Wicks: Children in Chinese Art CL

246 Pages·2002·94.13 MB·English

by  Wicks

Children in Chinese Art
Published with the support
of the School of Hawaiian,
Asian, and Pacific Studies,
University of Hawai‘i
Children in Chinese Art
Edited by
Ann Barrott Wicks
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu
L  C C--P D
Children in Chinese art / edited by Ann Barrott Wicks.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8248-2359-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Children in art. 2. Art, Chinese—Ming-Qing dynasties, 1368–1912.
I. Wicks, Ann Elizabeth Barrott.
N7343.5 .C464 2002
700'.452054'0951—dc21 2001053509
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free
paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.
© 2002 University of Designed by Diane Gleba Hall
Hawai‘i Press Printed by Friesens Corporation
All rights reserved
Printed in Canada 07 06 05 04 03 02 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Periods in Chinese History xi
1. Introduction: Children in Chinese Art 1
A B W  E B. A
2. Images of Children in Song Painting and Poetry 31
R B  C B
3. One Hundred Children: From Boys at Play to Icons of Good Fortune 57
T T B
4. Representations of Children in Three Stories from
Biographies of Exemplary Women 84
A W
5. The Childhood of Gods and Sages 108
J K. M
6. The Art of Deliverance and Protection: Folk Deities
in Paintings and Woodblock Prints 133
A B W
Contents
7. Family Pictures 159
A B W
Notes 179
Glossary of Chinese Characters 193
Select Bibliography 201
Contributors 209
Index 211
Color plates follow page 34
vi
Acknowledgments
More than ten years ago, I approached Ellen Avril, who was at that time assis-
tant curator of Asian art at the Cincinnati Art Museum, about the possibility
of organizing an exhibition of Chinese representations of children. Ellen was more
than enthusiastic, and we began work almost immediately. A year later, our carefully
researched proposal was readily supported by the exhibition committee of the Cin-
cinnati Art Museum, under the direction of Millard Rogers. An exhibition-planning
grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) allowed us to gather
a team of experts who met in Cincinnati for three days in June 1993 to discuss and
further develop our ideas about the exhibition. The grant also funded travel to
collections of Chinese art in North America, Europe, and Asia for primary research,
followed by a second meeting of the consultants to plan the exhibition.
During 1993 and 1994, Ellen Avril and I studied depictions of children in more
than fifty public and private collections. Nora Shih accompanied us to study collec-
tions on the West and East Coasts, in Hawai‘i, and in Asia. Diana Tenckho¤ went
with us to see art in the Midwest and in Toronto. We were delighted with the friendly
and interested response we received in each locale, and the willingness of museums
and collectors to lend art to the show. In Honolulu, we met with Patricia Crosby,
senior editor at the University of Hawai‘i Press, who agreed to copublish the exhibi-
tion catalog.
The implementation of the exhibition unfortunately coincided with a period of
decreased national funding for the arts, as well as a leadership change at the Cin-
cinnati Art Museum. It was a great disappointment when the new director of the
Cincinnati Art Museum canceled the exhibition. We cannot adequately apologize to
the museums in China, Europe, and Taiwan with which we had negotiated contracts,
vii
Acknowledgments
the museums that were scheduled to host the additional venues, the catalog essay
authors whose finished work we could not publish, and the anticipated symposium
speakers whose plans were so abruptly changed. Nonetheless we do apologize, and
thank them for their gracious acceptance of the circumstances.
This volume of essays evolved from research done for the proposed exhibition
and symposium. Some of the illustrations included were among those previously
planned for the museum show. The book, however, is not an attempt to reproduce
what would have been the exhibition catalog. The emphasis has changed from visual
presentation to an examination of the social context of the works. I am grateful to
Patricia Crosby of the University of Hawai‘i Press for her willingness to consider pub-
lishing a volume of essays. I appreciate her support, patience, and editorial expertise.
NEH consultants to the proposed museum project, to whom Ellen and I owe
many thanks for their enthusiastic support, their time, and their knowledgeable sug-
gestions, are Richard Barnhart, art history, Yale University; Terese Tse Bartholomew,
art history, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; Anne Behnke Kinney, history,
University of Virginia; Anne El-Omami, art education, Cincinnati Art Museum;
Miriam Levering, religion, University of Tennessee at Knoxville; Stephen Little, art
history, Chicago Art Institute; Catherine Pease, literature, Western Washington
University; Diana Tenckho¤, art history, University of Oregon; Nora Ling-yun
Shih, art history, New York; Ann Waltner, history, University of Minnesota; and
Zhou Xiuqin, museum studies, University of Pennsylvania.
I would also like to thank the many following museum curators and personnel
for their time, expertise, and kindness. Each of them contributed something to the
outcome of this book. In China: Ma Chengyuan, Wang Qingzheng, and Zhong
Yinlan of the Shanghai Museum; Yang Xin, Shan Guoqiang, and Xia Jinping of the
