Page 351 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

and technically more skillful court and profes- 7. Needham 1970, 9. tary research, is able to correct and supplement at
sional paintings will be more readily appreciated 8. See illustration in Needham 1970 facing p. 440, and many points the section on "Nautics" in Needham
by modern audiences. Wen ren paintings are apt a fuller discussion of Yuan and Ming astronomical 1959' 4:3-
to be more reticent and allusive, to stress the 9. instruments in Needham 1959, 3:367. 17. Hong Changzhuo, "Bao chuan chang yi-zhi ji bao-
Needham
1970,
405.
The quoted passage comes
subtlety of brushwork and the unity of poetry, from an important essay entitled "The Evolution of chuan chi-du wen-ti" (The Site of the Treasure Ship
of the
Size of the
Shipyard and the
Question
Trea-
calligraphy, and painting — in a word, they are Oecumenical Science" (1966), offering a full range sure Ships), in Nanjing 1985, especially the archaeo-
apt to be "more Chinese/' The historian must of comparisons in all branches of science and tech- logical drawing on p. 41.
"
see the importance of each in the context of nology, and showing how ... from the time of Gali- 18. Needham (and many others) has said that wooden
Chinese civilization. The exhibition-goer may leo ( + 1600) onwards, the 'new, or experimental ships could not get much longer than 300 feet, and
philosophy' of the
the
West ineluctably overtook
thus he discounts the reports in Ming period sources
respond directly and freely to the paintings, levels reached by the natural philosophy of describing the Treasure Ships as over 400 feet long.
without regard to the accumulation of Chinese China..." (p. 397). Recent Chinese scholarship tends to credit the possi-
traditional attitudes. In this as in so many other 10. For a brief review of the interaction of Chinese with bility of the larger figure; see, for example, Hong
ways, the present exhibition provides rare other Asian seafarers, see "China, Europe, and the Changzhuo in Nanjing 1985, 37-50.
opportunities for discovery. Seas Between" (1966), in Needham 1970, 40—70. 19. From literary evidence we know that Chinese settle-
11. See Needham 1971, 4:249-251, 293. The Chinese ment at Palembang goes back to the eleventh cen-
text on which Needham bases much of his argument tury; see the brief historical background note in
is Shen Gua (1029-1093), Meng Xi Bi-Tan, written Wolfgang Franke, Chinese Epigraphical Materials in
1086-1091. For a recent study (in Chinese) of the Indonesia, Volume One, Sumatra (Singapore, 1988),
NOTES natural science content of this famed miscellany, see 445. No epigraphical evidence earlier than the fif-
1. William H. McNeill, "THE RISE OF THE WEST Anhui Provincial University of Science and Technol- teenth century has yet been found, however, for
After Twenty-five Years/' Journal of World History ogy, Meng Xi Bi-Tan Yizhu (Translation and annota- Chinese settlement in Sumatra.
i (No. i, Spring 1990): 1-21. The passages quoted tion of the Meng Xi Bi-Tan, Natural Science 20. Much of the foregoing is based on the splendid
are found on pp. 5, 6, 18. McNeill's article is quoted Portions) (Hefei, Anhui, 1979), especially pp. 140- study by J. V. G. Mills accompanying his translation
with the kind permission of the copyright holders. I 143, on the compass and magnetic declination. of a descriptive account, the book by Ma Huan,
am grateful to my colleague Professor Frank A. 12. The Journal of Christopher Columbus (Diario), Ying-yai sheng-lan: The Overall Survey of the
Kierman, Jr., for calling my attention to McNeill's trans. Cecil Jane, ed. L. A. Vigneras, reprint (New Ocean's Shores [1433] (Cambridge, 1970).
article when it was first published, and for invalu- York, 1989), 9, 11, entries for 13 September and 17 21. See F. W. Mote, "Yuan and Ming," in Food in
able advice on other aspects of the present essay. September; also 204, n. 10. A number of scholars Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical
2. McNeill, 1990,18-19. have doubted that this comment on the diurnal rota- Perspectives, ed. K. C. Chang (New Haven and
3. There were, nonetheless, limitations in pre- tion of the polestar, first noted on these dates, indi- London 1977), 193-258.
