Page 51 - Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasty by Johnathan Hay

a horse or dragon up to Heaven. On the table in front of him, two jars, marked "good" and

"evil", hold the slips that note the household's different acts; and in the foreground two
helpers pour money into a brazier, symbolizing his ability to bring good fortune to the house.
Door gods were more diverse in form and iconography, partly because different gods were
used for the main gate, the inner gate, the doors of the different rooms around the courtyard,
and even the stable (565). Best known, however, are those in the form of generals, one kindly

and one fearsome, which were affixed to the doors of the main gate on the first day of the
first month, and which derive ultimately from the guardians and Heavenly kings in Tang
temples and tombs.

Conservative Responses. If folk art was as strong as ever, the higher levels of
traditional culture were being put in question by the traumatic events of the period. In the
face of diplomatic overtures from England in 1793, Qianlong had refused to countenance a
relationship with the West except at the level of a luxury trade devoid of supporting
diplomatic relations. By the Daoguang reign, half a century of Western trading of opium

gave rise to a Chinese backlash, but the need to maintain access to China's vast domestic
consumer market led the European powers to impose their commerce by military means. The
Opium War of 1839-42 brought about the establishment of so-called treaty ports where land

was leased to different European nations. Subsequent conflicts led to ever more concessions
until not only Western nations but also Japan held leases in some twenty Chinese ports.
Domestically, meanwhile, the large-scale peasant rebellions that had first broken out in the
late eighteenth century now became increasingly threatening. In the 1850s the Taiping
Rebellion engulfed the entire south and south-east, causing deaths estimated at between

twenty and thirty million. Although the Manchu state survived temporarily, one unforeseen
result of the Taiping Rebellion was to drive the newly created commercial elite of the
Zhejiang coast toward nearby Shanghai, where they took refuge in the foreign concessions.

By 1890, Shanghai had a population of around half a million, and had displaced Guangzhou
as the leading center of westernized culture. The Sino-Japanese war of 1895 and the Boxer
Rebellion of 1900 revealed the final bankruptcy of Qing government, and allowed the
proponents of westernized culture to establish a Republic in 1911.
One of the most striking responses in art to these events was a willful introversion: an

appeal to traditional models. The painter Dai Xi (1801-60), for example, turned to the art
historical language of continuity initiated by Wang Shimin at the beginning of the dynasty
(562-23). His was not exactly a revival, since the style had had its proponents throughout the

eighteenth century, but rather a logical extension of its original principles. Whereas the Four
Wangs had taken Yuan painting as their reference point, now Dai Xi raised the Four Wangs
themselves to canonical status. While this might hardly seem a promising direction to take, in