EDITED BY JEFFREY W.

CODY AND FRANCES TERPAK

 EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY IN CHINA

EDITED BY JEFFREY W. CODY

AND FRANCES TERPAK

THE GETTY RESEA RCH INSTITUTE

T he Getty Research Institute P uhlications Program
Thomas \YJ. Gaehtgens, Director, Getty Research fnstilule
Gai l Feigenbaum, Associate Director

Brush and Shutte" Early Photography in China

Lauren Edson, Manuscript Editor
Cathe rine Lo renz, D esigner
Stacy Miyagawa, Product ion Coordinator

Typesetting by Diane Franco

Printed in China through Asia Pacific OHset, Inc.

This volume fea tures holdings of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute
and accompanies the exhibition Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China, held at
the J. Pau l Getty Museum, 8 February-1 May 2011

ill> 2011 J. Pau l Getty Trust

P uhli sl, ed by th e G etty Research In stitute, Los A ngeles
Getty Puhlications
Gregory M. Britton, Publisher
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 500
Los Angeles, California 90049-1682
www.gettypublications.org

15 14 13 12 11 54 3 2 1

Front cover: See Tay (Lia ng Shita i), Portra it of Li H ongzhang, 1878. See pl. 6, p. 126
Back cover: T ingqua (Guan Lia nchang), Ti ngqua studio in Guangzhou, ca. 1840. Los Ange les, T he Kelto n
Foundation. See pl. 1, p. 121
Frontispiece: Co ll age of many photographs (detai l), late 1800s. See pl. 59, p. 180
Th is page: Felice Beato (photograph) and Charles Wirgman (hand coloring, attributed), House in Canton (detail),
1860. See pl. 14, p. 134

Libra ry of Congress Catalogin g-in-Puhli cation Data

Brush and shutter: early photography in China I ed ited by Jeffrey W. Cody and Frances Terpa k.
p. em.
Accompa n ies an ex h ibi tion held at the J. Pa ul Getty Museum, beg inning Feb. 8, 2011.
Includ es bibli ograph ica l references an d ind ex.
ISBN 978 -1-60606-054-4
1. Photography-China- History-Ex h ibit ions . 2 . P hotography-Soc ial aspects-C h ina-History-
Ex h ibitions . 3. P hotography, Artistic-Exh ibit ions. !. Cody, Jeffrey W. II. Terpak, Fra nces, 1948- Ill.
J. Pau l Getty Museum.
TR10l.B78 2011
770.951-- dc22
2010039244
CONTENTS

Vll FOREWORD
IX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
XI NOTE TO THE READER

1 INTRODUCTION
Reading Early Photographs of China
WuHung

19 THE HISTORY OF THE CAMERA OBSCURA

AND EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY I CHINA
Edwin K. Lai

33 THROUGH A FOREIGN GLASS

The Art and Science of Photography in Late Qing China
Jeffrey W Cody and Frances Terpak

