DOI Kapitel:
Essays
DOI Kapitel:Ning, Yao: Propagating the Confucian Virtues: Chinese Artists in Serialized Printed Portrait Books
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70035#0032
Propagating the Confucian Virtues
portraits in the seventeenth century and onwards.38 As David Hockney has pointed
out in his brilliant book Secret Knowledge. Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old
Masters, the small-sized faces are actually made with the help of a mirror-lens.39
Recently, much research has been done on optical devices brought to China from
the West as well as publications on optical devices in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, such as studies on the illustrated catalogue A History of Lenses
published in 1681 by the lens maker Sun Yunqiu (ca. 1650-after 1681). For
some of its descriptions, this catalogue drew heavily upon On the Telescope
written by German Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591-1666) and published in
162 6.40 The practice and knowledge of Western optical devices played an important
role in the popularization and mass-production of optical devices in China. In the
second half of the seventeenth century, many spectacles and other optical devices
became widely available in South China for the first time. During the 1650s and 1660s
alone, at least 2,500 pairs of spectacles produced in China were exported to Japan.41
However, it is relevant to point out that long before the arrival of the Western
missionaries, Chinese painters had already been using optical devices, and in ways
that are still quite unknown to Chinese art history.
2. Wushuang pu (Catalogue of the Unparalleled, preface 1690)
From the end of the sixteenth century onwards, increasing numbers of painters and
artisans could make a living without having to take the civil service examination and
participate in officialdom. The social status of artists had shifted. The print in the
book Wushuang pu (Catalogue of the Unparalleled) by Jin Guliang
(active at the end of the seventeenth century), preface dated 1690, is an example of a
case that was dedicated to an unknown stone carver named An Min (Fig. 7). In
the print, An Min looks to the upper right while his hands are crossed in front of him.
This is the moment that he stopped engraving and has gone backwards to see the
name list on the stele as described in the poem that follows on the next page (Fig. 8).
The inscription of Fig. 7 in the upper right corner is the name An Min; the inscription
on the left describes the story about the stele, Yuanyou jiandang bei (Stele
of the Wicked Faction during the Yuanyou Reign, 1086-1094). In the print of the stele,
the five characters of Yuanyou jiandang bei are written in seal script above (Fig. 8); a
poem is inscribed below on the front side. At the end of the poem appears Shetang
the style name of Jin Guliang. To its right are the three characters An Shigong dffi
X, meaning the stone carver An, inscribed on the other side of the stele. The stele
represents a three-dimensional space by integrating the inscriptions written on three
different sides of the stele. This interaction between text and image created new
experiences of viewing or reading. In the early editions, the image of An Min and the
image of the stele may have been juxtaposed according to the preface. However, in all
extant editions, the two images are no longer displayed face to face. The image of the
stele is on the page behind the one of An Min.
25
portraits in the seventeenth century and onwards.38 As David Hockney has pointed
out in his brilliant book Secret Knowledge. Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old
Masters, the small-sized faces are actually made with the help of a mirror-lens.39
Recently, much research has been done on optical devices brought to China from
the West as well as publications on optical devices in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, such as studies on the illustrated catalogue A History of Lenses
published in 1681 by the lens maker Sun Yunqiu (ca. 1650-after 1681). For
some of its descriptions, this catalogue drew heavily upon On the Telescope
written by German Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591-1666) and published in
162 6.40 The practice and knowledge of Western optical devices played an important
role in the popularization and mass-production of optical devices in China. In the
second half of the seventeenth century, many spectacles and other optical devices
became widely available in South China for the first time. During the 1650s and 1660s
alone, at least 2,500 pairs of spectacles produced in China were exported to Japan.41
However, it is relevant to point out that long before the arrival of the Western
missionaries, Chinese painters had already been using optical devices, and in ways
that are still quite unknown to Chinese art history.
2. Wushuang pu (Catalogue of the Unparalleled, preface 1690)
From the end of the sixteenth century onwards, increasing numbers of painters and
artisans could make a living without having to take the civil service examination and
participate in officialdom. The social status of artists had shifted. The print in the
book Wushuang pu (Catalogue of the Unparalleled) by Jin Guliang
(active at the end of the seventeenth century), preface dated 1690, is an example of a
case that was dedicated to an unknown stone carver named An Min (Fig. 7). In
the print, An Min looks to the upper right while his hands are crossed in front of him.
This is the moment that he stopped engraving and has gone backwards to see the
name list on the stele as described in the poem that follows on the next page (Fig. 8).
The inscription of Fig. 7 in the upper right corner is the name An Min; the inscription
on the left describes the story about the stele, Yuanyou jiandang bei (Stele
of the Wicked Faction during the Yuanyou Reign, 1086-1094). In the print of the stele,
the five characters of Yuanyou jiandang bei are written in seal script above (Fig. 8); a
poem is inscribed below on the front side. At the end of the poem appears Shetang
the style name of Jin Guliang. To its right are the three characters An Shigong dffi
X, meaning the stone carver An, inscribed on the other side of the stele. The stele
represents a three-dimensional space by integrating the inscriptions written on three
different sides of the stele. This interaction between text and image created new
experiences of viewing or reading. In the early editions, the image of An Min and the
image of the stele may have been juxtaposed according to the preface. However, in all
extant editions, the two images are no longer displayed face to face. The image of the
stele is on the page behind the one of An Min.
25