Yongle’s reign saw the development of a complex system of imperial art commissions to decorate the palaces in Beijing and Nanjing. Art also played a role in diplomatic relations with foreign allies and enemies alike: as the Son of Heaven, the Yongle emperor did not stoop to buying and selling art; instead he received tribute and presented gifts. All this and more will be part of the talk, so don’t miss it.

Art During the Reign of Eternal Happiness (1403-24) of the Ming Dynasty
by Michael Knight
February 9, 2012, 6:30 pm

Asian Art Museum, Education Studios
200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Free with general museum admission ($5 after 5pm)

Take out the hairpin,
See the reflection of the stream.
Lie in bed with books around,
Wake up to comb hair, half drunk.
– Xu Bing

These lines are adapted from a Tang-dynasty poem by Yu Xuanji 魚玄機 (842-72) titled, “Curing Yourself of Lovesickness” 遣懷.

Contemporary art and high fashion have long been partners-in-crime. Browsing the September 2011 issue of Vogue, I was delighted to come upon contemporary artist Xu Bing 徐冰 in one of the editorials! Xu is pictured here with a modeled Calvin Klein Collection shift, which, in my opinion, is a perfect pairing of a master of line and form in fashion (Klein) with a master of line and form in calligraphy (Xu). In fact, we are hoping to have Xu participate in our upcoming Chinese calligraphy exhibition (so, fingers crossed!).

Vogue Magazine (September 2011)

The writing here is unique. Xu developed a writing system that manipulates the English alphabet letters into the structure and appearance of Chinese characters. The writing system debuted in 1994-5 with his artwork Introduction to Square Word Calligraphy. With this system, the artist is investigating the extent to which the text (in any language) can be communicated as a symbol.

Deciphering Xu’s writing system is actually a fun game. So, I have a challenge for you: can you read the English that appears in this photo? You will need to view this photo in a mirror, unless you are skilled in reading backwards English. And I promise, these are English words. To give you a clue: the words in red read: “Xu Bing.”

I will return in a month to give you the answer. Happy decoding!

detail of back side

Including the two scriptures on the front, the scholar has identified two more scriptures inscribed on the back, making a total of four Buddhist scriptures. However, he was not able to find any names of donors that may have financed the creation of the stele.

detail of back inscription

right side view

This Chinese Buddhist stone stele (see below) is currently in art storage. It probably dates to 550-577 and depicts the Western Paradise of Amitabha. Once disregarded as either a subordinate stele or a much later reproduction, this stele is now gaining renewed scholarly interest.

B63S5+

The particular interest is in the stele’s inscriptions, actually. The most visible inscription is found on the bottom half of the front side. It contains “The Sutra of Buddha Talking about Guan Shi Yin” and “The Buddha Talking about the Heavenly Duke Scripture.” This inscription has been published in a 1974 survey, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection. Interestingly, it was also claimed in this publication that “The back of the stele is plain.”

However, there are inscribed letters on not only the backside of the stele but also on its sides. And speculation among scholars recently has been that the inscription contains an important Buddhist work! A Japanese scholar is coming to examine the stele this Friday. I will be there to learn more and be part of this exciting event.

Do come back to this posting as I will update on any findings!

Picard identifies the sculpture as a Song-dynasty work of the 14th century (Data corrects him, claiming the 13th century). However, both of them are off the mark. According to my professional eye, this glazed horse should be from the Tang dynasty (618-907)–it is a quintessential Tang horse. Compare it with this one in the collection of the Asian Art Museum:

Notice the similarities in the glazing colors and the robust form of the horse. The horse was a prized animal in China, especially in the Tang dynasty when it represented the power and might of the empire. The Tang empire is considered to be a golden era in China’s history both in culture and in the military. So it makes sense that Picard would gift the noble Tang horse to Lutan, but I blame the writers of this episode for not having done their homework.  They should have visited the Asian Art Museum!

1. The images were for commercial use, and
2. The majority of them date to the 1920s and 1930s.

I am curious to understand why that is. So in this multipart series (I don’t even know how many blog postings I will need!), I will attempt to make connections that may have been missed or misread, using the artworks and the available texts in the exhibition, such as object labels, wall panels, and exhibition catalogue. But right off the bat, I must say, I am having fun with this topic and it is an incredible challenge!