69 I VE TING A "CHINESE " PORTRAIT STYLE

I EARLYPHOTOGRAPHY
The Case of Milton Miller
WuHung

91 CHINESE AS SUBJECT
Photographic Genres in the Nineteenth Century
Sarah E. Fraser

111 BEYOND THE FRAME

The Camera in Republican Shanghai and Wartime Chongqing
Wen-hsin Yeh

120 PLATES

183 LIST OF OBJECTS IN THE EXHIBITION

Shi Chen

190 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

191 INDEX
 CHINESE AS SUBJECT
Photographic Genres in the Nineteenth Century
Sarah E. Fraser
From 1860 to 1905, po litically cbarged trans-Pacific dialogues between the West
and China played a significant role in transforming the pbotographic representation
of China. The Opium Wars, Boxer Uprising, and anti-Chinese immigration policies
in tbe United States are critical factors tl1at account for tbe creation of a negative,
punitive representation of the Chinese subject. T he focus of this essay concerns the
ways in wbich photographic types referencing etbnograpbic genres formu lated tbe
concept of "China" and deve loped a category of "the Chinese." By 1900 these stereo-
types were part of a visual culture of colonial Asia in wbicb the modern male Chinese
""0
subject was often conveyed in criminal terms; this conception becomes imbricated in
a modern Chinese sense of self in its many formations .
The plwtography co llection at the Getty Research Institute provides a criti-
cal mass of imagery for studying the dynamics of t h is shift in visual culture. T be
Second Opium War (1856-60) and the Boxer Uprising (1900-1901) anchor the
period of focus. Pbotograpbic subject matter is limited in the earlier period, with
changes in teclmology expanding the range of subjects by the early twentieth century.
And yet there is a consistency in generic statements about "the Chinese" writ large
that unfold in complex layers as textual and visual representations of the Chinese
subject circulate between China's treaty ports, European and American government
offices in the Far East, Japanese military quarters, and anti-Chinese immigration
courts in tbe United States. Trans-Pacific and pan-Asian constructions of the labor-
ing class, or the "coolie," provide a focal point for tracking the increasingly violent
and racist views about communities on Cbina's coast. In the 1860s and 1870s, stud-
ies of Chinese character centered on explorations of profession, class, and gender,
wit!, individual sitters as the focal point. By the end of the century, figural studies
tended to embrace large groups that served as fixtures for larger, international debates
about Chinese national character. This transformation in the Chinese subject can be
described as a move from depictions of abstract genre categories of quintessential
"native types" in the mid-nineteenth century to co nsiderations of larger racial and
national questions by the turn of the century.
Although the violence of this time period is frequent ly represented, the vast
majority of colonial photographs unwittingly and repetitively capture the banality
of the foreigner's life abroad (pl. 32) . Occasionally, the spontaneous and ad hoc are
presented (pl. 33}, but more often one is confronted with the predictability of the
0
l colonial imagination (p l. 35). One might argue that, as a resu lt, colonial plwtographs
tend toward the uniform and bland in China's semicolonial spaces. 1 The nature of 91
the repetition shifted over the course of the nineteenth century as foreigners moved
northward from Hong Kong to Tianjin into new treaty ports. The geographic range
of views expanded, but the tendency of photographers to fixate on a limited num-
ber of monuments, famous sites, and scenic landscape spots remained. Some of the
common scenes include easi ly accessible temp les and streets in Guangzhou, mer-
chant shops and teahouses in Shanghai, and the architecture of foreign settlements
in the treaty ports of Xiamen (Amoy), Tianjin, and Shantou (Swatow), among otbers.
Copious foreign views of Beijing frequently emphasize imperial ruins and crumbling
edifices, and many of these locales were pbotograpbed from the same vantage point.
One reason for tbis repetition, particularly in views of famous places, was tbe dual
mitigating factors of linguistic limitations and travel bans that narrowed tbe visual
fie ld. It was difficult, if not ill egal, for foreign nationals to travel beyond the port cit-
ies; therefore, one cannot be surprised to find some repetition in pictorial language as
well as content. The effective boundaries of nineteenth-century photographs taken in
Cbina are conditioned by spatial and imaginative limitations, and it is in this context
we must explore Chinese photographic types. 2
CONSTRUCTING THE CHINESE SUBJECT
THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS
William Saunders's album "Chinese Life and Character Studies, 1863-64," con-
tains some of the earliest hand- colored albumen photographs produced in East Asia. 3
Saunders, a British photographer who established studios in Hong Kong and Guang-
zhou from 1861 to 1864, staged and photographed fifty stereotypical views of trades,
activities, and generic types that largely drew on themes popular in earlier eighteenth-
century European prints and engravings. 4 Saunders's views include A Wedding Proces-
sion; Irrigation; Buffalo with Waterwheel; Carpenters and Seamstresses; A Small Military
Mandarin; Shanghai Coolies (pl. 38); and A Chiropodist (pl. 39) . Several were taken
in a studio. Saunders also effectively uses makesh ift exterior settings as studiolike
backdrops (pl. 40). As a collection, tl<e pl<otographs emphasize labor at a premodern
technological state. These views endure, suggesting that, later in the century, Chi-
nese painters and photographers participated in the construction and marketing of
Chinese themes to foreign audiences in early commercial encounters. Twenty years
later, simi lar images were being reproduced individually in magazines popular among
92 the expatriate community, such as the Far East. Saunders's fifty views were meant
., to represent universal qualities about "Chinese character." The band-colored pal-
"> ette, particularly the dreamy blue sky, emphasizes a timelessness or overdetermined
"'m
" classicizing truth about the subjects. The artifice of Saunders's praxis is evident in
his excessive staging of laborers with profession-specific props and clothing. While
Saunders emphasizes specific labors and activities, the results are unconvincing. One
example from the collection, Shanghai Coolies, represents two workers available for
hire staged against a plain interior wall (pl. 38). The naive theatricality of the figures
suggests that they are performing the role of laboring porters for the camera. As in
other scenes, such as Itinerant Barbers and Carpenters and Seamstresses, Saunders
reproduces the look and feel of figural types already in the representational lexicon
5
of Chinese workers. The constructions, conditioned by limitations of photographic
equipment in the 1860s, are consistent with studio practices across colonial Asia,
6
particularly in British India.
The interior staging by the American photographer Milton Miller differs
from that of Saunders's Chinese vignettes in both style and technique. For example,
the setting in Miller's photograph Mandarin in Sedan Chair, and Attendants (fig. 1)
occupies a place between a makeshift studio and an actual public courtyard. It appears
more elaborate than Saunders's genre views of professions, and the use of a sedan
chair indoors suggests negotiation of location between the photograpl<er and subjects .
It is hard to say whether the palanquin's hi gh- status occupant commissioned the pho-
tograph, whether he was asked by Miller to pose for a fee, or whether he was flattered
7
and agreed to the pose. Knowing tbese details would allow us to assign this image to
its proper place, but its indeterminacy does leave us with one certainty: tl<e relation-
ships between sitters, performers, and cameramen participating in representations
of essentialized China shifted easi ly and were not fixed. Tbe overuse of the large-
brimmed hats is consistent with the ways that tbis type of pbotograpbic practice, in
addition to close views of eyes and bair, was developed to convey cl,aracter from the
kinds of external physiognomic detail favored by anotber Cbina photographer, John
Thomson (1837-1921). 8 The large farmer's hat and the palanquin shouldered by the
bearers become integral parts of the constructed Cbinese figural subj ect presented as
a definitive portrait of a constructed people or race.
THE COOLIE
The bearers wearing broad-brimmed bats in Miller's Mandarin in Sedan Chair, and
Attendants (see fig. 1) stand as an early example of a larger effort to picture the
Fig. 1
Milton Miller (American, 1830-99)
Mandarin in Sedan Chair, and Attendants, 1861-64,
albu men print, 8.4 x 17.3 em (3 5116 x 6 13/16 in.)
Los Ange les, Getty Research Institute
Chinese worker, or "coolie," in late Qing photography. The term coolie, frequently 93

used in captions, signals a stereotypical, racialized construction of laborers that cir- ()

:t
culated from India to China, to the United States, and back to East Asia. Its ety- -z
m
mology as a racial slur can be traced to colonial India, adapted from Tamil (kuli) or "'m
>
Gujarati (koli) to signal low-wage, itinerant laborers. 9 Other loan words with racial "'
"'c
connotations from Hindi-such as loot (military units stealing art in an unbridled, m
()

postvictory frenzy) and cantonment (a fortified international settlement; Canton later -i

became the English name for the city of Guangzhou)-also found their way into
the international communities in China and India as part of the hybrid linguistic
parlance of colonial Asia. 10
By 1860 on the Indian subcontinent-where the British colonial presence
fueled the circulation of specific kinds of occupational and racial genre studies-the
reprinting of photographs with subjects displaying explicit ethnic features was com-
mon.11 Photographs were sold, resold, reprinted, and often placed in private photo
albums where travelers added their personal narratives. The continuous presence of
tl1ese devastating views of poor, displaced laborers from coastal China reinforced
practices elsewhere in colonial Asia and contributed to the long-term traction of
poot-IES WAITINO FOF\_ EMPLOYMENT.

stereotyping cl,inese laborers.

