Page 39 - Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasty by Johnathan Hay

decorative screens were joined by other local products: Zhou-style lacquered furniture, inlaid

with hardstones and other materials; mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer objects for the table in the
style of the late Ming artisan, Jiang Qianli; and the enamels of Wang Shixiong, known in
Beijing as "the king of enamels". Yangzhou can stand here for the renewal of late Ming
traditions of luxury craftsmanship, which was in fact general throughout the south-east.
If Yangzhou was now the great city of traditional entrepreneurial culture in the south-

east, in faraway Guangdong province the city of Guangzhou (Canton) was already rising to
prominence on a quite different foundation. In 1684, the ban on overseas trading was lifted,
and Guangzhou quickly established itself as Europe's main doorway to China. This allowed it

to control the market of luxury commodities in both directions, and additionally to make its
own versions of the new objects that were arriving. In trade with the Europeans, Guangzhou
merchants procured what they could locally, but otherwise acted as middlemen, most
importantly in relation to the porcelain produced at Jingdezhen. It was through them that the
Jingdezhen kilns became familiar with the new shapes that were in demand from around

1700. The time when Chinese ceramics of traditional form were recuperated for European
exoticism by incorporation into vast decorative set-pieces was drawing to an end. Instead,
specific shapes and sets of shapes were wanted for mantelpieces, fireplaces (in summer), and

furniture (540). European consumers were also becoming demanding as regards decorative
patterns, for which they sent engravings, book illustrations, European ceramics, or working
drawings, adding a new chapter to China's long familiarity with "those beautiful rules". The
circle was closed by Chinese complicity in the European fashion for Chinoiserie, which can
already be seen under Kangxi and Yongzheng in ivory fans, and lacquered objects in the

Japanese style of gold lacquer on a black ground, both of these Guangdong specialties.
In a purely local perspective, European style was easily integrated into the traditional
Guangdong taste for intricate designs, openwork, and bright colors. Thus, at the same time

that a Sino-European taste was developing at the Qing court with a twin emphasis on
techonological innovations and rococo style, a parallel development was taking place in
Guangzhou. Indeed, the court fed off the southern port, which not only sent in models as
purchased "tribute", but provided them with artisans who were influential in the palace
workshops for enamels, glass, clocks, ivory, lacquer and furniture among others. From the

late seventeenth century onwards, the sino-European style linking port and court became the
Chinese equivalent of Chinoiserie -- Euroiserie, one might say (542). These contemporary
developments at either end of the globe, each a distorting mirror to the other, remind us that

the world was rapidly becoming smaller and more unified.
The Memory of Disaster. In 1679, with the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories
already clearly doomed, Kangxi held a special examination directed at worthies in the