan during the Northern Song Dynasty (906-1127).
Variously translated as Going Upriver for the Qingming Festival or Peace
Reigns on the River, the 528.7-centimetre-long silk handscroll in ink and
colours depicts a panorama of daily life, business and social interaction in
Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty and today's Kaifeng in Henan
Province.
The United States, France, Britain and Japan each has at least one copy of
this Chinese masterpiece, which experts believe are just duplications.
Only the Palace Museum in Beijing possesses the original, said Yu Hui, a
museum official.
But the restoration of a tiny part of the handscroll in 1973 has triggered a
heated debate among academics and the public.
At the centre of the controversy is a donkey. Or is it an ox?
A former Palace Museum copier, Wang Kairu, said the restorations changed the
original work.
In 1973, a panel of experts at the Palace Museum determined a small part of
the painting had been inappropriately mended during the Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644).
According to Yu, the experts believed the Ming artists had "mistakenly"
thought a pole crutch on the painting was the "horn of an ox," whose body was
missing. So they pasted on a little piece of silk and painted an "ox" on it.
So the Palace Museum experts in 1973 removed that little piece of silk.
Over the past few months, however, the now absent piece of silk has fuelled a
hot debate.
Yu and other experts claim the Ming addition makes the painting difficult to
understand and goes against the spirit of the original work.
"The decision to remove the tiny silk piece from the painting was made after
careful consideration and deliberation, with the whole process being
photographed," Xu Zhongling, 67, then deputy director of the museum's
calligraphy and painting division, told China Daily yesterday.
But Wang
Kairu, who has studied Zhang's painting for years and made four copies of the
original work in 1997, insisted the small piece of silk on Zhang's original work
perfectly fits the scenario of the handscroll, and was likely made with good
reason.
And that is only the beginning of the debate.
To many people's surprise, however, Wang believes that the Ming Dynasty
restorers did not paint an ox on their silk patch but a donkey in heat.
"A person with knowledge of livestock will see it was a ruttish she-donkey,"
he said.
Putting the animal in the context of the painting, the donkey could be
interpreted as moving towards a jackass nearby, scaring an old man who tries to
rein it in while warning a child to avoid, Wang said.
"The Palace Museum experts seemed to not know the behaviour of animals very
well, I know animals well since I grew up and live in the countryside," he said.
Ox or donkey, once it had been fixed on the ancient painting by ancient
artists, it should not be simply taken away, said both Wang and Feng Jicai, a
well known Chinese writer and painter.
Removing the patch made that part of the masterpiece more difficult to
understand, Wang said.
He said the art work should be restored to what it was before 1973,
otherwise, people throughout the world will never have a chance to see the
"undeleted" painting.
But Palace Museum official Yu said removing the tiny part restored the
original look of the great work.
He said the museum will sponsor an international seminar on the painting next
October, when the museum will give a clear explanation of its restoration
efforts.
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