Dear China Coast Friends

I came across an interesting article in the May 2013 Orientations magazine dealing with Western perspective and Western influenced portrayal of humans in a landscape setting in Chinese art. The author of the article is Rosalien van der Poel, a PhD candidate at Leiden University Graduate School for Humanities. She discussed seven paintings from the museum for Ethnology, Leiden ( where she is an associate researcher), mainly oil on canvas known as " Winter Views of Tartary ". Most of the paintings are dated to c.1800. The paintings are fairly large and show Manchu figures in typical Chinese clothes and accessories and set in a rocky winter landscape but with Western perspective, and with the figures prominently portrayed in the foreground - not in the shadow of and dwarfed by the landscape. Ms. Poel suggests that the mountains and trees could perhaps have been modeled after 16th and 17th century scenes by European landscape artists. She also refers to several Chinese artists (including Wu Bin shown below), who experimented with Western perspective and may have also influenced these winter landscapes.
"Winter Landscape", from Winter Views in Tartary, oil on canvas, Height 64cm/25" and width 95 cm/ 37.5", National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden.
Detail of Landscape by Wu Bin (fl. c. 1568-1626), painted 1610, , handscroll, ink and colors on paper, width 35.6 cm/14", length 1005.8cm/ca. 33'.
The author mentions one early work that made its way to China to a Jesuit mission in Nanchang in 1708 - the Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1572-1616), edited by Georg Braun and with engravings by Franz Hogenberg. These were 546 scenes, bird-eye views and map views of cities from all over the world.

It is always fascinating to figure out - who brought Western painting techniques and Western subject matters to China. We know of the Jesuit painters at Court, under the patronage of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong who furthered Western influenced art - which in turn contributed to the emergence of Chinese export art.

Eventually traders allowed into the south of China made up for the waning influence by artists in the north - with Cantonese artists creating massive China Trade export art in such areas as ceramics, paintings, lacquer, screens and silver.

I recently appraised a vey well executed and exceptional Chinese tapestry with abundant Chinese symbols, metaphors, homophones and puns, showing two putti or winged angles taken right out of a baroque painting. Art travels globally then as well as now.

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We now have a BOOK BLOG, found on The China Coast Homepage under book blog - where I highlight books that strike my fancy, that I have recently acquired or think that they would help us learn more about Asian art. Check it out!

And last but not least, we have a new shopping cart. Credit Cards & Checks are accepted as before.

Thank you and into a hot Texas summer!

Elisabeth
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