Art During The Qing Dynasty

The Han China and Classical Athens’ culture also had a huge different to how the arts were created. The arts of the Athenians were more focus on themselves, the human body. For example, on the front cover page, there is a drawing or statue of a Greek man, the Greek man is standing in a weird position with his arms pointing down, there are a few lines emphasizing his muscles, torso, biceps, etc. (Front Cover). While the art of the Han China were more focus on the landscapes and scenes surround them, along with the serenity and balance of the world drawn on to canvases in great details (document L). In most paintings, the five Chinese elements called Wu Xing will most likely be included in the paintings; the five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Looking at Ch’iu Ying’s painting, you can clearly see the how Wu Xing is being presented in the painting, how the trees and mountains were presented in the background (document L). However, as you can see in the painting, there are only two men in the painting, this could mean that humans were inconsiderable in their arts (document L). As a conclusion, the two artistic styles were complete different from each other, the Han’s arts were more focus on nature in great details, while the Athenians’ art were more focus on the human body.

China has 5000 years of history which experienced wars, collapses, failures and successes. The Opium War in the year 1839 and 1856 marked the changing point of China’s trade policy with foreigners, especially with British in opium and tea. China changed from getting tributes to being forced to sign the Nanjing Treaty and Tianjing Treaty with British and French. Due to China’s over confidence and unwelcome attitude toward foreigners and opium, it caused the British to declare the Opium War to China which made Chinese suffer for many years, but at the same time it also forced China to open its doors to the foreigners.

The Opium War was a major part of China’s history. There were many economic issues, (the high cost of importing opium), political issues (disobedience of Chinese ban on opium imports) and consequences of the British victory (Britain’s greater power over China) that precipitated the Opium war, but the British victory had the greatest impact on China because the extension of British power reduced China’s autonomy and made them more dependent on Europe. The high cost of importing opium had major consequences that weakened the Chinese economy and was a leading cause for the Opium War. Document A is a record of the British Imports and Exports at the Port of Canton.

During the 19th century, China transformed from a prosperous economic center to a weakened country in a system controlled by Great Britain, largely due to the opium trade. Prior to Europe’s industrial revolution in 1800, China had little need for products from other countries, and participated sparingly in world trade, while Europe borrowed China’s ideas and inventions to gain a financial foothold. But in the 19th century Britain introduced opium into the Chinese market, setting off a chain of events that lead to the Opium Wars, which along with the opium trade sapped China’s economic strength. Nevertheless, she persisted, and in 1907 China passed a law that blocked the opium trade once and for all and took out Britain’s system of power within

The collaboration of the Chinese and the Jesuits can be found in art since the Kangxi period (康熙帝, r.1654-1722) in Qing China, and continued throughout the Yongzheng period (雍正帝, r.1722 - 1735) as well. Although the purpose of the missionaries was the spread their religion in China, the Kangxi emperor was quick to realise that some of them were good artists. He being a progressive thinker, thought it would be a good way to introduce his court artists, the Han Chinese court painters (artisans), to new styles and techniques of painting from the west. This might have been his way of glorifying his rule, and at the same time, embellish the palace with new forms of art. The Jesuits had perfect knowledge of various techniques previously unknown to the Chinese artists; the depiction of light and shade to suggest volume, theories of colour, the anatomy of the human body, and a scientific perspective of the art of drawing and painting.

In traditional Chinese view, a sign of a growing economy was not necessarily a sign of a prosperous nation. Rather, a steady growth in population was viewed as a sign of peace and prosperity. However, as farms grew smaller and labour surplus lowered the standard of wages, China's standard of living decreased (Ebrey 305). It is due to the large population of China that it never saw a need to rely on inanimate energy for the production of goods. Because labour was plentiful and cheap during this time, machinery was never the focus for manufacturing products. The lack of industrialization in China during the early 19th century would eventually lead the its Western counterparts overtaking them. The Chinese government attempted, but failed, to relieve the fiscal crises afflicting China. These problems compounded with the introduction of opium by the British in the 19th century. Previous to this, the British were upset with the restrictions placed on foreign trade by the Qing in China. Having no commodity other than silver that China wanted from Britain, trade between the two countries greatly favoured the Chinese until the British discovered opium. Acquired by the East India Trading company in India, opium became a good used by the British to gain an upper-hand in trading with China. The opium was highly addictive, becoming so severe in China that by 1813, China had banned the production, importation and use of opium (Ebrey 306). Problems with smuggling opium into China led to the Qing Emperor to bar Western traders in China from trading in the country. This would eventually lead to the opium wars between China and Britain, effectively resulting in a British victory and an age of British dominance over Chinese trade ports. While China is but one example of Western

“Prior to 1810 Western nations had been spending 350 million Mexican silver dollars on porcelain, cotton, silks, brocades, and various grades of tea, by 1837 opium represented 57 percent of Chinese imports, and for the fiscal period 1835-36 alone China exported 4.5 million silver dollars” (England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60). This demonstrates how the illegal opium trade largely imbalanced the trade with the West. It was estimated that between four and twelve million Chinese males under the age of 40 were addicted to the use of opium. Tensions grew rapidly following the Kowloon Incident, where “drunk British sailors from several opium clipper ships rioted in Kowloon, killing a Chinese man and vandalizing a Buddhist temple” (The First and Second Opium Wars). Lin Ze-xu, the Emperor’s special emissary, ordered the seizure of opium and closing of ports. In response, the British superintendent of trade, Charles Elliot, ordered the blockade of Pearl River, thus initiating the war. Economically, China cut off trade with Britain and the Western nations. This reinforces the idea that they were an isolationist country with respect to trading with the West.

