Capital Museum

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I had decided to head to the Capital Museum to, hopefully, learn a bit more about Beijing. After reading conflicting advice online about whether one needs to book a ticket or not, I decided just to head there. From Muxidi Station on line one exit C1, it is a short walk to the museum. Since it was a weekday the museum was quite quiet, and there was no queue to get a ticket. However, you must present your passport to be scanned in order to get said ticket. There was some kind of event going on in the foyer, but since it was all in Chinese I didn't linger and headed straight for the nearest gallery. This one was a temporary exhibit entitled 'The Capital Cities of the Liao Dynasty'. I really need to read up on older Chinese history, as I am not great at knowing all the different dynasties; who ruled what, where and when. I don't think I'd ever heard of the Liao Dynasty. The Liao Dynasty had five capitals as each looked after a certain area, with Shangjing being the Supreme Capital. The other capitals had different functions depending on their locations. Xinjing was concerned with defence and Nanjing and Zhongjing were more involved with taxes and finance. I really liked the old crown and jewellery that was on display. Also the old faded artwork was good to look at trying to pick out the images and their meanings.

The gallery on the second floor was 'Ancient Capital, Chapter on the History and Culture of Beijing'. I think this was my favourite of all the galleries. It showed how Beijing had changed over the years. I liked that while showing the history of the city, there was also a timeline for international events going around the gallery, so you could see what major events were happening elsewhere at the same time. I really liked looking at the dioramas showing how life was a long, long time ago, but I also loved looking at the more modern, the advertisements and coupons on display. Chairman Mao's speech proclaiming the foundation of the People's Republic of China, which was made on 1st October 1949, was also playing. I really wish that the museum had an English transcript to read along to while it was playing. The paintings of Beijing in the past were good to look at and see how much this city has changed.

The third floor was under renovation, so I had to head straight up to the fourth floor. I headed towards the collection of Peking Opera Relics. That was also undergoing some renovations. So I headed to the gallery next door which was 'Selected Works of Ancient Porcelain'. Since porcelain was a Chinese invention, I thought that this exhibition would be pretty informative. The gallery started with pieces of porcelain from the Song, Liao and Jin periods. I think the dodgy English translation was trying to say that the Song Dynasty was when the first porcelain was produced or maybe the highest point? I am a little unsure. However, the information did make it clear that the Liao porcelain displayed the boldness, forthright nature of the nomadic tribes. During the Jin period, porcelain developed further and formed a unique style in glaze, shape and decoration. Then I moved on to the Yuan period, in which the government set up a special bureau to control the porcelain industry. This speeded up the development of ceramics and the blue and white design appeared. Next was the Ming Period, which established a factory to make articles for the palace using only the finest materials. Then it was on to the Qing Period. I am not normally a fan of looking at porcelain as I find it a bit samey, but I enjoyed looking at the different collections. I think it was because there was a good mix of stuff. It wasn't all plates. There were quite a few Buddha statues and some nice statues and vases. I really liked that there were a lot of colourful pieces, too.

The other gallery on this floor was called 'Selected Works of Ancient Buddhist Statues'. I did like the rather imaginative wording as Buddhism was referred to as a 'cultural phenomenon' rather than a religion, in the gallery's preface. It also mentioned that the different forms of Buddhism that came to China amalgamated and changed meaning that the Buddhist image art lost its Indian colour and took on Chinese artistic forms and cultural characteristics. This gallery was really interesting for me as I love Buddha statues and I enjoyed looking at them all and seeing the changes in style and form. Some of them were just so intricate. There was also a section about Chinese Tibetan Buddhist image art, which was interesting. Some of the statues were a little different in style due to the different influences. I wished that there had been longer English explanations of the different Buddhist statues as only their names were given.

Up on the fifth floor was an exhibit entitled 'Folk Customs in Old Beijing'. Unfortunately there were rather a lot of school children up here, but I managed to avoid them as best I could. The exhibition was done in the style of a hutong neighbourhood, which is the old traditional style of neighbourhood made up of lanes that can still be found in parts of Beijing. As you walk through each 'doorway' in the hutong, different local activities and traditions are explained. It was interesting to see the different things on display, and I liked that it contained a more modern history of Beijing, but most of it was stuff I already knew or had seen before. I wish there had been more first hand accounts of growing up or living in the hutongs as that would have made it more interesting. I headed back to where I had started and toyed with the idea of going to see the new exhibit in the basement, but I didn't think my attention span would last. On my way back to the subway station, I saw a poster for the new exhibition, it was about the Baroque Period in Silesia, and the art and handicrafts were on loan from the National Museum of Wroclaw, I'm pretty sure that was the museum I had visited when I was in Wroclaw back in January. It really is a small world. Anyway, the Capital Museum was pretty interesting. I will definitely try to head back there as I had skipped the exhibits in the cone area; the museum is split into two parts and I just focused on one part.

3rd Jan: I returned to the museum as I wanted to see the parts I had missed. Well, that was not to be as when I made my way over to the cone area, it was blocked off. The sign was only in Chinese and I think it had been closed since just after Christmas. I couldn't read it to know why, but I scanned the information to look for a future date that might give away when it would be re-opening, but there was nothing. Bugger! I didn't want to just leave, so I headed back to the exhibition on the third floor to look at that one again as I felt I went through it a little too quickly last time. The fourth floor was still closed but the gallery of Peking Opera Relics was now open. I was quite surprised when I walked in as it was a large room with an opera stage at the back and a screen with an opera being played on it. I can't say I am a fan of Peking Opera, but I feel like I kind of have to go to a show one day, so that I can say I have tried it and know for sure that I don't like it. There were quite a few different exhibits on display. I really liked the opera masks and the covers of the opera records. There were also small figurines on display that I think were acting out scenes from the opera.

In the basement, there was a temporary exhibition so I went for a look around that. The exhibition was entitled 'The Baroque Period in Silesia' and was a collection of art and handicrafts from the National Museum in Wroclaw, Poland. A slightly funny coincidence as I had visited Wroclaw in early 2018 pretty much exactly a year to the day when I was back in Europe. There was quite a lot of information telling you about Silesia, it's location and history. Baroque art arrived in Silesia about a century after it flourished in Italy due to instability wars in the region had created. Silesia was close to two of the centres of Baroque art; Vienna in Austria and Prague in Bohemia. Also Silesia had returned to being under the control of the Catholic Church meaning that the simple Protestant churches were replaced with the more Catholic church containing more flamboyant Baroque art. There were quite a few different statues and sculptures on display. I am not really a fan of the Baroque style as I find the angel statues a little freaky. I think it is the lack of eyes that creeps me out. The statues of more normal people were better. There were also some funerary shields on display. These were hung on the coffins of deceased members of guilds and fraternities of craftsmen. This practice was popular in Germany during the 16th to 20th centuries and also became very popular in Wroclaw. Initially, these funerary shields were made from fabrics such as silk and linen, later they were replaced by those made from brass or copper, and these in turn were replaced by silver shields which became popular in the mid 17th century. Although I didn't get to see what I wanted at the museum, my second trip wasn't a waste and I enjoyed having a look around. I had hoped to go back to see what I'd miss, but the opportunity never arose again. I hope I make it back there when visiting Beijing in the future.

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