Here is a sample spread of this controversial group of images:

Distinguishing Local Flavor, 1890s

Gliding Like Celestial Beings, 1930s

The Young Companion, 1935

Moonlight over Huangpu River, 1930s

What should we be seeing in all of these images? I’m guessing that what should be seen in these depictions of women is different from what some people are actually seeing. A wall panel in the exhibition offers this suggestion: “Chinese women appeared in Shanghai’s popular media in several guises…. Seen in the posters, magazines, and film clips presented in this gallery are various idealizations of the Chinese modern woman, such as homemaker, celebrity, and sex object.”

The key concept here is modernity. Beginning in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, there existed a craze to modernize all aspects of Shanghai society. For example, in technology, as illustrated by the painting below, “Shanghai was the first Chinese city [in 1882] to have electric lighting installed on its streets.”

Wandering Eyes Giving Way to Wandering Thoughts, 1890s

In commerce, as described in the exhibition catalogue, the Big Four department stores (pictured below) introduced new trends to the Chinese retail experience, such as “set[ting] fixed prices to prevent haggling, and … emphasiz[ing] individual and friendly customer service.”

Nanjing Road-From Series of Views of Shanghai, after 1937

Womanhood was no exception; it too felt the effects of the drive to modernize. This should not be surprising, since women’s rights were being advanced internationally at this time, such as suffrage for the American woman. In China, the first such attempt at reform came in 1898 with institutional support from the emperor and realized to an extent by men and women reformers in Shanghai. The results are impressive:  the first Chinese girls’ school, the first women’s association in China, and the first Chinese women’s journal (for more see Qian Nanxiu’s article in Modern China 29, no.4 (October 2003): 399-454).

Do the visual materials of the time reflect these notions of women’s rights? In some ways, yes; in other ways, no. In the 1880s and 1890s, we begin to see the first publicized depictions of Chinese women in the form of photo-lithographed prints. What is meant by “publicized?” Well, the tradition of painting Chinese beauties is a long one in China, as exemplified by a group of album leaf paintings in the exhibition (below right).

Ladies, 1890

Such paintings were traditionally viewed in a private setting, in someone’s studio or home garden. However, as discussed in the exhibition catalogue, a new option became available in Shanghai with the introduction of new printing technologies such as lithography. The same artist who created the private painting (above right), at the same time, painted the following public image of women:

Shining Eyes and White Wrists, 1887-1893

This painting served as the original manuscript from which photo-lithographed prints were made, then bound together into periodical form and sold in local shops for readers to peruse at home or in a park, for example. In these ways, images of Chinese women became public material.

Several aspects of this image satisfied people’s cravings for the “modern.”

1. The latest technology was employed to make its prints.
2. The formerly exclusive tradition of painting Chinese beauties became more accessible to the larger public.
3. Illustrated here is a local hotspot called the Zhang Garden, which the object label identifies as “the most famous of the new public gardens in Shanghai and was considered by contemporaries to be the city’s first modern amusement park [...].”
4. The popular European game of billiards was offered in Shanghai.
5. Chinese women are presented as having access to this new form of entertainment.
6. Chinese women are presented out-and-about in a public space.

The last two aspects concern us here. In the 1880s and 1890s, while the social reformers had their visions of modern Chinese womanhood, entrepreneurs and publishers in Shanghai advertised their own visions: modernity for women meant having greater access to the public domain and being associated with the cult of the new. And what better place to find a modern woman and all things new than in the city of Shanghai! This is how I regard this group of illustrations, as the beginning of a marketing strategy linking the Chinese woman, to Shanghai, to modernity.

That strategy was seen everywhere by the time we encounter Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, not only within the city limits but in Europe and the States. Hence, a good number of people all over the world are most familiar with commercial images such as this one:

A Prosperous City That Never Sleeps, 1930s

What are we being sold here by presenting a fashionable woman lounging before a skyline of Nanjing Road at night? The object label offers that “it directly links the Chinese … woman with the city and the ideals of modernity.” In other words: Come to Shanghai to find a modern woman!  So, what characterizes a “modern” woman?

