Page 128 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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its Western counterparts. 276 Important innovations in Chinese art were necessarily

induced by outside forces that could be traced to the West. Chinese art was evaluated

according to Western aesthetic standards and the evolutional pattern in Western art

history. The following sections examine Loo’s construction of the Westernness of

Chinese art in terms of origination, developmental pattern, aesthetics, and categorization.

Origination Mystique

One of the most debated questions in the study of Chinese art has been where did it

come from? In Loo’s time, Western scholars generally held that certain peculiar features

or drastic changes in Chinese art could not be explained by native sources. Michael

Rostovtzeff in the catalogue Inlaid Bronzes of the Han Dynasty in the Collection of C. T.

Loo observed, “We understand pretty well that the art of the Han period is more than a

natural outgrowth of the art of the preceding period. It is evident that none of the

peculiarities of the art of the Han period can be explained in this way.”(Rostovtzeff 1927,

3) In the similar line, Alfred Salmony in the catalogue Sino-Siberian Art in the Collection

of C. T. Loo stated, “…certain objects which are not sufficiently explained by the artistic

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development of the Far East alone” (Salmony 1933,1). In their search for the origin of

276 Scholars like Anada Coomaraswamy challenged this Eurocentric ideology in the
reception of Asian art (Coomaraswamy 1981).
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The tendency of looking for outside influences on Chinese art was also manifested in
the study of ancient pottery and bronzes. Referring to the Anderson finds in Gansu in the
1920s, Alfred Salmony noted, “It has been frequently suggested, and with good reason,
that the painted pottery of China must in some way be connected with that of the
Mediterranean coast or of southeastern Europe.” (Salmony 1933, 4) In the field of
bronze, William Watson suggested, “The sudden appearance in China of accomplished
metallurgy might indicate the main elements of Shang culture came to China from
outside in an already developed form…”(Watson 1960, 11)