Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
James Martin, S.J.November 02, 2010

Leo J. O'Donovan, SJ, president emeritus of Georgetown University, is always on the lookout for art exhibitions that readers might find of interest.  Recently he visited a new show at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been receiving raves for its creative curation: "The World of Khubilai Khan."  (Khan has apparently changed his name since my eighth-grade social studies class, when he was plain old Kubla.)  Fr. O'Donovan's review begins:

If you have ever wondered what the great city of Xanadu in Northern China looked like when Marco Polo arrived there around 1275, you can get a good idea by visiting New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where “The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty” will be dazzling today’s travelers for the next several months.

Made possible by remarkable loans—half from China itself, most of the other half from museums in the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, England and Germany—this is one of the Met’s most ambitious shows ever. It is accompanied by “The Yuan Revolution: Art and Dynastic Change,” drawn mostly from the Met’s own holdings and an event in itself.

From the moment you enter the Khubilai Khan show, passing between two enormous stone sentinel figures from Beijing, you are in a wholly other world, one of autocratic power but also highly refined artistic skill and sensibility. Khubilai Khan (1215–1294), grandson of Genghis Khan, was an accomplished administrator, if also an incorrigible imperialist. Early in life he became deeply interested in Chinese culture and in 1271, even before completing his conquest of the great land to the south in 1279, he inaugurated the Yuan (“beginning”) Dynasty, which lasted until 1368. Portraits of the Great Khan himself and of his favorite consort, Chabi—actually cartoons for what would be larger portraits woven in silk—welcome you to the daily life of their time, and especially their court.

Read the rest here.

UPDATE: A slideshow of select images from the Met exhibit is now available.

James Martin, SJ

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Pope Leo XIV urged new archbishops to help him foster unity in a church rich in diversity. Eight of those new archbishops are from the United States, and they spoke to Catholic News Service about how they can help promote fraternity in today’s polarized world.
This week on “Jesuitical,” Zac and Ashley chat with Christopher White about his new book, ‘Pope Leo XVI: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.’
JesuiticalJune 30, 2025
Kerry Weber, incoming president of the Catholic Media Association, and executive editor of America Magazine, speaks June 26, 2025, during the Catholic Media Conference in Phoenix. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)
Kerry Weber is an executive editor for America. On May 20, 2025, the Catholic Media Association announced that she was elected president,
Grace LenahanJune 30, 2025
"The whole church needs fraternity, which must be present in all of our relationships, whether between lay people and priests, priests and bishops, bishops and the pope," he said during his homily at Mass on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29.