Splendors of imperial China

Magazine Antiques, March, 1996 by Anita Siu

From the time Confucianism was adopted as the state ideology in the second century B.C., Chinese emperors were reminded to look beyond military exploits and aim at governing by virtue and example. An exemplary ruler had to be confident yet humble, fully aware of his place at the end of a long imperial lineage to which he was related not necessarily by blood but, more importantly, by heavens mandate. He should honor his ancestors, encourage learning, and promote agriculture. He also had to be introspective and capable of dispensing moral guidance. These functions often pertained more to role-playing and court rituals than to real life, but they were so central to Confucian discourse that they tended to have the same effect as truth.

Having received a traditional Confucian education as a Manchu prince, Qianlong understood the importance of these ideal images, and during his reign he contributed to the state ideology by living these symbolic roles and using official literature as an instrument for self-glorification. To demonstrate his deference to his grandfather Kangxi, he emulated the latter's deeds while skillfully furthering his own ends. For example, between 1684 and 1707, a period of imperial consolidation, Kangxi had traveled to the southeast coastal provinces in order to inspect flood-control work and to assert his mandate to rule. Between 1751 and 1784 Qianlong took six inspection tours of the same provinces, but he did so simply to indulge in the pleasures of travel and the veneration he received along the way. In order not to exceed his grandfather's reign of sixty years, Qianlong abdicated in 1796, becoming the first emperor in Chinese history to step down in glory (although he remained an important figure at court until his death three years later).

Qianlong was determined to stay ahead of the entire empire when it came to art collecting. The modest collection of paintings and calligraphy assembled by Kangxi was totally eclipsed by the art treasures accumulated during Qianlong's reign. A total of 5,628 paintings and examples of calligraphy were catalogued and ranked in Bidian Zhulin Shiqu Baoji, while the Xiqing Gujian, Ningshou Jiangu, and Xiqing Yanpu listed, respectively, the ancient bronzes and jades, ink-stones, and coins in the imperial collection. An obvious model for these antiquarian catalogues was the Xuanhe Bogutu, compiled during the reign of Huizong (r. 1101-1125). By vigorously collecting ancient objects and sponsoring series of catalogues based on historical models, Qianlong addressed the Chinese elite's concern for cultural continuity and demonstrated that the Manchu dynasty was capable of rising to the task.

Qianlong sought the best examples of indigenous Chinese art, favoring works dating from remote antiquity to the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) and from the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties. In terms of painting and calligraphy, he collected every significant extant work produced through the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), primarily acquiring them by purchasing or confiscating large private collections, such as those assembled during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by notable collectors such as Liang Qingbiao (1620-1691), Geng Zhaochong (1640-1686), Zao Shigi (1645-1703), and An Qi (1683-c. 1744). He also received many objects as gifts during his six inspection tours and at various annual auspicious occasions, such as the new year and his birthday.

Interestingly, despite his enthusiasm for ancient paintings, Qianlong's interest in contemporary painting was purely pragmatic, viewing it primarily as a way to record imperial activities and court events. Among the artists serving his court were a number of European Jesuit missionaries who were willing to work in exchange for the chance to advance the cause of their church in China. The Chinese court admired the three dimensionality that European painting achieved in portraiture [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE IV OMITTED], but in landscape painting they clearly preferred the Chinese mode, with expressive brushwork and stylized "texture strokes," which evoked the texture of rocks. Applying European painting principles to the Chinese mediums of ink and brush, mineral pigments, and silk produced a unique kind of painting, represented by the hanging scroll shown in Plate I. While the painting represents a still life in its own right, it also commemorates the auspicious occurrence of multi-headed grain and twin lotus at the time of Yongzheng's ascension to the throne in 1723, and thus was essentially a part of the official record.

In addition to paintings, the imperial collection includes ancient bronzes and jade carvings, as well as exquisite porcelain and carved lacquers. Taken together, the ancient treasures in the collection were intended to illuminate the long history of Chinese culture and stand as tangible symbols of the golden eras gone by.

From a Confucian perspective, the earliest dynasties, the Xia, Shang, and Zhou (from the third millennium B.C. to 256 B.C.) saw not only the foundation of Chinese culture, but also the achievement of an ideal society in which sage kings ruled by their virtues instead of military prowess. Thus, ancient ritual bronzes, used for offering sacrifices and honoring royal ancestors, came to be seen as testimonials to the emperor's mandate to rule. The ponderous tripod vessel (ding) shown in Plate II, with animal-mask decoration on the horizontal band, was cast in the early Western Zhou dynasty. By using the animal-mask motif, adopted from the bronzes of the late Shang dynasty, the Zhou king laid claim to a cultural footing equal to that of the Shangs, and by using such a bronze he proclaimed that the right to offer sacrifices to heaven, reserved only for the legitimate ruler, had now passed to him.