The Shanghai Museum is located at the center of the People's
Square. It's orginally location was built in 1952, and the
museum has a collection of over 120,000 rare ancient Chinese
art works including ancient Chinese paintings, bronze artifacts,
ceramics, coins, and calligraphy. The design of the building
itself is also unique. The top part of the building is round,
and the base is a square - symbolizing the ancient belief
of a round heaven and a square earth.
The Shanghai Museum was originally opened to the public
in the building that was previously the horse racing club
at Nanjing Road in 1952. In 1959, the Museum was moved to
the former Zhonghui Building on Henan Road, and finally
in 1992, the new Shanghai Art Museum was relocated to its
current location - at the center of the People's Square.
Construction took three years from 1993 to 1996. The new
building has a display area of 39,200 square meters.
New Shanghai Art Museum Show Rooms
The Museum has eleven galleries and three exhibition halls.
The Shanghai Museum is especially famous for its collection
of bronze artifacts. A 1,200 square meter show room houses
more than 400 pieces of beautifully decorated bronze artifacts.
These give a good representation of the development of the
Chinese society during the period from 18th century BC to
3rd century BC.
Here's a list of the many categories of exhibitions on
display at the New Shanghai Art Museum:
- ancient bronze artifacts
- ancient Chinese ceramics
- gallery of Chinese calligraphy
- all types of Chinese paintings
- gallery of Chinese seals
- gallery of Chinese coins
- Chinese ancient sculpture
- jade items
- furniture gallery from the Ming and Qing Dynasties
- Chinese minority arts and crafts
The gallery of ancient Chinese sculpture has more than
120 sculptures on display. It has sculptures from the warring
states period (475 - 221 BC), buddha statues from the Northern
Wei Dynasty (386 - 534), pottery figures from the Tang Dynasty
(618 - 907), and so much more.
The new Shanghai Art Museum also has about 7,000 pieces
of ancient Chinese coins on display. These coins are made
from a wide variety of metals including gold, silver, iron,
bronze, and copper. In the gallery of furniture, you will
see ancient furniture from the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644)
and Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). I can go on all day about the wide variety of historical
items on display at the new Shanghai Art Museum, but that
would take several more pages of writing. You really have
to tour the museum and see for yourself all the treasures
stored there. In a nutshell, while visiting the Shanghai
Museum, you will feel like you've gone back in time and
witnessed first hand the development of the Chinese culture
and society, and its arts and crafts. |
