Top: The larger piece of the famed painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, also called the Wu-yung Version, is kept at the Palace Museum in Taipei. Above: The Broken Mountains, the smaller part of the famed painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, is kept at the Zhejiang Museum. Blow: Ho Chuan-hsing, Director of the Department of Painting and Calligraphy of Taipei Palace Museum, is recently invited to give a lecture on the painting to students of City University. Provided to China Daily

It's been over three centuries since the famed painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains was split in two by a fire. Art experts on both sides of the Taiwan Straits now are working amid the new spirit of cooperation to reunite the two pieces at a special exhibition. Guo Jiaxue reports.

Fifty-nine-year-old Ho Chuan-hsing stood with barely concealed excitement as he gazed for the first time upon The Broken Mountains, one part of the famed painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.

Ho could not be more familiar with the other, larger part of the Wu-yung version of the painting, that resides in the Taipei Palace Museum, where Ho works as Director of the Department of Painting and Calligraphy of the museum.

Yet it was not until early May that Ho was able to stand in the gallery of the Zhejiang Museum to view the smaller segment of the painting that once was consigned to the flames in an act of caprice by its dying owner, nearly four centuries ago.

"It's preserved very well. Definitely the two pieces can be combined to (form) one. The burnt area, the half-seal in each piece are perfectly matched," Ho told China Daily excitedly after a recent lecture he was invited to give on the painting to students of City University.

Decades of nurturing in Chinese classic arts have made Ho a sedate personality. Yet speaking of his first meeting with the piece of painting, his voice rose with passion.

"Some said the drawing technique in this piece is not consistent with the Wu-yung Version, but I am sure there is no problem with that. The painter spent three to four years on it. His drawing style changed during the time, at first implicit and moderate, later free and easy.

"Seeing is believing, so that we can have confidence in speech," he added.

Ho felt fortunate to be among the few to see both pieces of the famed painting by Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) painter Huang Kungwang. The painting was among the last works by the artist. During the early part of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), as a wealthy man surnamed Wu lay on his deathbed in Yixing, a small city along Lake Tai, he decided to burn his treasured collection of Chinese paintings that had been in his family for three generations. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains was one of the paintings tossed into the fire. Just as the flame leapt onto the long handscroll, Wu's nephew seized the painting and saved the priceless treasure from destruction. The work was heavily damaged, severed in two, with several holes burnt into its surface.

Centuries later, in 1956, the smaller piece known as The Broken Mountains was in the Zhejiang Museum. The larger piece also called the Wu-yung Version was earlier spirited away by the fleeing Kuomintang at the end of the Civil War. It found its place at the Palace Museum in Taipei. The two pieces have been separated across the Straits for over 60 years.

A joint exhibition of the two pieces appears in the offing for next year, at the Taipei Palace Museum, after Zhejiang agreed "in principle" to lend its piece to Taipei.

"Next year at the earliest," Ho said. "But they will come to the Palace Museum in Taipei, in about the middle of June, to confirm this."

Actually, as early as 2002, the idea of a joint exhibition of the painting was suggested, Ho said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was among those expressing a belief that the two parts of this painting could be brought together. "Don't drop 5,000 years of Chinese culture just because of 50 years of politics," he said. Wen's words rekindled passion over the fate of the painting's two pieces, and helped to start the process of bringing the two pieces together.

"At first we passed on messages through a middleman, the media. Then we started to communicate through letters," Ho recalled.

"To express our gratitude," Ho said, the Taipei Palace Museum organized a group visit to the Zhejiang Museum in early May. That marked the first time officials of the two parties sat down and talked face-to-face.

"In Taiwan, there are three views on this news (about the joint exhibition)," Ho noted. "The general public who love Chinese arts definitely hope to see the full painting. But there are also some people who see this from a political, partisan perspective. Some of those are in favor of cultural exchange, believing it carried symbolic meaning; some however think that we are echoing the mainland's idea."

"As a museum, we are holding the first opinion, from a purely cultural perspective," Ho said, stressing that the museum does not view the joint exhibition from a political perspective.

Naturally, the Zhejiang Museum as well as many people on the mainland expect a reciprocal exhibition, but Ho observes that appears a long way off.

The Taipei Palace Museum carefully guards its treasures and insists that mainland authorities first grant the painting immunity from judicial seizure laws.

"If any person, not necessarily the government, raises a reclaim, like 'these relics should belong to Beijing's Forbidden City', the (mainland) court will accept and go to judicial procedure," Ho explained.

"We are not only asking the mainland, but any host country. We have lent our relics to the US, Germany, France and Austria, all after they passed such laws. Japan is also inviting us, and they are still working on the laws, and may pass it very soon.

"They (the Zhejiang Museum) understands the situation and are willing to solve this. They have come up with many ideas, like issuing a guarantee letter, but, you know, (we are still worried because) it has no legal effect," he said.

The second threshold is the name of the museum. "The official name of our museum is 'National Palace Museum', it is the one and only in the globe, but the mainland may not accept it," Ho said.

The outstanding issues have created a situation in which cross-Straits exchanges have not been very reciprocal. "We also feel a little embarrassed about it," he said. "Last year, we borrowed 37 sets of relics from the Beijing Palace Museum, to hold the exhibition 'The Yongzheng Emperor and His Times'."

The Yongzheng exhibition Ho mentioned was an historic cooperation between the two palace museums, serving as an ice-breaker for further exchanges. Moreover, "in this year's exhibition, we borrowed three items from Liaoning, one from Shanghai, and 117 from six museums in Zhejiang, including calligraphy, paintings, and artifacts."

"Next, The Broken Mountains will come. And next year there will be another large exhibition 'the Kangxi Emperor and Louis XIV'. Then we will borrow several works from the Beijing Palace Museum again," his words coming in gushes of excitement.

"We have already had book and staff exchanges with Shanghai since 2008. And we will have more substantive exchanges in the future, including their coming to Taipei and joining our exhibition planning work, since we are more experienced in this area. We have many ideas."

"Cultural exchange has been the Taiwan administration's policy, while the collections of our museum have the best themes, since they were originally transferred from the mainland (in 1949)," he noted.

Comparing the collections of the two museums, "Taipei's collections have better quality generally. But Beijing also has some rare collections that are a part of folklore," Ho said frankly.

Sine mainlanders were allowed to travel to Taiwan in groups in 2008, the number of mainland visitors to Taipei Palace Museum has increased "by several times". "More than 6,000 everyday, more than 10,000 on holidays," Ho noted. "If the joint exhibition (of the painting) can be held next year, it will also be good news for them."

(HK Edition 06/03/2010 page2)