When the photograph captioned Coolies Waiting /or Employment appeared Fig. 2
with an article about Shanghai in the expatriate Far East magazine in 1876, the Coolies Waiting /or Employment

image of the coolie had become part of a commentary linking the semicolonial sub- From Far East 1, no. 6 (1876): facing p. 46

ject to unhygienic places in the nonforeign sections of the treaty port (fig. 2). 12 The Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute

photographer was anonymous, and we cannot know how the subjects were selected,
but th eir similar patched clothing, torn and repaired many times, suggests group stag-
ing comparable to that in photographs in Saunders's "Chinese Life and Character
Studies" album a decade earlier rather tban casual street pbotograpby. Tbe day labor-
ers in Coolies Waiting /or Employment are portrayed as abject and destitute, and tbeir
physical readiness is questionable. At least one has vision problems and several seem
to be malnourished-pbysical disabilities tbat are not surprising for laborers of tbis
period but are nonetheless emphasized in this photo. Tbe accompanying article in the
Far East makes clear how the foreign residents saw the old, circular- walled section
of Shangbai as unhygienic, unproductive, and not conducive to business enterprise.
Descriptions of the old city's ditches of standing water, small and winding lanes, and
shops with limited interiors and small facade windows contrast with the representa-
tion of progress often depicted in surveys of the international sections of treaty port
settlements. The coolie, a widely circulated stock figure, came to represent the larger
group of China's coastal laboring class and, witb tbat, a good segment of the popula-
tion. The attributes associated witb the denigrated coolie became an integral part of
the ever evolving but increasingly negative "Chinese" national character described in
photo captions. "Coolie," witb all of its associations of ineptness, became another way
of articulating visually and verbally the general category of "Cbinese."
The constructed coolie subject changed considerably in the intervening
decade between Saunders's 1863-64 character study and tbe 1876 Far East pho-
tograph. The na'ivete of Saunders's figures is replaced with an abject, sullen quality;
negative representations of the Cbinese worker continued to build througb the end of
94 the nineteenth century. Coolies Waiting /or Employment points to features that would
become ubiquitous in James Ricalton's photos at the turn of the century-large
'n
"'>
Ul
groupings of poor and working-class men appear unmoored in the larger economic
m
"' and political chaos of China's capital, Beijing, and its vast coastal communities.
These themes of impoverished workers endured tluougl, the end of tl<e cen-
tury, and photojournalists and their publishers became aggressive ly cr itical in the
narratives captioning the images. Ricalton traveled in China durin g the Boxer Upris-
ing in 1900-1901 t o acquire material for tl<e popular Underwood and Underwood
stereographic sets and photographed an exaggerated version of the destitute coolie in
The King o/ A ll BeggarsY Another image, taken by American photographer James M.
Davis, sh ows Boxer combatants so underfed or ill that tl<ey lean on their guns for
14
supp ort. The day laborers and mercenaries depicted in commercial and military
settings are presented as ineffectual and unfit for either working or fighting-both
as individuals and as a group. And their settings, without modern equipment, fix time
in the coastal cities and the capital at a premodern standstill.
At this moment in pan-Asian colonial history, toward the end of the nine-
teenth century, the abject colonized subject circulating in the photography of semico-
lonial China strongly reflects and impacts di scourse from Southwest Asia and parts
of the Pacific Rim. As the term coolie circulated to China and across the Pacif-ic t o tl,e
United States, its meaning became imbricated in new discursive layers and defined
against a prowhite conception of labor. Tl,e Chinese worker was widely denigrated in
American popular culture; anticoolie ditties found their way into son gs, poems, and
illustrated weeklies.
Just as linguistic st ereotypes regarding Chinese labor were disseminated
widely among international settlements along the Chinese coast, photographic images
circulated even more freely throughout the Asia-Pacific region. One of the unsettlin g
aspects about tbe Far East photo is how the pl<otographer conveys the coolies' explicit
passivity. The laborers do not act on their own behalf; they bear the burdens of others,
not only in a physical sense but also on a much larger world stage. In post-Opium
War China, millions in the southeast were forced to accept paraslavery work condi-
tions in Southeast Asia, the Un ited States, and the Caribbean. 15
These photos under-
line the popularity and commercial success of Ch ina photography; "China" became an
object of spectatorship-an extreme ly popular one -but its popularity was embedded
16
in a negative foreign image framed by violence and submission.
In the same way tJ,at the "coolie" designation in Saunders's study can be
linked t o a growing pan-Pacific denigration of the Chinese worker, Ricalton's stereo-
grap h of a cordoned Guangzhou population, Watching the "Foreign Devils," registers
the exclusion of local populations in white-only areas within China (fig. 3}. Guang-
zhou residents are barred from entry into the British concession by a massive gate
through which they peer. In the framed encounter of yet another work published by
the Keystone Company, A Study o/ Chinese Faces, the anonymous photograpl<er offers
a key t o understanding the international perspective about the nonelite majority in
cities and villages by presenting an analysis of hi s subject based on class and race. The
caption describes the scene in stark terms: "Here is a crowd of Yellow People. Tl,ey
are Chinese of the poorer class. You can tell by the blank look on their faces that they
are not a thinking lot. The lower class of Chinese are not very intelligent. They work
with their hands instead of their brains. The ruling class are very different in looks
from these people." 17 Tl,e sentiment that links intelligen ce to race is reinforced by
the study questions posed on the back of the stereographic card: "What otl<er peoples
belong to the Yellow Race? What are the other races of mankind, according to color?"
Thus, these photographs sh ould be viewed in the larger international discussion of
race in the late nineteent!, century.
The caption further states that the lower classes were refugees from flood
and famine areas and that large sections of the population migrated from the disaster-
prone region in China's northern provinces in search of food and a better livelihood.
The text explains that starvation was common, forcing many of the four hundred mil-
lion Chinese into a seeming ly endless journey for survival. In this description, we see
[,ow a case is made for a lawless C l,ina. Widespread chaos leads to a perceived lack of
government control; there appears to be no sovereign country. That foreign invasion
contributed greatly to the breakdown of social order goes unremarked; rather, tl<e case
is made for pursuing profit and advantage in the absence of any recognized authority.
At the end of the nineteenth century, highly successful C hinese photogra-
pher Lai Afong uses the coolie theme (fig. 4} to construct an idealized view of the
Chinese laborer. The effect is as unconvincing as Saunders's Shanghai Coolies, but for
different reasons. In Afong's photo, the subj ect, as interpreted by Afong, is roman-
ticized; the landscape behind the three innocent youths suggests tbe sublime ratber
than arduo us mercantile endeavors. The Greek-like pavilion and the vine-laced pil-
lars and railing in front of the landscape backdrop depict a classical European-style
 Fig. 3 95

