Qing Dynasty (ca. 1644-1911)

Overview

In 1644, the Manchus, a semi-nomadic people from northeast of the Great Wall, conquered the crumbling Ming state and established their own Qing (or Pure) dynasty, which lasted nearly 300 years. During the first half of this period, the Manchus extended their rule over a vast empire that grew to encompass new territories in Central Asia, Tibet, and Siberia. The Manchus also established their hegemony over Chinese cultural traditions as an important means of demonstrating their legitimacy as Confucian-style rulers.

The brilliant reigns of the Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736–95) emperors display a period when the Manchus embraced Chinese cultural traditions and the court became a leading patron in the arts as China enjoyed an extended period of political stability and economic prosperity.

Three principal groups of artists were working during the Qing: the traditionalists, who sought to revitalize painting through the creative reinterpretation of past models; the individualists, who practiced a deeply personal form of art that often carried a strong message of political protest; and the courtiers, the officials, and the professional artists who served at the Manchu court.

The Traditionalists

Defining a New Orthodoxy

While the early Manchu court favored a colorful figurative style, exemplified by the imposing image of Emperor Guan, a Chinese god whose martial prowess became a symbol of Manchu power, China's scholarly elite was deeply influenced by the theories and art of the late Ming artist, collector, and theorist Dong Qichang (1555–1636). Dong and his circle developed a revolutionary theory of literati painting based on a study of the old masters that became the foundation of a systematic stylistic reconstruction of landscape painting. Emphasizing the distinction between art and nature, Dong maintained: "If one considers the wonders of nature, then painting cannot rival landscape. But if one considers the wonders of brushwork, then landscape cannot equal painting."

During the early Qing period, this traditionalist theory became the foundation of a new orthodox style under the leadership of Dong's disciple, Wang Shimin (1592–1680). Wang was an accomplished amateur painter who built an important collection of old masters based on Dong's advice. It was this corpus of prime models that helped to define the orthodox lineage of scholar painting for Wang and his followers—later known collectively as the Orthodox School.

Wang Shimin and his friend Wang Jian (1598–1677) were the senior members of this school, but they were outshown by their brilliant pupil Wang Hui (1632–1717). Wang Hui made it his objective to integrate the descriptive landscape styles of the Song dynasty (960–1279) with the calligraphic brushwork of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) to achieve a "great synthesis." Wang Shimin's other preeminent disciple was his grandson, Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715)—the youngest of the so-called Four Wangs. Wang Yuanqi pursued a rigorously abstract style in the manner of Dong Qichang that could accommodate learned references to the past without sacrificing his own artistic identity. Two other important disciples of Wang Shimin were Wu Li (1632–1718) and Yun Shouping (1633–1690).

Coopting Orthodoxy: The Kangxi Emperor's Institutionalization of the Orthodox School

Coming to the throne at the age of six, the first task of the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1722) was to consolidate control over the territories formerly governed by the vanquished Ming state and wrest power from his Manchu regents. He accomplished both objectives by shrewdly cultivating the support of the Chinese intellectual elite and by modeling his rule on that of a traditional Confucian monarch. Beginning in the 1670s, scholars from China's cultural heartland in the south were actively recruited into government service. These men brought with them a taste for the literati painting style practiced by members of the Orthodox School. A symbolic turning point in the legitimation of Kangxi's rule was his triumphal 1689 inspection tour of the south. On this tour, the emperor climbed Mount Tai, Confucianism's most sacred mountain, inspected water conservation projects along the Yellow River and Grand Canal, and visited all of the major cultural and commercial centers of the Chinese heartland, including China's cultural capital: Suzhou. Shortly after Kangxi's return to Beijing, his advisors initiated plans to commemorate this momentous event through a monumental series of paintings. Wang Hui, the most celebrated artist of the day, was summoned to Beijing to oversee the project. Kangxi further extended his manipulation of Chinese cultural symbols by enlisting Wang Yuanqi to advise him on the expansion of the imperial painting collection.

The Loyalists and the Individualists

The Anhui Masters

According to the dictates of Confucian tradition, a man may not serve under two dynasties. As a result, many Ming officials and loyal subjects withdrew from public service after the fall of the Ming dynasty and lived in enforced retirement, pursuing personal and artistic self-cultivation. Escaping the chaos of the Manchu conquest, many of these artists found sanctuary outside traditional centers of culture. Lacking access to important collections of old masters, they drew inspiration from the natural beauty of the local scenery. One group of Ming loyalists living in Anhui Province, a prosperous region known for its outstanding paper and ink, saw in the rugged cliffs and craggy pines of Mount Huang (Yellow Mountain) a world free from the taint of Manchu occupation. Inspired by the Yuan-dynasty recluse-painter Ni Zan (1306–1374), who was known for his lofty moral character, these artists emulated Ni's minimalist compositions and "dry-brush" painting style, features that became hallmarks of the so-called Anhui School.