During the Han Dynasty, first Buddhist missionaries had come to China. It was only gradually felt in the beginning, as it was brought into a developing society. As Buddhist narratives, and traditions of iconography enriched China, it opened up new possibilities for the artistic culture of China. Eventually, Buddhist temples became the model for all Chinese temples, Taoist and Confucian. Scrolls of silk and paper replaced bamboo slips for writing. The scrolls were joined by hanging scrolls which became the most famous format for painting. With this new wave of painting styles, Buddhist paintings and figures also grew in great numbers. These changes became more prominent as time went on, and from the big changes they have brought, it can be said that Buddhism left a huge imprint on the Chinese Art.

In the early eighteen hundreds, Britain and other European countries demanded more and more Chinese commodities, especially tea and silk. However, only the port in Canton was opened to foreign countries, and Chinese would not take any other form of payments besides silver. The desire to make China into a free market that foreigners have more access to and the increasing, though illegal, European opium import to China eventually created tension between the European countries, especially Britain, and the Chinese government (Allingham Par. 1-2). The two battles fought and won by European powers were known as the Opium Wars. China’s politics, economy, and intellects were both positively and negatively

In the late nineteenth century China was plagued with a range of internal issues - political turmoil, floods, famine, and foreign invasions. It was a country stuck in its traditional ways in a industrial and imperialist world. There were issues with the bureaucracy, as it remained small as did its ability to collect taxes for government revenue. This led to minimal spending on the military, which was needed to go against the imperialist threats from the West. These foreign powers, led by the British, sought new markets for their possessions from their empires. One product that became immensely popular was the opium poppy grown in India, which was mass-marketed by the British. Opium spread throughout China and conflict and dissension of its

From Chinese Art to Chinoiserie ‘Chinoiserie’ is used to describe a European fantasy vision of China. The exchange between East and West was sporadic for centuries, and China remained more like a myth than a reality. The Westerners made up mysterious stories about the unknown land. Their beliefs about China originated from the depictions on the goods exported to the West. However, during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, actual contact and trade with the West became more frequent.

As the empire becomes stabilized, Ming dynasty reached a big advance in expression in art. In the book Masterworks of Ming and Qing Painting from the Forbidden City, it is said that “The reigns of the Hongwu, Yongle and Xuande emperors were relatively strong and well-organized, supported by a strong agricultural base in the south below the Yangtze river, and by a particularly large and efficient merchant fleet (Howard 22).” and during that time “…great advances in

However, because of China had mercy on the the worst of the atrocities that had been visited indignation on all other sufferers. The Yuan dynasty may had been short and disgraceful period, but it was a marvelous period in the history of Chinese art. This is because their nostalgia is shown in the tendency in the painting which has much refined decorative arts, to revive ancient styles (Michael Sullivan, 207). The Yuan dynasty was in several respects revolutionary because these traditions given a new explanation and the separation between the court and the cerebral. Which brought the Mongol occupation instilled in the scholar class a belief of belonging to a self-sufficient elite that was to have an enormous influence on painting (Michael Sullivan, 208). During Yuan dynasty, many arts and crafts are able to see innovations and totally different art technique to against Song refinement. In decoration, they represented and reflected the unique taste of the Mongol victor

After reading about Early Asian Art and the Art of the Americas, I chose to write about the Terracotta Army and the Colossal Heads. The Terracotta Army is an underground army with 8,000 soldiers and 100 horses made out of clay. The warriors was very appealing to me, because there are thousands of life size warriors and it is amazing how each warrior face and expression differ from one another. The soldiers are utilitarian because they were made to protect Shi Huangdi throughout eternity. The process of making the soldiers involved 1,000 skillful potters, who molded and carved the clay. The legs, torsos, fingers, arms and heads of the soldiers were molded and then carved into the figures. After the clay was fired, the warriors were painted

When one comes into contact with a Chinese painting, the style is almost instantly recognizable. The attention to detail, craftsmanship, and vast depictions of elaborate landscapes appear to pay homage to mother earth in an attempt to reach a state of eternal balance with nature and life. Before this equilibrium could be achieved, one must attain internal discipline. This was required before one began mastering their brushwork in Chinese culture. In Mai Mai Sze’s “The Way of Chinese Painting,” 1959, New York: Vintage Books, Random House, Sze discusses the philosophy known as Daoism/Tao, or “the way.” Before one became a skilled painter, one trained in the personal disciplines of poetry, art, calligraphy, and internal