Page 131 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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new subject to me and very illuminating because of the influence it has exerted on

Chinese art and also because of the influence that the Greeks and Persians have had upon

India.” 284 The popularity of the idea of India as a mediating force between China and

Greece was illustrated by the reception of the famous marble figure of a standing

Bodhisattva of the later T’ang period displayed at the International Exhibition of Chinese

Art in London in 1935-6 (Fig. 35). The renowned collector and expert of Chinese art

David Percival commented on the Greece-India-China dynamic embodied in this

sculpture, “This grand conception of the Chinese sculptor, full of grace and movement,

owes much to the artistic heritage left by Greece and India to the Far East. It is from

Greece that it derives the clinging folds of its drapery; it is India which has inspired the

swaying poise of the body and its sensuous modelling. But it is the genius of China which

has breathed into the figure its vitalizing spirit.” (Percival 1935,177)

285
Loo’s stress on China’s connections to India was part of the scenario. He stated,
“India was the forefather of the votive art of Eastern Asia and had a great moral bearing

on the whole Far East, particularly China.” (Loo 1942, Forward) In the Index of the

History of Chinese Arts: An Aide-Memoire for Beginners, Loo maintained that Indian

influence had an important role in the development of Chinese Buddhist sculpture.

According to Loo, the best Chinese Buddhist sculptures produced in the sixth-century

284 “AAR to LTA, September 14, 1922,” in John D. Rockefeller Jr. ed. Abby Aldrich
Rockefeller Letters to Her Sister Lucy (New York: Privately printed, 1957), 226.
285 Loo also dealt in Indian art. In the 1920s and 1930s Indian art transaction gained a
prominent position in Loo’s business. In 1935 Chinese items were shown with Hindu
Sculpture sculptures at the Jacques Seligmann Galleries (New York Times, January 15,
1935).