The new Chimei Museum in southern Greater Tainan opened on Thursday, with exhibits featuring Western paintings and sculptures, musical instruments, ancient weapons and animal fossils.
Visitors packed the main building — a 40,000m3 white European-style structure at Tainan Metropolitan Park — while a choir sang in the main hall during the official opening ceremony.
The museum is currently displaying between 6,000 and 7,000 items, roughly half of its entire collection.
Photo: Lin Meng-ting, Taipei Times
Some of the most valuable pieces include Saint Martin and the Beggar, a 16th-century painting by Spanish artist El Greco; the bronze sculpture Theseus Slaying the Centaur Bianor created by French sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye in 1860; and a 1907 bronze version of The Kiss by French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
A 16th-century violin made by Italian Luthier Andrea Amati and a stuffed polar bear are also among the outstanding displays.
The Chimei Museum has one of the largest collections of violins in the world, as well as significant collections of ancient weapons and Western paintings and sculptures.
The building itself, which took four years to build, is an eye-catching structure with a European-style design.
In the forecourt is a replica of the Fountain of Apollo, which depicts the Greek sun god Apollo rising from the sea at daybreak in his four-horse chariot. The original sculpture was created by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Tuby (1635-1700) for the palace of Versailles.
Between the main structure and the fountain is a bridge lined on both sides with statues of 12 gods and goddesses from Greek mythology.
Chi Mei Group founder Hsu Wen-lung (許文龍), an art and music lover, established the Chi Mei Cultural Foundation in 1977 to collect artworks and artifacts from around the world.
In 1992, the Chimei Museum was established at the Tainan headquarters of plastics producer Chi Mei Corp. Over the years the museum has expanded its collection and now has over 13,000 objects, mainly pieces of Western art, musical instruments, weaponry and animal specimens.
All of the objects are set to be transferred to the new venue, which was built at a cost of about NT$2 billion (US$63.11 million).
In November last year, Hsu said that as a child he used to visit a small museum, and later realized that artistic and cultural resources were scarce in southern Taiwan.
He vowed then to establish a museum that would be accessible for everyone, he said, adding that the items exhibited in the Chimei Museum are easily accessible to the public.
Visitors to the museum are required to reserve tickets online at least one day in advance. A regular ticket price of NT$200 applies to non-Tainan residents, while residents of the city get in free. Students and individuals over 65 years are charged NT$150, while children under six and members of disadvantaged groups are also admitted free of charge.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS