The GF and I returned to the National Palace Museum, using two-for-one tickets we’d purchased a month or so ago when we went to its southern outpost in Chiayi, on the way back from Alishan. Social distancing measures have been imposed in Taiwan, and this mean that only 100 visitors were allowed into the museum at any given moment and we were all instructed to stay 1.5 metres apart at all times. This last instruction was not particularly well obeyed, especially I must say by young European men, but it did make for a very enjoyable museum trip. It reminded me of my greatest museum triumph, when I went to the blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci show at the National Gallery in London nearly a decade ago. It was almost impossible to get tickets, luckily I knew someone who worked in the art world and was able to arrange tickets for several of us. When our entrance came, I marched ahead to about halfway through the exhibition and then made my way through it in reverse until the I arrived at the start where the next group of timed entrants was just coming in. Then I dashed back to the middle and moved on at my own pace. So I went through it out of order but had each painting to myself; a rare experience in that crammed show.
The most famous treasure of the National Palace Museum, its jadeite cabbage, is in the southern branch at the moment. I saw it there for the second time last month, and it is very impressive and inexplicable, though not as inexplicable as the dongpo pork made of jasper which the public has designated the most important piece in the museum, a cogent argument for why there should be a licensure for the practice of art history. Of the famous treasure, far more to my taste are the ivory balls inside ivory balls and the ivory carvings more generally, the very lovely Ming era Dragon Fish vase, and the Qing Ming scroll paintings.
I was surprised to enjoy the rare printed books as much as I did. Of course they were all Chinese, but the clarity and fineness of the type was a real pleasure and I think the convention of printing, top to down, plenty of space, a clear classical typeface and the red rules around the text, make for a handsome page.
To get to the museum we took the MRT to Shilin and then walked along the river through a very pretty park filled with flowers. I think it’s one of those tended by local neighbourhood groups, as I saw an elderly man with trowel digging a hole in a grassy bank to plant a tree. It was a grey afternoon and quite warm and humid (later it rained hard), and the tall banks on either side of the river shielded us from the sound of traffic, though every now and then one of Taipei’s usual grim buildings would rear up over the barrier as a reminder that we were still in the middle of a dense city.
There is speculation amongst those who know that the BCG shot might be protective against the worst effects of the coronavirus. It’s all as yet untested of course but it would be a real blessing if it is protective, as it would give a chance to all the poor countries of the world where tuberculosis is rampant and BCG part of routine immunisation.