Think of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains

    2011 must be a happy year for Chinese Artist: Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains finally became completed in National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains was divided into two parts and they are separated for hundreds years: First part is called Master Wuyong Scroll and collected by National Palace Museum after World War II and Chinese Civil War; The other part is called The Remaining Mountains, it was collected by Zhejiang Provincial Museum.

      Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is one of the most important national treasures in China, it was drawn by Chinese painter Gongwang Huang in 1347 for his friend Master Wuyong (E Zheng).  Huang is one of the four most famous painters of the Yuan Dynasty. He was a low-rank official in Dadu (today’s Beijing), then capital  of  the  dynasty,  and  was  imprisoned as  a  result  of  an  unjust  sentence.  After he was released, he began traveling around the country and drew pictures to amuse himself. In his 50s, Huang became a hermit living along the Fuchun River area where he began to learn from a painting master and dedicate his life to Chinese landscape painting (YuanKai, 41). Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is a wash painting drawn on the scroll and it is a landscape of Fuchun Mountains in Zhejiang province, it is carefully designed and developed in layers of wet washes and brush strokes, giving a convincing appearance of offhand but inspired organization and of spontaneous ink-play in detail. He arrange mountains and river elaborately, the color is simple and elegant in total and variational, the painting present a good balance and it shows the highest level of ancient Chinese landscape painting. Also, there is a twisty story behind this incredible Chinese painting. When this painting was sent to Master Wuyong, in 300 years, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains had many different owners and they considered it as a unique treasure, especially a collector called Hongyu Wu in late Ming Dynasty, he even burned it after his death so he could enjoy the sight of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains in heavens. According to Nantian postprint, the author Shouping Yun writes: “Hongyu Wu loves two curios a lot in his life: One is the authentic work Thousand-character Classic, the other is Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, and want them to be burial objects after his death. On Hongyu’s dead bed, he ordered his family to burn them. The first day he saw Thousand-character Classic burned with his own eyes until it burned to ashes. On the next day morning he hold the libation and then put Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains on the fire, left to his bedroom when the fire burned up…… His nephew Jingan Wu rushed to the place where the painting was burned, rescued the painting from the fire……” Although this treasure finally was rescued, but it has already burned into several holes and separated into two parts: The shorter one is called The Remaining Mountain but it was lost for long time; the longer one called Master Wuyong Scroll, it was collected by Qianlong Emperor in Qing Dynasty. And here is another story about Master Wuyong Scroll: Qianlong Emperor gained Master Wuyong Scroll and believed that it is the real masterpiece of Gongwang Huang, but next year one person offered another Master Wuyong Scroll to Qianlong Emperor. It means that there must have one painting is replica, Qianlong Emperor thought that the second painting is replica but he said that although it is replica but it is still a nice work, so he still payed for it in a high price then wrote some words on the second painting to sign that it is a replica. In fact, the second Master Wuyong Scroll is authentic. Anti-Japanese War, The Remaining Mountain was founded by Chinese Artist Hufan Wu, in 1956 was collected by Zhejiang Provincial Museum. It seems like Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains would have a chance to become completed, but Chinese Nationalist Party was failed in Chinese Civil War and took Master Wuyong Scroll to Taiwan. The chance that complete Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain have to be waited for 62 years.

    Although Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains was divided for more than three and a half centuries, but they are saved and protected well during the wars. Comparing with other art works and cultural relics, this painting is a lucky one.

    For Chinese people, there is always a wound in our heart about Yuanming Yuan. Yuanming Yuan, often translated as the Garden of Perfect Brightness, was a palace and garden complex situated twelve kilometers northwest of central Beijing (Thomas 117). It is a royal garden and is called the “Garden of Gardens” Because that it was known for its extensive collection of garden and building architecture and other works of art. But it was destroyed by British and French troops in the second opium war in 1860. The soldiers rushed into the palace and looted the rare and valuable objects, if they couldn’t carry them, they would destroy them, after pillage, the troops burned Yuanming Yuan for three days and three nights, just remain the ruins……There are many wonderful art works and cultural relics are destroyed or lost in the war. Amber Room was considered one of the wonders of the world, but In World War II, Nazi stole it from Russia and we couldn’t find it even now. Buddhas of Bamiyan is the third tallest Buddhas in the world and it exists for nearly 1500 years, but it was blown up by Taliban in March 12^th, 2001. And now, Ancient City of Damascus is in danger because of Syrian Wars……

    Art reflects a culture’s essence, relics and art works could represent the highest art standard and hard-working spirit and wisdom in the different periods of this culture. They are treasures in the world, but they are too fragile in wars. Today people try their best to rescue them from wars and restore the treasures destroyed in wars. Chinese government try to take back the art works and relics that was grabbed by British and French troops from Yuanming Yuan and starts to rebuild Yuanming Yuan according to the ancient books. The Amber room finally was restored by Russian artisans in Saint Petersburg in 2003. And the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the reconditioning work is going well with the help from a lot of countries in the world. Today, more and more people considered it important and try to help with this hard work. But, it can’t solve the problem fundamentally. Sometimes the more we rescue, the more wars would destroy, if we don’t stop the wars, this situation would maintain and still have more and more relics and art works would disappear, and it is impossible that the wars will disappear. So, that means we have to focus more on the protecting.  In international law, there are certain conventions that protect cultural property during wartime. These conventions and other institutions responsible for its protection will be explored below (Katrin and Candice M., 134).  But it is a very hard and complex work because in the wars, it not only just destroy or damage relics and art works directly by weapons or the traps, some people and some illegal groups will grab or bought them in low price and sell the relics and art works in the international black market, and because of the terrible environment and rough-and-tumble situation the art works and relics also would get damage. In such situations, it is hard to take back the relics and protect them. People’s lack of the awareness of protecting relics and art works is also an important reason, you could realize that causing huge damages to the cultural relics and art works mostly happens in some developing countries or under-development countries, because In these countries, people have low education and less stable society, don’t have enough mentions to protect relics and art works.

    Restoring cultural relics and art works is a negative solution to “protect” them. So we must focus more on the protecting and rescuing. First is to get good security and defense, it mostly work on museums, but if this museum is occupied by some militants or even terrorists, the cultural relics and art works would be very dangerous. So I think that a good ways to protect relics and art work in the war time is to transfer them to other safe place. In the Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese government at that time transferred most of the important treasures and relics that from the Forbidden City to Sichuan Province before Japanese troop arriving to Beijing and it saved a lot of treasures including Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain, but it couldn’t transfer the huge relics and it is dangerous in transferring in the war time. The last solution is hiding, place relics and art works in safe place.

     Rescuing and protecting the relics and art works from the wars is a very hard but important work. I have said that art work and cultural relics represent a culture’s highest achievement in different period. If they are destroyed, it is not only this culture’s damage, but also it is the loss in the world. And about the wars, we just can pray that there is no wars one day.

Work Cited

Thomas, Greg M. “Yuanming Yuan/Versailles: Intercultural Interactions between Chinese and

                 European Palace Cultures.”  Art History (2009)2:115-143. Academic Search Complete.

                 Web. 13 April 2016. 

Workert, Katrin and Juby Candice M. “rotection of Iraqi cultural property since the war 2003:

                  The international legal framework, failures and implications for the future.”  

                   International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies. (2011)10: 131-147.  Academic

                   Search Complete.  Web. 13 April 2016. 

Yuankai, Tang. “A Painting Tells Its Story.” Beijing Review (2011)5:40-41. Academic Search

                  Complete.  Web. 13 April 2016.