Page 43 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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chronological display, the historical development portrayed neglected the non-national

aspects of that history.

Objects of the Present: Objects as an Exchange of Tributes

As journalistic re-feeds of English quotations via translations in the Chinese press

indicate, observers in urban China were aware of British admiration for the “Chinese”

and “Chinese art.” Articles in the Da Gongbao and Shanghai daily newspaper

Xinwenbao, as early as December 1935, printed translated quotations from major British

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newspapers and periodicals. Chinese officials involved in the operations of the
exhibition were cognizant of British opinions but had their own views of the nature of art

and displays. Their own comments, as communicated in public lectures and

commentaries on the art exhibition, revealed alternative views of the exhibition’s purpose

and art.

One example was a public dialogue between Laurence Binyon, a British Museum

senior researcher with expertise in poetry and East Asian art, and the Chinese minister to

England, Guo Taiqi. At a luncheon in honor of the exhibition on December 2, 1935,

Binyon gave a speech that stressed the meaning of Chinese art in what could be described

in hindsight as Hegelian aesthetic terms. Like Hobson and David, Binyon conceived of

Chinese art as an “expression of another philosophy of life,” a “genius” that lacked what

European art emphasized, which was “self-aggrandizement” and “assertion of

personality.” Again, like the other British collectors and specialists on Chinese art,

Binyon highlighted the cultural or deeper spiritual meanings as represented through art.