Edition: U.S. / Global

ART REVIEW; They Had Expensive Tastes

Published: August 31, 2001


A scale model of the palace, a walled enclave of residences, courts, gardens and temples, suggests a complete city in itself. Even so, the humongous show called ''Secret World of the Forbidden City: Splendors From China's Imperial Palace'' at the Peabody Essex Museum here, makes you wonder whether the complex is really big enough to house the more than one million objects kept in its chambers and storerooms. This extravaganza of a show is only a tiny sampling of those treasures, yet it packs the Peabody Essex galleries with a dazzling profusion of paintings, furnishings, decorative objects, clothes, uniforms, weapons, jewelry, sacred items, clocks and instruments, a throne room and even the last emperor's bicycle.

The palace was home to the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing dynasties, but it's the Qing that is the subject of this show. The dynasty was established by Manchurian conquerors from the north who unseated the Ming in 1644 and ruled China for 267 years.

It produced two great emperors. Kangxi -- known as the Louis XIV of China -- reigned from 1662 to 1722 and was a patron of the arts and learning. Qianlong ruled from 1736 to 1795 and was a superlative military tactician and culture lover, too. His reign brought the dynasty to a peak of power and wealth.

The Forbidden City, known as the Palace Museum since its gates were opened to the public in 1925, is today one of the world's great showcases of Chinese art. This exhibition, jointly organized by the Palace Museum and the redundantly named Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, Calif., after negotiations that began in 1992, includes more than 365 objects representing all phases of royal life. It is said to be the largest gathering of material ever lent by the palace.

Handsomely arranged in the Peabody Essex's capacious galleries, the show is divided into five sections: Imperial Portraits; The Emperor as Scholar; Court Ritual and Religion; Imperial Dress, Jewelry, Arms and Armor; and the Emperor as Collector of Art and Exotica. Each is more eye-popping than the one preceding it.

Chinese art of this period is nothing if not ornate, and the craftsmanship required by the royals makes it even more so. Intricately worked gold, fancily carved wood, baroquely decorated ceramics and lacquerware, heavily embroidered and beaded garments, gem-encrusted jewelry and minutely detailed paintings add up to a feast that tends toward the indigestible, almost demanding a palate clearing between courses.

In the beginning, there is a series of iconic full-length portraits of several emperors, the dowager empress Xiaosheng in a court robe (1751) and -- in smaller scale -- the concubines of her husband, the Yongzheng Emperor. European Jesuits invited to work in the palace brought in some devices of Western art, like perspective, and the Qing portraits are among the first paintings in China to incorporate them.

The paintings -- not unlike those in a current show of Qing portraits acquired from a private collector at the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington -- are monumental in size to stress the godlike authority of their sitters.

An arresting example is that of the Kangxi Emperor, the second Qing ruler, who ascended the throne as a child and reigned for 60 years. A scholar and philosopher, one of a sadly bygone breed who regarded politics and ethics as bound together, he is seated in his library against a background of Chinese stringbound books.

Done up in the bright blue robes of a scholar, he wears on his head a crimson hat in the shape of a lampshade, studded at mid-forehead with a large pearl.

His face is fittingly fixed in a nobly serious expression. European touches of realism in the painting are the linear perspective of the bookcases, the shadows on the wall and the 3-D modeling of the robe, all subject to scorn from Chinese painters who would have regarded such effects as overkill.

Nearby, an august Qing throne room has been assembled, each object in it redolent of power and good fortune. It includes a sandalwood screen decorated with red bats and clouds, the bats associated with sublime happiness; a sandalwood throne and footstool carved with Buddhist symbols of luck; and a pair of carved mythical beasts flanking the throne that represent the emperor's high standards of conduct. The symmetry of the room's arrangements bespeak the harmony of his rule.

One of the show's most resplendent sections is that devoted to costume, jewelry, arms and armor. The sumptuous court clothes and accessories of the royal family and attendants were strictly regulated by imperial decree as to color, ornamentation and other details.

The Manchurian conquerors were markedly different from the more civilized Ming Dynasty, but once in power they quickly adapted to Chinese tradition. For example, the ceremonial robes of the Qing Dynasty blended Chinese symbolism with reflections of the Manchurians' northern nomadic heritage. The billowing sleeves of robes worn in previous dynasties now fit tightly over the arms and were flared at the cuffs to protect the hands from the wind while riding. The robes were also slit on both sides for comfort in the saddle, even though the robes were strictly for show.

A portrait on a hanging scroll of the Qianlong Emperor, another longterm ruler who sat on the throne for almost 60 years, reveals this influence. He wears a heavily patterned robe of bright yellow (the imperial color) with the fitted sleeves and flared cuffs decreed by Manchurian tradition.

His head is topped by a red crown adorned with a gold finial and big Manchurian pearls. Around his neck he wears a long rope of stones, which is closely related to the Buddhist rosary of 108 beads reflecting the 108 evil temptations of humans.

Among the more spectacular women's ornaments here is an elaborate 19th-century diadem, woven of silk velvet ribbon on a rattan frame. Its intricately carved outer structure of bright blue enameled metal is enhanced by pearls, precious stones and gold with an inlaid design of kingfisher feathers depicting dragons, phoenixes and the character xi, for happiness. It could be the model for a Ziegfeld showgirl's headpiece.

A look at a scholar's studio is another dividend of this illuminating show. Scholar-officials loomed large on the Chinese political landscape, members of the cultural elite who, versed in calligraphy, philosophy, poetry and history, were appointed by merit to serve as government officials.

For political reasons, monarchs liked to present themselves as scholars and culture-lovers, persuading the populace that their reigns were based on an appreciation of finer things than wars and battles. The studio setup here contains examples of how a Qing emperor's study might be furnished.

An elaborately carved red sandalwood desk holds implements like a jade incense burner, writing tools in the form of brushes, ink stones, ink sticks, seals, arm rests, brush rests, brush holders, brush washers, paperweights, water pots and the like.

On another long, carved sandalwood table are a jade chess set and a seven-stringed zither, whose possession implied the emperor's musical skills.

On a wall hangs a poem by the Qianlong Emperor, written in the calligraphic style of a 17th-century master, demonstrating not only his knowledge of history but also his own accomplished brushwork.

Among other highlights are a long, immensely detailed hand scroll, one of 12 that commemorate the Qianlong Emperor's journey to the southern provinces; a brilliant array of ceremonial uniforms and armor; a silver-lidded bowl made from the skull of a high priest for use in obscure esoteric Buddhist ceremonies; and several elaborate clocks that include one combined with a music box.

About that bicycle: it belonged to Xuantong (1906-1967), better known by his personal name of Puyi, the subject of the Bertolucci film ''The Last Emperor.''

He ascended the throne at the age of 2 and was deposed after the dynasty fell in 1911.

The bike, then a novelty in China, was given to Puyi by his Scottish tutor, and Puyi liked to ride it around the Forbidden City grounds, where he was allowed to remain until 1924. After much travail, the last of the Qings became a humble gardener.

''Secret World of the Forbidden City: Splendors From China's Imperial Palace'' remains at the Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square, Salem, Mass., through Sept. 23, (978) 745-9500.

Photos: Treasures from China at the Peabody: Top, a portrait of the Kangxi Emperor in his library; right, a statue of Maitreya; left, one of Emperor Yongzheng's concubines. (Photographs from the Peabody Essex Museum)(pg. E25); The 1922 gilt silver seal of the concubine Duankang, from Beijing.; Portrait on silk of an 18th-century empress in the Forbidden City. (Photographs from the Peabody Essex Museum)(pg. E27)