Comment du Jour

National Palace Museum, Taipei. The 100 celebrates the hundredth year of the founding of the Republic of China. Below, an ad poster for the Mucha Exhibit.



Taipei, Taiwan and the Arts


Though long known and respected for the amazing National Palace Museum, a splendid repository of Chinese Culture and Civilization, Taipei has in recent years become an increasingly international city--one infused with European arts and trends which stand side by side with the ageless Chinese Civilization.

Revisiting the Republic of China on Taiwan, I'm reminded that besides the socio/economic dynamism and prosperity of this East Asian island, there's a thriving arts scene. Again without question, the National Palace Museum is THE PLACE for viewing China's dynastic history which after all, ended just a century ago in 1911.

Put the spectacular and important Bronzes, jades, scrolls and vases aside though for a fleeting moment, there 's also the chance to view important European art.

The famed Czech artist Alphonse Mucha is presently being celebrated at an exhibit
"Art Nouveau and Utopia." Presented in the Library of the National Palace Museum, the exhibit from Prague's Mucha Museum offers over 200 items ranging from posters, paintings and sculpture from the 19th century and early 20th century artist.

While Art Nouveau has long defined Mucha, largely due to his extraordinarily productive time in Paris in the glittering 1890's. His iconic portrait of Gismonda, the play starring Sarah Bernhardt, made this son of Moravia an European sensation.

Still the fact remains that the artist was a keen Slav nationalist who saw his work as a mythical and symbolic call to Czech nationalism despite the rule of the Austrian monarchy. His Slav Epic epiotimized the struggle for freedom and sovereignty. The exhibit's curator Tomoko Sato told the media, "He became a very keen nationalist who worked for the independence of his country."

An independent Czechoslovakia emerged after the carnage of the First World War; interestingly Mucha provided many of the symbols and currency of the new state.

John Mucha the artist's grandson and president of the Prague Mucha Museum told the media, "We want to dynamite, and I deliberately use the word dynamite, the concept that Alphonse was just an Art Nouveau artist." Without question, Alphonse Mucha was a profoundly important and influential Czech nationalist who died in 1939 and who is being introduced to Taipei.