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Art in giving wisdom
2020-12-03 
A bronze gui food receptacle and lid of the Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century-256 BC) from Rong Geng's former collection on show at the National Art Museum of China. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

Scholar, connoisseur and collector of Chinese antiquities, Rong Geng, spent a lifetime accumulating artistic and cultural rarities.

Rong Geng (1894-1983), a scholar of Chinese paleography, educator and connoisseur of antiquities, is little known to the general public. However, his extensive studies of ancient Chinese writings and his former collection of archaic oracle bones and bronzes continue to enrich people's cultural life.

In his lifetime, Rong donated to the State nearly 200 bronze objects ranging in age and variety, with the oldest dating back more than 2,000 years, all of which are now housed at numerous public museums and universities.

It is believed that, to this day, Rong's donation is still the largest made by any private collector of such antiquities to the country.

The manuscript of Rong's Investigation of Inscriptions on Ancient Bronzes at the show. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

He also donated more than 1,000 classical Chinese ink paintings and calligraphy works, one of the largest submissions of ancient art on paper the country has received.

Rong once said, "Knowledge should be shared and used by all people."

Mr Rong's Great World, an exhibition currently underway at the National Art Museum of China, and set to run through Monday, unfolds the diverse spiritual and cultural world of the learned scholar, offering a glimpse of his wide range of knowledge, his devotion to education and his generosity in sharing his love and findings with people.

On show are nearly 300 objects, including paintings, calligraphy works, carved seals, manuscripts, letters and books once owned by Rong, which not only reflect his academic accumulation over the years, but form the basis for his becoming such a well-rounded scholar in the realm of Chinese cultural traditions.

Visitors look at bronze cymbals of the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC) at the museum. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

More importantly, the exhibition pays tribute to Rong's selfless donations throughout the decades of his art, antiques and ancient books to public museums in Beijing and Guangzhou, where he worked for years, and Dongguan his birthplace in Guangdong province.

After Rong died, his family bequeathed more of Rong's collected items and documents to museums, universities and other cultural institutions.

Rong obtained a bachelor's degree in Chinese studies at Peking University. He later taught at prestigious schools including Yenching University, Peking University and Sun Yatsen University in Guangzhou, where he co-founded a paleography institution in 1956, the first of its kind in Chinese higher education.

Rong built a reputation amid academic circles for his connoisseurship of ancient art and his in-depth studies of the characters inscribed on the oracle bones and ancient bronzeware that he collected.

His collection of rarities include a bronze fou jar inlaid with gold. It dates back at least 2,200 years and bears two characters luan shu, which is believed to be the name of a senior court official at the time it was made.

It cost Rong a large sum of money to buy the jar from an antique dealer, which he described as "a bold, extravagant deal", and he said "the jar is inlaid with 40 gold characters, a sole example of its kind, and whoever owned it was extremely well positioned".

The jar is now in the collection of the National Museum of China. Together with two rubbings of the inscribed writings, it is on display at Mr Rong's Great World exhibition.

Late Chinese scholar and antiquity connoisseur Rong Geng. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Rong's assembly of classical Chinese paintings also inspires envy among collectors in the field. Among his former collection were works by master painters of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), as well as by all the members of the "four great painters surnamed Wang of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)".

Rong Pu, a daughter of Rong Geng, says, "From 1956 until his death, father had donated these treasures-which he purchased by saving on food and clothes-to the country so that more people could study them for academic purposes."

Rong wrote books that he viewed as another way to share his extensive research of the ancient writing. They are widely acknowledged among scholars and collectors and today, they remain important references for researchers.

A painting by Wang Xuetao from Rong's former collection on show. [Photo provided to China Daily]

One such book, Investigation of Inscriptions on Ancient Bronzes, was first published in 1923. Its manuscript, now in the collection of Institute of Ancient Writing of Sun Yat-sen University, is also on display at the exhibition.

Late historian and expert of ancient Chinese writing Li Xueqin once said the book is "a work of authority" and another of Rong's books, A General Examination on Bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, first published in 1941, is "hardly rivaled even till today" in terms of the extent and scope of its content.

Shao Dazhen, a professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, says the exhibition best conveys not only the knowledgeable breadth Rong achieved, but also, his open-minded spirit, which is key to encouraging exploration and to discovering people of talent.

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