Southern Beauty, 1930s

Finishing an Orchid-Water Bath, 1930s

It Often Begins with a Smile, 1930s

Facing One's Reflection with Vanity, 1930s

Viewed as a group, the commercial posters in the exhibition indeed are selling an ideal of the modern woman in Shanghai: she was fashionable in appearance, she was a adept in the home and in social occasions, she projected confidence and composure. None of this should be new to us, however, for these ideals were also advertised in America. As is identified in the gallery’s wall panel, in the 1920s and 1930s, there appeared worldwide a controversial but popular icon known as the “modern girl” icon. The icon appeared in advertising in major metropolises such as Paris, Bombay, and New York. So of course such an icon would also have appeared in Shanghai, because everything that we’ve seen so far has beaten us over the head with this one message: during this time period, the residents of Shanghai saw themselves as no less than active participants in the global phenomenon of modernization.

At this point, the issue of sex is often raised. What about the semi-naked woman in the poster? And what about the courtesans and their bound feet seen earlier? Wasn’t Shanghai called the “Whore of the Orient?” How “modern” could any of this be? These issues will be explored in my next posting.  So please come back!

Hot Topic #1:  why was the exhibition presented in this way that you see here at the Asian Art Museum?

The answer has several layers:

1. As an art museum, we aim to tell a story (you may call it a history) of Shanghai through the visual materials made by and for its residents.
2. The visual materials available to us, on the whole, present an image of the city as eclectic and dynamic.
3. So we made the decision to analyze how and why such a public image was created for Shanghai over the past 160 years.

Of course, there are a number of other stories (or histories) that can be told about this city!  What the Shanghai exhibition does is give audiences one perspective–as unbiased as humanly possible–on how and why these visual materials look the way they do, whether the images depict historical reality or wishful fantasy.

Do you think neutrality is a fault in this case?

Come back for my next post, where I will try to tackle the challenge of how to regard visual representations of women in the Shanghai exhibition!

Nanjing Road – From Series of Views of Shanghai, after 1932

After having looked at this poster for the past six months, the image has been burned into my memory.  So, with this image in mind, I sought to take pictures of the same frame.

I first took a street level shot, which I think is the closest to the poster image, with the Wing On department store (on left) and the Sun Sun department store (on right) still standing today:

Nanjing Road, 2009

Still unhappy with this view, I went up to the terrace of a hotel across the street for this breath-taking aerial view of the intersection and still-bustling Nanjing Road:

aerial view of Nanjing Road, 2009

"Shanghai Baby" (Hai Bao 海宝), mascot of the World Expo 2010

During my recent trip to Shanghai, I became somewhat obsessed with this figure of Hai Bao, the official mascot of the World Expo 2010 to be held in Shanghai in May 2010.  Hai Bao’s name can be translated as “Shanghai Baby,” and he appears all over the city (both in Puxi and Pudong) on billboards, shop posters, and bus advertisments, just to name a few.

When our staff here at the museum first saw the image of Hai Bao, people had declared that he looked like “toothpaste man” or a blue Gumby.  The physical appearance of Hai Bao actually derives from the Chinese character of ren 人 (person, people, humanity), underscoring the Expo’s motto of “Better City, Better Life” [for the people].

Chinese characters also play another important part in the official name of the World Expo 2010.  Note the green writing in the above picture:  it is actually a derivation of the character shi 世 (life, age, era, world), in this case representing the “World” part of the name, but it has been reconfigured to look like three people holding hands in celebration.

These two examples are interesting considering Shanghai’s continued success in traversing the local and the global.  As a friend had recently noted, if I could not read Chinese, then I would not have known that the green writing said “World” Expo 2010.  And the embracing smile of “Shanghai Baby” is ready to welcome the world to this Chinese city.

The magazine had served as a model for Shanghai’s most popular, and historically most important, illustrated newspaper in the late 1800s, the Dianshizhai Pictorial (1884-1898), and Punch‘s renowned cartoons also influenced the development of Chinese cartooning that experienced a “golden age” in 1930s Shanghai.

Punch’s website is visually stimulating because it features a big online collection of cartoons and comics that have been published in Punch. Educational features include a history of the magazine and a history of cartoons. Check it out here: Punch online

Also, many of the old issues of Punch can be accessed through Project Gutenberg, a fantastic online resource for e-publishing. In fact, the first volume of Punch is the best one to read for an introduction to this important magazine: first volume of Punch