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Escaping the Tumultuous World on Tranquil Rivers
Marks 120 years of the East Asian Art Collection with the fisherman motif in Chinese painting, a symbol of escape from a turbulent world.
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Hongren's album of fishermen in landscapes carries a postscript dated 1660, and like every fisherman in this room, his have no names. In Chinese painting that anonymity was the point: the fisherman stood for an official who had walked away from a life of service while wars between dynasties tore the country apart.
The paintings fill Room 319 on the third floor, the Museum of Asian Art's rotating "Artists and Connoisseurs" room, to mark 120 years of Berlin's East Asian art collection. They run from a Yuan-dynasty river landscape attributed to Tang Di to a fan painted in 1948. You read each calm river twice: the museum points out that an empty boat with a loose rope can mean freedom, or a home someone had to flee.
It's one room of scrolls and album leaves, covered by the €9 collections ticket and fully wheelchair accessible. The last open day is Monday 29 March 2027.
Look for
Wang Chen's Sunset over the Fishing Village
The show's lead image: an 18th-century Qing album leaf of a fishing village at sunset, with a written postscript by Wang Wenzhi.
A 1948 fan of fishermen and river snow
Wu Jingting painted the joys of fishermen on the river and snow over the river on one fan, with calligraphy by Luo Fukan, later mounted as an album leaf.
Jin Junming's Boat on the Lake
Look for an album leaf of a boat on a lake, dated 1675, the year the painter died.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want a big special exhibition: this is one rotating room of scrolls inside the Asian art galleries.
Free in the same building
- Flashbacks36 objects placed throughout the building in unconventional settings, each recalling a moment from the site's history.
- History of the SiteFree displays covering 800 years of Schlossplatz, from medieval cellars and palace sculptures to the Palace of the Republic, with original objects and media stations.
- Impressions. The Humboldt BrothersFree display on Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt's lives, curiosity and cosmopolitan worldview, in the ground-floor stairwell hall.
- Palace CellarFree walk through the archaeological remains of a medieval monastery and the original palace foundations beneath the building.
- The Gate of SanchiFree full-scale replica of the East Gate of the Great Stupa of Sanchi, a UNESCO World Heritage site in India, installed outside on the Lustgarten side.
Also at Humboldt Forum
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Image credits
9
- Escaping the Tumultuous World on Tranquil RiversCourtesy of Humboldt Forum
- A Country in a Container – The Disposal of East German State SymbolsCourtesy of DDR Museum
- Founded on Antiquity: Berlin's First MuseumPhoto: Johannes Laurentius
- Nature and German History. Faith – Biology – PowerCourtesy of Deutsches Historisches Museum
- Humboldt ForumMike Peel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- DDR MuseumAndreas Praefcke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- Altes MuseumJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Deutsches Historisches MuseumAvda / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain