Japan and design in early Chinese export art

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2000 by KEE IL CHOI, Jr.

Art made for export to Europe, especially porcelain, had been produced in China since the early sixteenth century, but in a very real sense a qualifiable tradition of what we now call Chinese export art did not begin to emerge until the late seventeenth century. The opening of the port of Canton (now Gouangzhou) in 1698 to direct, sustained trade with the West [1] led to normalized artistic contact between an insatiable European clientele and the Chinese artisans. This, in turn, had the salutary consequence of regularizing the marketplace for export art, including the establishment of standards of quality across the range of decorative arts produced -- hardwood furniture, lacquer, metalwork, carvings, enamels, paintings, and porcelain. Overseeing the transactions, from initial order to final delivery, must have been the ever-present, now faceless, figure of the Chinese artist-merchant, in effect a kind of arbiter of export art akin in influence to the marchands-merciers of Paris. [2] In short, satisfying Eur opean tastes gave rise over the course of the century to a coherent tradition of Chinese export art.

However, this tradition did not simply appear from nowhere; it was rooted in the fertile soil of the seventeenth century, a period in which, as Craig Clunas has shown, an urban market became at least as significant for the production of fine objects in China as the scholar's studio or the imperial court. [3] During this period, the moneyed classes sought works of art for the status they conveyed, and professional artists themselves -- painters and craftsmen alike -- often attained near celebrity status for their work. Another factor that contributed to the growth of art as a commodity during the mid- to late Ming period was the easy accessibility of designs made possible by the broad dissemination of woodblock prints. In addition, by the second half of the seventeenth century the marketplace was as attuned to the vagaries of contemporary taste, especially the introduction of yang shi, or "oceanic styles," including those transmitted by Western prints, as it was grounded in traditional Chinese art. The Europe an traders in Canton simply represented yet another clientele to be serviced by the fluid, receptive Chinese art marketplace.

This article addresses some problems of form and meaning posed by a visually allied group of Chinese objects probably made for export in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. An understanding of this group not only includes the identification of possible design sources but also an appraisal of what the Chinese artisans were trying to convey in their selection of images of Westerners. This analysis will try to offer as much insight into the cultural biases of the Chinese as into the working methods of the artisans. In previous articles I have explored the impact of Western design sources on the formulation of export art. [4] Here I will examine the use of design sources from Japan, brought to China through the inter-Asian maritime trade plied by the Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, and Japanese.

The heretofore unpublished Chinese porcelain beaker vase shown in Plates II, IIa, and IIb is datable to about 1700. Painted on the elongated body is what appears to be a European subject, albeit not one immediately identifiable with a known Western print or other design source. [5] Close analysis reveals that the surface has been used as a somewhat crowded canvas onto which have been painted what appears to be a series of visually disparate, thematically unrelated land and sea motifs. Near the foot is a square-rigged, Western-style vessel flying what looks like a Dutch flag, replete with cannon and manned by disproportionately sized European seamen, and a small footbridge with two more Europeans, both motifs set amid highly stylized foaming waves. On the bulb is painted a small land mass across which rides a demurely clad lady of indeterminate nationality in a sort of covered chariot. Around the neck is a continuous cityscape, interrupted by a tree and rockwork, comprised of small buildings peopled by more E uropeans, and a town gate through which passes a mounted figure wearing a hat, followed closely by a hatless parasol-bearer on foot. The Europeans, probably Dutchmen, are rendered with humor but also in some detail. They are portrayed carrying potbellies, smoking clay pipes, and garbed in tunics with full sleeves and stockings that rise to the knee. There is some attempt to suggest the difference between officers of rank, who wear hats, and ordinary seamen, who do not.

The exuberance of the drawing in general and the caricature-like nature of the figures and their facial features in particular suggest that the source for the design was not European. The ship itself is but a cartoon of a Western vessel, betraying the hand of an artisan who was unfamiliar with its true lines or rigging. Moreover, the figures aboard it are depicted with exaggerated physiques in a manner that is wholly un-European. It seems most likely that the Chinese artisan who painted the vase was working from a design that was characterizing, perhaps satirizing, Europeans. A likely key to this source is offered by a group of three Coromandel, or Bantam, lacquer screens datable to the late seventeenth century, two of which are illustrated here (Pl. III and Fig. 1). [6]