HIST 347: China and the Early Modern World Order, 1500-1700 (HC): Visual Sources

To find journal articles about art history topics, use Art Index as well as the  multi-disciplinary databases, JSTOR and Proquest Research Library.

Examples of journal articles from Art Index that combine historical issues with art or images include:

Authenticity and the Expanding Market in Chen Hongshou's Seventeenth-Century Printed Playing Cards.  Tamara Bentley.  Artibus Asiae 69, 1 (2009): 147-188.

Abstract:  Well-known Chinese painter and print designer Chen Hongshou (1598–1652) produced innovative painting and prints, which played upon ideas of authenticity to appeal to new constellations of markets. In the late 16th and 17th centuries, art audiences (including audiences for prints) had expanded well beyond the circumscribed milieu of the elite. Chen evinces a highly flexible approach to patronage, mixing elite patrons, quickly executed single figures and tailored literal portraits, print products, ready mades, and studio copies. In his Venerating Antiquity card set, into which he built himself from a multiplicity of angles, there are signs of the conflict between principled authenticity and commerce, public and personal enrichment. By visually identifying himself with both the highest suit (the most money-idolizing) and the lowest suit (the most impoverished) in the set, he appears to critique at once his own devotion to commerce and his poverty as one of the yimin (leftover subjects loyal to the last regime).

The Irony of Copying the Elite: A Preliminary Study of the Poetry, Calligraphy and Painting on 17th-Century Jingdezhen Porcelain. Qianshen Bai.  Oriental Art 41 (1995): 10-21.

Abstract: The writer discusses how the literati concept of the three perfections—poetry, calligraphy, and painting—influenced the output of 17th-century Jingdezhen potters in China. In the literati tradition, poems were rendered in fine calligraphic style. However, to master the techniques of calligraphy and become familiar with its various scripts and styles took years. Jingdezhen potters often painted on to their porcelain what the literati had written rather than compose poetry themselves; however, the potters made many mistakes when doing so. It is likely that the porcelains with awkward calligraphy would not prove attractive to the literati, a cultural elite that had mastered the skill of calligraphy and poetry. It may be that the purchasers of such porcelain were those merchants who wished to emulate the lifestyle of the literati.

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