The Forbidden Empire

Two continents and five centuries are spanned and visual strategies collide as Belgian artist Luc Tuymans and Yu Hui, curator of the Palace Museum in Beijing, initiate a dialogue about art from the Low Countries and art from China during the same period. Drawings and paintings by Van Eyck, Brueghel, Ruebens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Ensor, Mellery, Spilliaert and Magritte are considered alongside works on paper and silk from the Ming and Qing dynasties through the early Chinese Republic. We try to open up the dialogue via the visual image, without detracting from the two traditions, says Tuymans. How do the artists depict movement? How do they deal with distance and detail? With scale and depth? The Forbidden Empire is published in conjunction with an exhibition traveling from the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels to the Palace Museum in Beijing, which has been housed in the Forbidden City since the 1920s.