James Ricalton (American, 1844-1929)

()

Watching the "Foreign Devils-Gate o/ the English Bridge

z
m
Barring the Cantonese /rom the Legations, 1900, m

>
albumen print, 8 .9 x 18.8 em (3 112 x 73fs in.) m
m
Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute c
.:::
m
()
....

Fig. 4
Lai Afong (Chinese, 1839-90)
Three coolies, 1880-90,
albumen print, 21.7 x 27.6 em (8 9/16 x 10 7Js in.)
Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute
96 setting of an imagin ed place that is neither China nor Europe. The boys' physical

., condition suggests that they are not laborers -th eir smooth skin does not betray
"'> the effects of working outdoors (perhaps they are actors from a theater tro upe) .
"'m
"' In this highly pristine interpretation, the photographer attempts to resurrect or
sanitize the coolie subject-to make it innocuous. Afong's idealized representa-
tion of the coolie can be viewed as an effort to remove the negative associations
of this ubiquitous symbolic theme-to interrupt the dominant colonial or Orien-
talist discourse and to rescue the coolie subject from its collective negative asso-
ciations. This effort seems unsuccessful in the face of the relentless trans-Asian
and trans-Pacific stereotype of young workingmen as destitute, criminal, and inept.
The weight of the existing imagery of this theme makes Afong's response an impos-
sible task. 18

SITUATING PHOTOGRAPHY IN CHINA

Milton Miller's early stereograpJ, of Cantonese dressed in mourning for the emperor Fig. 5
(fig. 5) suggests how difficult it was for Chinese photographers to picture China Milton Miller (American, 1830-99)

in indigenous terms. The stereoscope's regime of vision legitimizes subject matter Cantonese Dressed in Mourning /or the Emperor.

through the sensation of three-dimensionality. Each stereograph holds two nearly Their First Peep i11to the Ste reoscope, ca. 1861-62,

albumen print, 8 .4 x 17.3 em (3 5/16 x 6 13/16 in.)

identical images side by side; but as one looks through the apparatus, the optics of
the viewing device combine them into a single image. The effect of receding space
suggests a documentary accuracy that insists on its own reality. If we take Miller at
his word-that the sitters are wearing mourning dress-then the scene was pho-
19
tographed in 1861, just after the Xianfeng emperor died. A year earlier, China
had been forced to sign unequal treaties granting European powers vast economic
advantages and real estate tracts in coastal cities. In November 1860, Felice Beato
(1820-1907) photographed the surrender of the imperial government to the Brit-
20
ish after the Second Opium War. Miller's studio construction of Their First Peep
suggests h ow the photographic medium establishes contingencies for perceiving and
understanding China. We cannot assume that many people in China saw this type of
image, but the implications are profound if we consider the C hinese audience, which
it explicitly targets. The Cantonese spectators -united in wl,ite mourning clothes
(whether real or imagined mourning attire, their clothing is assigned this status in the
caption) and representing the larger Qing body politic-experience views of Chinese
on European and American terms.
Los Ange les, Getty Research Institute
Pictorial patterns and the construction of core compositions aimed at defin-
ing "China" and "Chinese" were developed largely for an audience beyond China.
What is surprising, however, is that many of the local photographers participated in
this construction of China based on the colonial st ereotypes invented by and devel-
oped for foreign merchants, officials, and visitors. What was the role of indigenous
photographers in developing the c l,inese subj ect in photography?
Brush and Shutter is significant for its emphasis on neglected C hinese pho-
tographers, particularly their work in the treaty port panorama pbotographs, which
picture the entire expanse of ports from a distant shore. In Hong Kong, Guangzhou,
Fuzhou, and S hanghai, they actively participated in developing successful com-
mercial ventures alongside foreign cameramen such as Miller, Beato, Saunders, and
Pierre Rossier (1829-ca. 1897). Thus far, these European and American photog-
raphers have received most of tbe credit for the quality and abundance of China
treaty-port phot ography. From 1844 t o 1860, British and Ameri can phot ographers 97

established the first studios, but professional nineteenth-century C hinese photog- 776 ADVERTIS£~~~~'1'5.
(l

