Page 141 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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Chineseness meant that antiquities were studied with Chinese methods by Chinese

scholars/connoisseurs, and collected according to Chinese taste by Chinese collectors.

It is important to note that Chineseness, like Westernness, was a marketable construct.

While “Westernness” assimilated Chinese antiquities into the Western art discourse,

“Chineseness” capitalized on the native context to evoke a sense of tradition, authenticity,

authority, and quality. The following sections examine the way in which Loo constructed

and merchandised Chineseness.

Art History or Sinology?

While many Westerners approached Chinese art from a Western point of view, John C.

Ferguson, the renowned American scholar of Chinese art and culture argued that it was

futile to use preconceived notions to evaluate Chinese art because it was based on a

distinctly Chinese culture, which was fundamentally different from Western culture. He

proposed that one needed to be immersed in Chinese culture, history, and literature in

order to study Chinese art (Ferguson 1927, 3). The Chinese scholar Chiang Yee was

aware of this obstacle in the appreciation of Chinese painting in the West, “…Western

people have seldom tried to understand the true background of these pictures, and very

rarely attempted to master their technique. Discriminating appreciators are

correspondingly few. Perhaps your love of our forms and scenes in paint can never be as

great as our own: our customs, our tastes, our psychology, our whole life are very

different, and it is just these elements which are the most formidable barriers to

understanding.” (Chiang 1960, 3) In his article entitled Sinology or Art History, John A.

Pope, the American scholar and curator, distinguished two approaches to Chinese art in