Page 59 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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or the inheritance of these artworks by constitutively hybrid character of a cultural
consecutive family members, and so on. Over system in which, to a certain extent, questions
time, their value and meaning did not disappear of viewpoint and power are at issue. This is
or get lost. On the contrary, these paintings were particularly the case when geographically widely
encapsulated into new initiatives, especially in separated cultures come into contact with each
China, (we recall the recent founding of research other. 85
centres to study the topic, the emergence of The relationship between ‘the West’ and
interdisciplinary academic curricula, and the China during the period that this research deals
renewed buying and selling processes that with was a transcultural and interconnected
facilitate the decorating or refurbishing of the one. The art that was born of the interactive
58 many newly built Chinese museums). At this connections between local, national and
point, the circle closes with surviving ‘primary’ transnational markets is the subject of this study.
meanings. For the producer of the paintings, as When we observe Chinese export paintings as
well as the user – though not the authentic user, art different from both Chinese literati art and
rather the new ones – and for me and other Western Rennaisance art, it discourages any
researchers, the static matter of these things examination of the dynamic exchange relation
results in a new material complex, one that is between these two realities. It is precisely this
alive and kicking. interaction that is interesting. A view of parallel
objects that never meet, as Foucault states,
2.5. “proves inadequate to the explication of their
Transcultural lenses dynamic relation.” 86 The emphasis is thus on
on Chinese export painting the exchange promoted by comparisons in order
Before I conclude this chapter by selecting those to find answers to questions such as that also
aforementioned theoretical concepts that are posed by Jennifer Purtle: “what meanings and
useful for supporting my argument that Chinese what cultural and economic values accrue to an
export paintings must not be conceived purely as object when it exists without borders?” 87
commodities, but as valuable artworks too, an The demand for pictorial material seems to
analysis of the concepts ‘transcultural’ and have been part of the China trade from its very
‘cultural translation’ is necessary. In doing so, beginning in the late seventeenth century. 88
their artistic value will be revealed and This prolific trade situation led to the creation
understood. of new forms of material culture and revealed an
The strongly centralised production of elaborate process of cross-cultural exchange, or,
Chinese export paintings originated in the Pearl more generally, a mediation of knowledge. The
River delta, where, until the mid-nineteenth result of this dynamic connections around the
century, Canton and Macao became centres of world is inter alia, EurAsian objects. Anna
the trading system that linked China to the rest Grasskamp, introduces this term (with a capital
of the world. These cities, together with Hong A for Asian) in her article ‘EurAsian layers:
Kong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Amoy (Xiamen) and Netherlandish surfaces and early modern
Fuzhou after 1842, as Jonathan Hay writes in Chinese artefacts’. 89 The use of a capital E and
his article ‘Toward a Theory of the Intercultural’, an capital A in ‘EurAsian’ indicates a division, a
can be interpreted as “the most striking mixture and a oneness of cultural formats at the
examples of transitional spaces within which same time, covering the whole ‘EurAsian’
cultural syncretism are embodied in the dynamic territory. In addition, the use of two capitals (E
form of artistic commodities.” 84 These ports of and A) expresses that Europe and Asia each has
trade acted at times as neutral enclaves in which their own dignity. Moreover, the use of the term
merchants of different countries could do ‘EurAsian’ signifies the interactive cultural
business according to pre-established exchange dynamics between European and Asian countries
rates. Regarding Chinese export paintings, in which “complex polarities simultaneously
I agree with Hay that we can speak of the complement and oppose each other and merge.” 90

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84 Hay 1999-a, 7.
85 Hay 1999-a, 7.
86 Foucault’s insights into power are discussed in Seigel 2005, 65.
87 Purtle 2009, 131.
88 Huang & Sargent 1999, 14.
89 Grasskamp 2015, 363-399.
90 Ibid., 363.