has the largest collection of Chinese art in the world.
The museum now lists 620,250 pieces. In comparison, the Louvre has 35,000 works of art. This is an apples and oranges comparison to some extent since the Louvre has pieces of unmatched quality. The Louvre also focuses on paintings while most of the pieces in the National Palace Museum are not paintings. Still the National Palace Museum does have 50,000 paintings! Sadly only a small part of the National Palace Museum is on display at any given time due to a lack of space. I have visited both the Louvre and the National Palace Museum and I would say it takes about 3-4 days to check out the Louvre while the National Palace Museum takes half a day to see such is the extreme disparity in facilities between the two museums. The lack of space for the collection of the National Palace Museum is a scandal since Taiwan does not have a top 100 tourist attraction and could with more space have one of the top museums in the world and a top 100 tourist attraction. A vastly expanded National Palace Museum would be a special draw for mainland Chinese tourists.
Mainland China has the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City and once the two collections were part of single collection. The collection was split after the Chinese Civil War. Is there any way to reunite these two incredible collections that are symbols of the common Chinese culture that Taiwan and Mainland China share?
I propose the both collections could be united in a Virtual Chinese Reunification Palace. Most of the collections of both museums exist in photographic digital form already. What if these pieces were displayed in a 3D environment the user could “walk through” online? In addition tools could be added that would users to make their own version of a Virtual Chinese Reunification Palace and this could be an assignment that school children on both sides could work on together.
This project would aid the cause of peaceful reunifcation between mainland China and Taiwan.
An article about this topic that appeared in the International Herald Tribune shortly after I published this post at:
Many leaders world wide are asking for a cease fire in Gaza. This assumes that Hamas is a rational organization and that compromise is possible. Watch the following videos and decide for yourself.