The Nanjing Masters

Nanjing, the Ming dynasty's secondary capital, remained a haven for loyalists during the early Qing. A center of Jesuit missionary activity since the late sixteenth century—it was once the home of Matteo Ricci (1552–1610)—Nanjing was also one of the first places where Chinese painters began to incorporate Western ideas of shading and perspective in their depictions of local scenery.

The most innovative Nanjing master was Gong Xian (ca. 1618–1689), who practiced a densely textured, monumental landscape style in which he was able to suggest volume and mass by varying the density and darkness of his ink dots. This modeling technique is highly schematic, and there is no single light source as in Western painting, but Gong's interest in the effects of light and shade probably owes something to the influence of European engravings and paintings.

Zhang Feng (active ca. 1636–62), whose father died in 1631 while defending the Ming against early incursions by the Manchus, withdrew from society after the fall of the Ming and became associated with the Buddhist church. Zhang's paintings present images of reclusion in the pale, dry style of Ni Zan.

Among the more conservative masters working in Nanjing were Ye Xin (active ca. 1640–73) and Fan Qi (1616–after 1694), both of whom worked in an unusually precise and realistic style. Both specialized in small-scale gemlike paintings depicting the rural scenery around their native city. Sensitive and lyrical recorders of the familiar, these artists were also innovative experimenters with light, atmosphere, and color whose art reflects a creative response to Western influences recently introduced to China by the Jesuits.

The Courtiers, Officials and Proffessional Artists

Two Ming Princes

Two of the most outstanding artists of the early Qing period were descendants of the Ming royal house: Zhu Da (1626–1705) and Zhu Ruoji (1642–1707), both of whom became better known by their assumed names, Bada Shanren and Shitao.

A scion of the Ming imperial family from a branch enfeoffed in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, Zhu Da became a "crazy" Buddhist monk, shamming deafness and madness in order to escape persecution after the fall of the Ming dynasty. Lodging his feelings of frustration and vulnerability in his art, he created a deeply personal expressionist style that reflects his ambivalence about his life in hiding and his failure to acknowledge his identity as a Ming prince.

Shitao was only two years old when the Ming dynasty fell. Saved by a loyal retainer, he was given sanctuary and anonymity in the Buddhist priesthood. In the late 1660s and 1670s, while living in seclusion in temples around Xuancheng, Anhui Province, he trained himself to paint. After many years of wandering from place to place in the south and spending nearly three years in Beijing, Shitao moved to the commercial center of Yangzhou around 1695, where he renounced his status as a Buddhist monk and supported himself through his painting. Drawing upon his love for natural scenery and his technical facility with brush and ink, Shitao created the most original landscape style of the seventeenth century.

Commercialism in Art: Yangzhou

The city of Yangzhou, located along the Grand Canal between the Huai salt fields and the Yangzi River, became a prosperous commercial hub during the Qing dynasty thanks to the salt monopoly centered there. During the eighteenth century, the city surpassed even Suzhou in the number of important artists active there, as the burgeoning fortunes of salt merchants and other entrepreneurs created opportunities for artistic experimentation as well as conspicuous consumption.

Yangzhou's mercantile elite supported a diverse array of artists who worked in two distinct pictorial traditions. One group, exemplified by Yuan Jiang (active ca. 1690–ca. 1746) and members of his atelier, worked in the courtly tradition, producing large-scale, richly detailed works in mineral pigments on silk that epitomize the Yangzhou taste for ostentatious display. Another group of artists, later known as the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou," drew inspiration from the highly individualistic works of Shitao. Practicing a self-expressive, calligraphic painting manner, these artists specialized in figural subjects or auspicious flower and bird images that appealed to the tastes of a broader public and were less demanding as well as more commercially viable than landscape painting.

Imperial Patronage under the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–95)

Under the Qianlong emperor, the Manchu empire reached its zenith. While the emperor's ambitious military campaigns in the far west extended Qing control over large portions of Tibet and Central Asia, the Chinese heartland enjoyed an extended era of peace and prosperity as the population doubled, farmlands expanded, and commerce flourished.

Court patronage also reached a high point in both refinement and output during this period. The finest craftsmen were recruited to serve in the palace workshops, including a number of European Jesuit missionaries whose representational techniques were particularly admired by the Qing emperors, who found them useful in the documentation of their appearance and deeds. Chinese court painters soon mastered the rudiments of Western linear perspective and chiaroscuro modeling, creating a new, hybrid form of painting that combined Western-style realism with traditional brushwork.

A key figure in establishing this new court aesthetic was the Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), who lived in China from 1716 until his death in 1766 and who adopted the Chinese name Lang Shining. A master of vividly naturalistic draftsmanship and large-scale compositions, Castiglione worked with Chinese assistants to create a synthesis of European methods and traditional Chinese media and formats.