-z
raph ers, whom we are only beginning t o study and understand, were also active in
tUNG "fANG, m

the trade's inception. 21

By 1868, there were at least a score of maj or studios run 4-f? , BO.N H AM STRAND, HONGKONG, "'m
LllPOR'l'ER OF >
by H on g Kong and Shanghai locals. The cartes-de-visite in thi s exhibitio n-along "'
CALIFORNIA ANDANDOREGON FLOUR, "'c:
~
with William Pryor Floyd's pb ot ograpl, of Queen's Road, H on g Kon g,22 picturing m
GENERAL CO:NDHSSION MERCHANT. (l
-l
tl1e sbops of C antonese portrait painters and photographers-m ake clear they were
AGE).I'T FOR
po ised t o serve both indigenous and foreign clientele. 23 In 1889, A fon g, perhaps tbe
MESSRS. S. L. JONES & CO., SAN FRANCISCO,
most prolific of the nineteentb-century C hinese treaty port ph ot ographers, claimed [rnpQ;rt@t'$ Q~ OJP-Lt!:l\1:, 'LE:tt. SP [C!;S'. e,t~.
Expo-rters of FLOUR and GINSENG,
"a L ARGER, and m ore C o MPL ETE C OLL ECTION OF VI EWS than any other E stablish-
ment in the E mpire of C hina" (fig. 6). 24 The G etty Research Institute exhibition
AFONG,
PHOTOGI~APHER,
Has for sale a LARGER. n.nd more Cor.II'LETE
sbowcases A fon g's pan orama of Wuzlw u, with its dense wooden arcl1itecture bugging
COLLECTIO OF 8 VO~WS .
tl1 e water's edge (pl. 48), the delta islet of Shantou (Swatow) (pl. 2 0), and Guang- !:: ~~~bg·Et~n~~~~NSt
hie:.
which are obtainable in
1
~ ~1JiV§i~~~,f~fo%~~· ot~~ ~T1V~ fY~~~.a~~~e:O ~:
STUDIO 01' at J\Ie-:!'lr8. KELLY & WALSH'S.
IVORY f\li~IArrURES of Snp<>.rior Qul\lity ao<l of E.s:of>llent and High Finish.
zhou's bustling river trade (pl. 51) . Tb e Tung Hing studio (1860 s-80 s), which is He also uu<le,.t&ke• to execute PER"\IA~EN'r ENLARGEMENTS of PHO'rOS.
and VIEWS and to rPprodnoo the :;.:,me on PAPSR, CANVA~, or OPAL.
INS'l'A.NTA'8EOUS VII;~•"· GRoup:-; nud PoaTr.ATT8 of <lifl'erent sizes are taken
criti cal t o our underst anding of indige no us talent, produ ced a magist erial six-part in any state of the ''~"ellther, :tml rui ~~.::-::-:.~. ut Prc..:~a.;cs, ueh as PLATINOTYP:B,
CARBOY, l·e., are executefl on )[ODERAT~ ] ERM~.
pano rama of Fuzhou (pl. 50) , and tbe otherwise unknown atelier of Ton g Clmng New tyle of PHOTOGt:.APH iu PosT.\G.!:! STAliP FORiU AND ~JZt; taken. AuTOTYPE
PRI:ST I-:D PtcOTOGUAI'I.I~.
STUDIO, ICE HOUSE LA.NE. BEHIND NEW ORIENTAL BA.NK.
(d. 1862) captured a subtly textured multipart view of in gbo (pl. 49) . Offering IIOXGKO.'\"G.
spectacles of treaty port commerce, these expansive panoramas convey the technical
fin esse of C hinese mast ers in capturing the den sity and chan ging texture of urban
C hina. Other n ot eworthy cityscapes by Chinese photographers in the show include a BROADBEAR, AXTIIONY & CO .,
Shanghai street by S ze-Yuen Ming that appears t o picture new apartments for Chi- SHIPCHANDLERS, SAILMAKERS,
HIGC'rERS.
nese wo rkers (fig. 7 ). GENERAL STOREKEEPERS,
A~D
What may be confusing, though, is the lack of di scernable difference OOJY.I:JY.I:ISSION AGENTS,
between their phot ography of treaty port s a nd those by foreign phot ographers such Sole Agents for Hongkong. Swatow, Amoy, Tientsin, and Manila, for F. Mourey's of
~hrseille, Anti-fouling- Paint for Iron vessels.
PH.\Y \, TIO:-;GKO:'-IG.
as Dutton & Michaels (pl. 52 ) or St . John E dwards (fig. 8). F or example, rather than
using reg io nal description s for locals, Afon g advertised that he had copious examples
of "nati ve types" for sale -arti cul atin g his oe uvre in amateur etbnographic terms
Fig. 6
common for th e st ereotypical portrayals of peoples of foreign lands by Western pho-
Lai Afong (Chin ese, 183 9-90)
t ographers sucl1 as S aunders. Tb e carte-de- visite from Yueke Lo u's Shanghai studio Afo ng's adve rti sement
of a C hinese man sellin g pot s (see Wu's "Introduction, " fi g. 5) differs little fr om the From The Chronicle and Directory /or China, Corea, Ja pan,
charact er studies of John TJ,om so n, William Saunders, or Milto n Miller. In ge neral, the Philippines, Cochin-China, A nnam, To nquin, S iam, Borneo,
fro m tbe 1860s t o tbe 1890s, there are few distinct differences between tbe pan- Straits Settlements, Ma lay S tates, &c., /o r the Year 1889

oramas and genre studies shot by many of t he H on g Kon g and C hinese mainland (Hong Kong: ·Dail y Press Office, 1889), 776

phot ographer s and the works pro duced by West ern cameramen. Therefore, given Ithaca, Cornell Un iversity Library
98 Fig. 7
Sze-Yuen Ming (Shangbai, active 1892- 1920s)
.,
"'> Street in Shan gbai , late 1800s,
<n
m
"' albumen print, 19.5 x 25 em (7 11/16 x 9 131!6 in.)
Los Ange les, Getty Researcb In stitute

