Since a couple of you asked, here is a link to my contribution to the Columbia University website Bruce showed in class today: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/neh/course2/index.html .
The Website is called, "Recording the Grandeur of the Qing"
It is an extensive website that examines the economics, history and culture of the Qing Dynasty by examining 2 sets of scrolls. The First Emperor Kangxi went on a grand tour of the empire and commissioned a set of scrolls to depict his visits to several cities throughout China. His grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, after expanding the empire, commissioned a similar set of scrolls when he went on his grand tour.
My work focused on the visual differences between the two sets of scrolls... in particular how the artists organized space.
The Kangxi scrolls are not concerned with reality and organized by traditional Chinese conceptions of space, (which is flattened and detailed front to back). This allows the artist to show 100's of people and details in the foreground and background.
The Qianlong scrolls, show the influence of Western Perspective systems. A Jesuit Monk, (and great artist), Giuseppe Castiglione, was a favorite of the Qianlong Emperor and influenced his court painters. His set of scrolls are concerned with realistic depth of space. While beautiful, they do not show nearly the level of detail because of spacial restrictions.
Here is a link to the website itself (which I think would be particularly valuable to an economics or history class): http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/start.html
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A side note: This research led me to an accidental discovery...
As you know, I mentioned my school enjoys a Sister School relationship with a school in Changzhou China. Long story short... I found out a Kangxi scroll fragment depicting Changzhou was in a private collection in Phoenix. It had not been out of the vaults since the 1980's... the folks in Phoenix were kind enough to give me a high quality scan of the scroll, which I then gave to my sister school. Anyway it was a picture of their home town that they never saw before! It even made National News in China! (I still can't believe the coincidence). Here is a full accounting of that story if you wish to read it: http://hardcorepainting.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-gift-to-kind-people-of-changzhou.html
Cheers, PONZ
The British artist David Hockney made a film that compares those two scrolls. I use it in class (we have a copy in our UB library). It's called something like _A Day with the Emperor on the Grand Canal_....
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