It's that awesome continuity that one remembers most after walking through this show. All these objects, large and small, these jade shrouds and gold dishes, these phoenixes and statues, blank eyes and bronze bells somehow come together, as if by agreement, in one harmonious and jagged, spiky and continuous flowing stream. The Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities provided an indemnity, the Henry Luce Foundation funded the research, and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation helped pay for the catalogue. Eastman Kodak sponsored the exhibition here. It is good that it's on view next door to the Capitol.
American politicians intent on chiding China ought to see it.
Perhaps they'll understand why China, immense China, pays them slight attention. Our country, though a great one, seems a sort of pipsqueak, a new kid of a nation when viewed against the immensity of history, and the immensity of Chinaness, revealed by this show.