The Great Tradition
I hope that wars and rumours of war in South-East Asia don't blind us to the fact that there is a splendid collection of Chinese art on display at the present time in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Organised by the Arts Council, the show is on loan by the American collector, John M. Murphy, and I see that together these sixty-seven works, are described as 'probably without rival among the private collections' of the west. Not only were many of the pieces once part of the Imperial collection in Peking, but the collection spans nearly a thousand years of Chinese art----the examples of calligraphy on display splendidly enhance the landscapes. It is easy to see from this collection why Mao Tse- tung is often called the last emperor, and even why he disdains with such aplomb various rhubarb-eating foreign devils such as Mr. Wilson.
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