Fig. 8
St. John Edwards (nationality unknown, active 1872-1890s)
Island of Gulangyu in Xiamen, 1865-70,
albumen print, 2 1.5 x 57.2 em (8 7/16 x 22 112 in.)
Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute
t he ubiquity and uniformity of represe ntati on of ge nre types by both C hinese and
E uro-American phot ographers, we slw uld question what these gen re scenes of "native
types" mean . What exactly are they representing?
While we can identify C hinese photographers and place them in the techni-
cal and commer cial sphere, a significant problem rema ins: how should we interpret
the co ntent of the phot ographs creat ed by those native t o S hanghai, H on g Kon g, or
Macao in the ninet eenth century? One can assume that a local Chinese respon se t o
the O pium Wars would be very different from the colonial voice. T he Qing court
resisted every military challen ge bro ugl,t by European, A meri can, and Japanese pow-
ers as it was forced t o accept unequal treaties from 183 9 t o 1919. F urthermore, the
a nti-Qin g revolutionary intelli gentsia was extrem ely vocal about the ways in which
foreign powers manipulated tbe Qing court t o partition the country for economic
gain. In the late 1890s, post ers that emer ged from the S elf-Stren gtbening M ove-
ment (ziqiang yundong) cb allen ged ineff ective imperial rule; in one, animals of prey
personifying the imperia l powers were depict ed devouring the crumbling state. 25
Certain ly, tbe Manchu court occupied a different ro le in the power structure than
reform-minded Han elite in coast al cities- no si n gle voice in the vast spectrum
of lat e Q in g popular m edia, reformers, phot ograpbers, and artist s exist s. Rather,
it is critical t o identify tb e multilayered t exture of perspectives on mo dernity and
optics. A nd yet the humiliation of wars with foreign powers was a reg ular fixture of
lat e Qing society. The popular Shangbai maga zine Dianshizhai huabao (Dianshi zbai
pict orial) dem onstrates how illustrations based on phot ography and within a conser-
vati ve scope could offer altern ati ves t o colonial discourse. But tbese social and polit-
ical concerns present in the graphic art s and illustrated news were not evident in fin e
26
art photography. Yet, t o expect phot ographers t o reject the them es that denigrate
and punisb the C hinese subj ect in E uropean, A merican, and Japan ese phot ography
wo uld be t o misunderstand tbe power dyn amics of late Qing phot ograpbic produc-
27
tion. "Chinese culture fo und itse lf decentered" -almost irrelevant- in a foreign
discourse tbat preferred t o con st r uct its own versions of C bina witho ut the input of
tbe local intellige ntsia. Ph ot ograpbers in treaty ports operated in these limited cir-
cumst ances with the discursive boundar ies weighted in favo r of foreign perspectives
on local culture.
T be sale and circulation of earl y China photos are critical t o this problem.
A lthough C hi nese phot ograpbers in the late Qing did count local residents amon g
their clientele, their largest audience was foreign visitors and residents. 28 T h rough 99
the third quarter of the nineteenth century, H on g Kong and Shanghai phot ographers
such as A fon g worked in expect ed idioms and phot ographic con ventions prevalent -z
m
in a colonial enviro nment. From its inception in China, phot ograpby was embedded "'m
>
in a colonial matrix witb the earliest studios opened in the new treaty ports (Hon g "'
c"'
Kon g, S hanghai, Xiamen, Guan gzhou, Macao, Ningbo, and Fuzhou) that were forc-
ibly establi sbed after the Opium Wars. A lthough anti-Qing post ers give us a sen se
of possible respon ses t o the West ern- oriented phot ographic record amon g the elite,
C binese pbot ographers, strictly speaking, did not use the medium t o critique social
injustices until the 192 0 s and 193 0 s.29 A nd while foreign photographers did n ot
work in isolat io n-professional Chinese phot ographers quite possibly outnumbered
foreign cameramen by 1900-the semicolonial state of China's treaty ports largely
dictated the content and focus of pl<ot ography there.30
BOU NDARIE S AND SPATIAL DIVIDES
The fraught legal status of Chinese in segregated ports and in overseas communi-
ties is critical t o understandin g colonial phot ography's subject matter. A negative,
racialized view of Chinese as low-class manual laborers already dominated attitudes
t oward Cbinese nationals livin g in the U nited States, and by 1882 , exclusionary
laws and quotas h ad criminalized C hinese immi gration, with an aim t o eliminating
tbis pool of laborers from tbe U .S. workforce.3 1 In the pan-Pacific arena, both in
the colon ial spaces of international settlem ents on China's coast and in immigrant
C alifornia communities, economi c problem s fost ered an obsession with depicting
the legal ambiguity of the C hinese subject in foreign-dominat ed spaces. Early pho-
t ographs were used effectively in treaty ports as a way of marking and distinguishing
populations as m uch as they were t o document the new and unusuaJ.3 2
H on g K ong, won as a sb ort-term Briti sh concession in tbe F irst Opium
War (183 9-42 ) and then later in 1898 in a ninet y-nine-year lease, was a series
of fish in g villages that quickly turned into a maj or port foc used largely on the
opium and t ea trades . The phot ographic fir st impression s of offi cials, trad ers, and
visitors depict an architectural space near the water that could be mi staken for
either Mumbai (B ombay) or other Briti sh-dominat ed port s in Asia. T he structures
erected near the docks of both H on g Kon g and nearby Macao (a Port uguese colony)
co uld easily have been built and phot ographed in India; the consist ency m arkin g
100 commercial and sovereign space in West and East Asia is striking. In Hong Kong,
.., "first- encounter" pictures define the imaginative and geographic b order. Figures are
""> placed strategically with symb olically ch osen features t o suggest the exotic, mer-
U>
m
"" cantile location of the subject. In Qingdao (Shandong province), where German
settlers built a large section of the city on un occupi ed land, on e sees the same kind
33
of haunting images of transported architecture and dramatic linear spaces . In the
James Ricalton photo Looking across the Bay to Kowloon, a man stands with his back
t o the viewer, his long plait defining the bo undary of British space oth erwise domi-
34
nated by local fishermen and workers (fig. 9). The verticals of man, queue, tree,
and church spire punctuate a distant view of the active port between Hong Kong
and Kowloon; the h orizontal registers, including the white warship an d the torpedo
boat nearer the shore, complet e the grid. The caption on the back call s attention
to the military vessels and the other elements that signal colonial dominance and
presents the contradictions implicit in the framed scene.
Hong Kong is a British crown colony. In 1860 the peninsula of Kowloon was
added. In 1898 th e territory beyond Kowloon and the adjoining islands, 376
square miles in all, was leased by Great Britain from China for 99 years. So we
are not now looking upon really Chinese territory. Victoria has a population of
166,000. T here are 6,000 Europeans and Americans. 35
From this matter-of-fact description, we understand bow tbe male sub-
ject- standin g in for all local subj ects and, perhaps even more broadly, for the Qing
dynastic subj ect- is disenfranc hi sed from the land and the extensive waterways so