Palace Museum, Beijing; Liang Baiquan, Xu Huping, Zhang Pusheng, Zhou
Guangyi, and Huang Ping of the Nanjing Museum; Chen Jun of the Suzhou Museum;
Chen Ruinong of the Wuxi Municipal Museum; Ren Zhilu, Tao Zhenggang, Wang
Xiaorong, Zhang Xishun, and Gao Ke of the Museum of Shanxi Province, Taiyuan,
and Shanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau; Cui Jin, Liu Guozhan, and Zhang
Shulan of the Tianjin Museum of Fine Arts; Cai Changkui of the Tianjin Folk
Customs Museum; Lü Changsheng and Zhou Baozhong of the Museum of Chinese
History, Beijing; Philip Y.C. Mak of the Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong; Christina
Chu of the Hong Kong Museum of Art; Wang Limei of the State Bureau of Cultural
Relics, Beijing. In Taiwan: Chin Hsiao-yi, Lin Po-t’ing, and Chang Lin-sheng of the
National Palace Museum, Taipei; Shi Shou-chien of the Graduate Institute of Art
History, National Taiwan University, Taipei. In Japan: Yutaka Mino, Asaka Hiroshi,
Suzuki Yukito, and Ishikawa Tomohiko of the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art;
viii
Acknowledgments
Nishigami Minoru and Kawahara Masahiko of the Kyoto National Museum; Fujita
Shinya of the Museum Yamato Bunkakan; Kohno Keiko of the Sumitomo Collection;
Koike Tomio, Yamamoto Yasukazu, and Sato Toyozo of the Tokugawa Art Museum;
Minato Nobuyuki, Nishioka Yasuhiro, and Imai Atsushi of the Tokyo National
Museum; Ebine Toshio of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In
Europe: Jessica Harrison-Hall, Anne Farrer, and Joe Cribb of the British Museum,
London; the Percival David Foundation, London; Regina Krahl and Craig Clunas of
the Barlow Collection; Peter Hardie of the Bristol Museums and Art Gallery; Jean-Paul
Desroches, Laure Feugere, Vêra Linhartová, and Anne Marie Amon of the Musée
National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet, Paris; Lucie Borotová and Ladislav Kesner, the
National Gallery, Prague; Willibald Veit, Uta Rahman-Steinert, Herbert Butz, and
Waldemar Porzezinski of the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst,Berlin; Jan Wirgin,
Mette-marie Siggstedt, and Louise Virgin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities,
Stockholm; Vladimir A. Nabatchikov, Guenrikh P. Popov, Andrey Anikeyev,
Natalia A. Kanevskaya, and Vladimir E. Voitov of the State Oriental Museum,
Moscow; G.Vilinbakhov, Maria L. Ptchelina (Rudova), and Tatiana B. Arapova of
the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. In North America: Jim Robinson of the
Indianapolis Museum of Art; Li Jian and the now deceased Clarence Kelley of the
Dayton Art Institute; Maxwell K. Hearn of the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Wu
Tung of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Shen C.Y. Fu and Jan Stuart of the Freer
and Sackler Galleries of Art, Washington, D.C.; Patricia Berger and Terese
Bartholomew of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; Sheila Keppel and James
Cahill of the University Art Museum, Berkeley; Michael Knight of the Seattle Art
Museum; Stephen Little and Julia White of the Honolulu Academy of Arts; Stephen
Little and Elinor Pearlstein of the Chicago Art Institute; Bennet Bronson and Chui-
mei Ho of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Steven D. Owyoung of
the Saint Louis Art Museum; Yang Xiaoneng of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art;
Barbara Stephen, Doris Dohrenwend, Hsu Chin-hsiung, Patty Proctor, and Ka Bo
Tsang of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Mark Carr-Rollitt of the Museum for
Textiles, Toronto; Diana Tenckho¤ of the University of Oregon Museum of Art;
Claudia Brown of the Phoenix Art Museum.
We owe thanks to numerous private collectors and dealers who allowed us to
study works in their collections and kept us informed of new pieces on the market.
Among these are Wango H. C. Weng, New Hampshire; Howard and Maryanne
Rogers, Kamakura; Paul Moss, London; Valery Garrett, Hong Kong; Dr. S.Y.Yip,
Hong Kong; John Fong, Pennsylvania; John Singer, London; and Sam Fogg, London.
I would like to acknowledge support received from Miami University for this
book. A grant from the Committee on Faculty Research paid for computer equip-
ix
Acknowledgments
ment and Chinese word-processing software necessary to the project. The Fine
Arts Development Fund for Academic Excellence, the School of Fine Arts Special
Projects Fund, and the O◊ce for the Advancement of Teaching and Scholarship
provided money for photographs. In addition, I was given a four-month professional
leave to finish the final editing of the book.
Very special thanks are reserved for Ellen Avril, currently Curator of Asian Art
at the Johnson Museum, Cornell University, with whom I traveled widely and
worked closely for the first fifteen years of our careers in Chinese art, she at the
museum and I at the university. I am grateful for her intelligent insights, her museum
expertise, the many hours she spent on grant writing and trip planning, her good
humor while traveling; I greatly value her friendship.
Finally, I must thank my husband, Robert Wicks, and my children, Christopher,
David, and Elizabeth, for their patience during the hectic months in which I traveled
to museums throughout the world. It was invaluable experience for me, and I am
grateful they allowed me to draw on our family’s resources of energy, time, and
money to gain that experience.
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