Page 225 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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works of art “go around the World as silent ambassadors, enabling other people to

understand the great culture of the Chinese and love of China” (Loo 1950, 3). In this

light, the exhibition of Alison Stilwell’s Chinese paintings, like Mme. Chiang Kai-shek’s

American tour, might have added a softening tone to the tense atmosphere between her

father and Chiang Kai-shek, between the U.S. and China.

The spectacle of art and women that Loo staged was made into a malleable tool that

served a variety of purposes, sometimes, all at once. The spectacle served to arouse the

American viewers’ desire to possess the eroticized Chinese art commodities. In the

masculine culture of warfare and politics, it was instrumental to US-China cultural

diplomacy. The pleasurable and philanthropic sheen on the spectacle, however, did not

alter the subordinate and feminized position of Chinese art and nation in the United

States. As the U.S. rose in the twentieth century as the world’s leader, collecting Chinese

art became part of its capitalist and cultural imperialist project; Chinese art was

assembled and consumed by and for Americans. This ideology was illustrated by Eugene

Meyer’s comment on Charles L. Freer’s role in building a Chinese art collection for the

nation, “China seems to be picking the finest treasures to lay in your lap. She can do

nothing better with them, for your collection, when it is ready to be viewed by the

thousands who will come to enjoy it and to study, will do more to bring about a

sympathetic understanding between the Occident and the Orient than any number of

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speeches of a political character.”

431 E. Meyer to C.L.Freer, August 15, 1919, CLFP-FGA.