critical for mobility and thriving commerce. According to the caption's statistics,
about 4 percent of the population constitutes the ruling, n o nindi genous elite; and
so this space denies, in effect, the existence of a local subject and proper legal sta-
tus. Typical of these "first-encou nter" pictures-which depict areas where travelers
dramati cally confront questions of sovereignty and ownership so prominent in gate-
way cities - is a sole, posed tropic figure gesturing to th e explosive modernization
beyond this individual's contro l. In this photograph, the economic boom h appens
in spite of local residents, who appear as observers or witnesses of that boom rather
than actors profiting directly from any linear, rational, forward progress related t o
modernity. Used as a measuring scale for the obj ects in the bustling h arb or, the fig-
ure stands perfectly still in contrast to the bustling ship traffic. Local time, defined
by the indigenous population, is unchanging; the dramatic activity of the port-
Fig. 9
James Rica lton (American, 1844 -1929)
Looking across the Bay to Kowloon and Mainland,
/rom Bowen Road, above Hong Kong, 1900,
albumen print, 8.9 x 18.8 em (3 1h x 73fs in.)
Los Ange les, Getty Research In stitute
calibrated with public structures that referen ce the pace of modern time, such as clock
t owers-places "foreign," or colonial, H ong Kong in a shifting, hist ori cal frame. 36
M odern hi st ory "happens" beyond the static, traditional cultural prop of "China."
The lone fi gure, whose fac e is typi cally not visible, is used t o define the edge where a
multinational colonial space begins and where local culture ends.
H ere it is useful t o scrutini ze the t erm China and the probl ems with its usage.
Lydia Liu has analyzed how the lingui stic t erm China was co nceived in a post-Opium
War colo nial context when European forces subjugated the Qing court thro ugh a
series of humiliating treaties that challen ged its sovereignty. 37
According t o Liu, by
the mid-ninet eenth century, the t erm China-and the punitive dimen sion s associ-
ated witb its linguistic formati on-was a con struct invented througl, a series of vio-
lent incursions in a colonial European, American, and Japanese environment. While
it is probl emati c to assert that "China" as a concept did n ot predate the eighteenth
38
century, it is critical t o recogni ze that the version of China so evident in the defaced
body of the treaty port was largely formed through popular phot ograpby by amateurs
and professio nals who not only witnessed and recorded events re lated t o "China" but
39
al so participated in its con struction .
The elevated, bird's- eye perspective in this 1900 phot ograph of H ong Kong
is familiar in t erms of the description of other colonial commercial spheres in the
40
ninetee nth and twentieth centuries. By tl"le 1890s, photos of Shanghai's Bund-one
of tl"le city's m ost frequently ph ot ographed scenes and easily one of the t op-ten pho-
t ographed sites in China in the twentieth century-convey the pro ductiveness of
th e city ge nerated by the international settlem ent. In tbe similar and commanding
quasiaeri al views featured in this H on g Kon g phot ograpb, foreign companies are busy
transportin g goods on long tbo rou ghfares, on bridges linking the city's divisions, and
on barbor docks. The images emphasize the efficiency of transportation in the for-
eign settlements designed to maximize commercial activity.
Local time seems t o be at a standstill in international imagery of China, but
not so in Chinese pictorial and verbal depictions of similar spaces. Sbangbai writers
a nd phot ojournalist s in particular highli ghted change in social and urban spaces and
41
empbasized the emer ge nce of new (xin) cultural practices. By the 192 0 s, popular
serials such as Liangyou (Youn g co mpanion) enthusiastically feature the bustling pace
of the city with m ovie theaters, dance clubs, and cutting-edge fashion . Beyond the
material embodiment of these changes, Shanghai writers suggest the psychological
dimen sions of the dawning of a new era, a modernity that is at odds with the static 101
description of coastal culture in E uro pean phot ography. Locally produced Chinese
phot o spreads often juxtapose Shanghai's modernity with the prem odern space of z
m
Ul
Cbina's interi or or the primitive pace of life in other countries (such as Vietnam) m
>
Ul
t o convey the city's international dim ensions. A s Leo Lee points out, as early as the Ul
c
1870 s, the popular newspaper Shenbao (Shanghai news) used Ch in ese and West ern .:':
m
n
dates t o mark the paper's date.42 In a watershed document-the first calendar pub- -i
lished by the new Republican government on 1 January 191 2 -both the solar {West-
ern) and lunar (Chinese) calendars were included. 43 This double marking of time, the
dual reckoning of a larger world, refl ect s an awareness of spaces between tradition
and modernity and of multiple ways of seeing and experi encing space. But E uropean
and American phot ographers do n ot regist er cogni zance of this temporal multiplicity
as experienced by populations in treaty ports.
Before and after the B oxer U prising of 1900-when intern ati onal troops
from E uropean countries, the U nited St at es, and Japan occupied the imperial palaces
in Beijing's center-palaces, gates, city walls, pleasure gardens, and other high-status
and court-related structures were phot ograpbed as over grown ruins empty of human
activity. Active Beijing streets are pictured in scenic collection s of the city, but an
evacuated sense of tl,e capital persist s even in heavily populat ed scen es. A vacant
quality often exist s in capital phot ographs, even those populated by many figure s.
This is evident in the photograph of a beheading that took place just outside the city
walls (fig. 10). 44 Japanese army offi cials process the executions of held captives; a
stunned populati on gathered in several gro ups passively looks on. Pairing violence
and silence in pbot ographic space establishes the end of Beijing as an active, thriving
center. The capital takes o n a ruin ous quality that will n ot thrive in modern, local
t erms; rather, it is poised to be destroyed by visitors who will remake its core.
Thus, in an evacuated representation, the sen se of history is stagnant. In
this colonial perspective, n otbing new of value occ urs in the capital and scenes of
violence puncture the historical importan ce of Beijing as a cultural center. This is
in contrast t o the phot ographs of archaeological sites taken, albeit several decades
later, by Academia Sinica researchers fr om 192 8 t o 1937; a dramatic historicity per-
meates pathbreaking images of the excavatio ns of second millennium BCE t ombs.4 5
Tbe recording, documenting, and calibrating of meaningful data about C hina's past
are captured as the sites are unearthed, in opposition to European phot ography of
102 Chinese cities and space depicted with a timeless quality. In the next section, we will
see how the international circulation of Ricalton's stereo set s featurin g destruction,
.,
"'> death, and an absence of hi story in the Boxer era played an impo rtant r ole in shaping
"'m
"' a view of "China" as a m oribund, violence-worthy entity lacking rational stru cture.
Photos of a ruined capital were part of a larger physical and psychological violence
exacted on the people of n orthern and coastal China noted in lavishly documented
scenes of military attacks, beheadings, indentured labor, and starvation.