Newtonian science and proto-science, East and West, cate that Columbus or his contemporaries had an 22. The quotations from Columbus' Diario here are
that had to be overcome before any civilization could understanding either of polarity or of magnetic drawn from Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr.,
move onward into the transforming process of mod- declination. See Needham 1971, 308. Recent schol- The DIARIO of Christopher Columbus's First
ernization that characterizes the modern world. arship appears to confirm the view that magnetic Voyage to America, 1492-93 (Norman, Okla., 1989),
That Europe did overcome those limitations, not that declination was discovered only much later in *7/ 9-
1
China did not, prior to its fuller interactions with the West. 23. See Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great
the West from the nineteenth century onward, is 13. Needham 1971, 4:3, provides a useful summary at Khans (London, 1971).
the remarkable feature of the world's modern his- the end of the section on "Nautics" (pp. 695-699) of 24. Juan Gil, ed., El Libro de Marco Polo anotado por
tory. For an analytical discussion of this with special the distinctive features of Chinese marine technol- Cristobal Colon (Madrid, 1987).
reference to China, see Marion J. Levy, Jr., Modern- ogy and their possible influence on the rest of the 25. See A.C. Moule, Christians in China before 1550
ization and the Structure of Societies, 2 vols. world. (London and New York, 1930), especially chapter 7,
(Princeton, N.J., 1966), 2:716-722, especially 720- 14. Needham 1971, 4:3, 588-617, (summary) 696-697. "The Mission of the Franciscan Brothers," 166-215.
721. I am indebted to Levy for much of the concep- 15. Mongol period contributions to the growth of 26. Cited from Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of
tual framework which informs my study of China. Chinese maritime strength are stressed in a recent Europe, vol. i, The Century of Discovery, book 2
4. See the discussion of the world of early Chinese survey by Chen Dezhi, "Yuan-dai hai-wai jiao-tong (Chicago, 1965), 735.
thought in F. W. Mote, Intellectual Foundations of yu Ming-chu Zheng He Xia Xi-yang," (Yuan Period 27. Chaoying Fang, "Chu Yu-t'ang [Zhu Youtang]" in
China, zd ed. (New York, 1989). Overseas Traffic in Relation to the Early Ming Voy- Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1644, ed. L.
5. In the present century it has become commonplace ages of Zheng He to the Western Oceans), in Zheng Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang (New York,
to refer to the Chinese past up to 1949 as "feudal" or He Xia Xi-yang Lun-wen Ji (Collection of Essays 1976), 1:375-380. A more extensive account of this
"semi-feudal," but that is a misnomer dictated by Relating to Zheng He's Voyages), ed. Committee for emperor's reign is found in Cambridge History of
Marxian historical fancies. Here we shall use the Observance of the 58oth Anniversary of Zheng China, ed. F. W. Mote and Denis C. Twitchett, vol.
"feudal" as the name of a particular type of political He's Voyages, Nanjing University, vol. 2 (Nanjing, 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part One (Cam-
organization (the model for that being post-Roman 1985), pp. 190-202. For the Mongol rulers' attitudes bridge, 1988), pp. 343-402.
Empire European feudalism). It should not be used toward commerce in Yuan China, see Elizabeth 28. The best treatment of the subject is in Thomas
as a catchall pejorative for a precapitalist or pre- Endicott-West, "Merchant Associations in Yuan Lawton, Chinese Figure Painting [exh. cat., Freer
socialist stage of any national history. China: The Ortoy" Asia Major 3:2 (1989), 127-154. Gallery of Art] (Washington, 1973).
6. Except where otherwise stated, the information 16. Chen Xinxiong, "Song Yuan de Yuan-yang mao-yi 29. For a discussion of the differences between calligra-
about early Chinese science in this and following chuan" (The Long-range Merchant Vessels of the phy in the West and in China (including East Asia
discussions is drawn largely from the writings of Song and Yuan Dynasties), in Zhongguo Haiyang where the Chinese script is used), see F. W. Mote,
Joseph Needham and his associates; see in particular fa-zhan shi lun-wen ji (Collected Essays on Chinese Preface to Calligraphy and the East Asian Book,
Science and Civilization in China, vol. 3 (Cam- Maritime Development), ed. Academia Sinica, Com- special catalogue issue of The Gest Library Journal,
bridge, 1959), and vol. 4:3 (1971); Clerks and mittee for the Study of Chinese Maritime Develop- vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 3-17. This volume also
Craftsmen in China and the West (Cambridge, ment, vol. 2 (Taibei, 1986). This very important has been published as a book by Shambhala Press,
1970); and The Grand Titration (London, 1969). article, utilizing recent archaeological and documen- Boston, 1989.

350 CIRCA 1492