TROUBLEMAKERS AND BEHEADINGS:

THE AFTERLIFE OF THE COOLIE

The stereograph communicates critiques of Chinese society in three-dimensional

form. The viewer m erges the doubled image t o powerful effect, bringing the actors
in the foreground t o life in ways that could n ot be produced by a flat photograph. 46
In Some a/ China's Trouble-Makers (fig. 11}, Ricalton exploits the stereographic for-
mat, making dramatic use of foreground fi gures. Overall, the subjects captured by
Ricalton's lens are con sist ent with the menacing "yellow poor" pictured in "Foreign
Devils," where the fence plays a critical role by conveying the precario us legal status
of the local p opulation even on its own turf (see fi g. 3}. On a broader scale, for-
eign photographs of the Boxer U prising overtly cast the battle as a conflict between
East and West. The configuration of combatants in Some a/ China's Trouble-Makers
suggest s an interchangeability of the crowds of coolies and unwanted locals seen in
"Foreign Devils"; both have been rejected from the "West ern spaces" of international
settlements because of racial segregation. The caption on the back of Some a/ China 's
Trouble-Makers makes it clear that their dress, hair, and clothin g signal their "Chi-
n ese" identity and, as such, their status as "real" criminals.

Fig. 10
Beheading-Peking, 1904, albumen print,
plate: 12.5 x 10.5 em (4 15!16 x 4 1/s in.)
Los Angeles, Getty Research In stitute
These are the prisoners; we see some of the boys of tbe 6tb Cavalry beyond them.
Boxers often doff their di stinctive uniform for th e ordinary coolie's garb when
about to be captured, but the boys said they knew one was a ge nuine Boxer because
he carried a weapon. One of the cavalrymen grabbed the "real thing" by the pigtail,
tugged him into the foreground and placed him near the camera as you see, saying,
"You can tell by hi s bloomin' squ int that be's a bloody warrior!"
By far tbe larger balf of the population of tbe empire is of tbi s low,
poor, coolie class. How dark-skinned, ill-clad, how dull, morose and vicious tbey

appear! . .. Th ey do n ot ye t know their fate. To-morrow they m ay be shot-but, whether
it is bambooing, shooting, or beheadin g, one fell ow decides he wi ll have a sm oke.
The casual reference t o brutal killing may obscure the hostile description of
physiognomy, but the physical description is key t o understanding the phot ographer's
perspective. E yes express guilt and physical attributes convey culpability and justify
death; yet the subjects' identity is unclear because at capture they were in garb described
as "coolie" - a signifier of criminal behavior-not in military uniform. Perhaps the cir-
cumst ances of capture indeed confirmed their military affiliation, but the circuitous
argument seems t o cast doubt. This gro uping of Boxers is not that different fro m the
population barred fr om entering a section of Guangzhou in •Foreign Devils; the "coolie"
laborers, or the famine refu gees in Study a/ Chinese Faces. Essentially, at the turn of the
century, Chinese workers, military personnel, and criminals became conflated in the
Western imag inary. The line between criminal and poor laborer is unclear; the same
type of fi gure emerges in different phot os with different captions. The labels and actual
people are different, but the imagery of large groups of men supposedly harboring crimi-
47
nal intent is the same. It seemed unnecessary t o distin gui sh one subject from another.
103
n
J:
z
m
"'m
>
"'
"'c:
.:::
m
..,
()
Fig-.11
James Ricalton (America n, 1844- 1929)
So me o/ China's Trouble-M akers- "Boxer• Prisoners Captured
and B rought in by 6th U.S. Cavalry-Tientsin, China, 190 0,
albu men pri nt, 8.9 x 18.8 em (3 1h x 73/s in.)
Los A nge les, Getty Research Institute
The wartime phot ography from 1860 t o 1904 yields a grim range of violent
images: Chinese lie dead and dying, their fat e a res ult of starvation; clashes with colo-
nial armies; and the B oxer conflict . Phot os of fl oatin g bodies (fig. 12), dead gunners
strewn on fortified walls, scores of decapitated heads rolling at the feet of foreign offi-
cials, and prisoners kneeling below the knife's edge are intended as entertainment sim-
ilar t o those images of coastal populati ons eating, working, and posing in costume.48
Punitive phot ography in th e late Qing and early Republi can periods-
recording the violent punishment of the worker, the criminal, and the abj ect poor- is
a significant and vivid part of the foreign pictorial record of China. T his type of
negative imaging of the Chinese popul ati on in phot ography began during the Second
Opium War, when French and British forces invaded the northern C hinese coast and
t ook control of Beijing. 49 It continued unabated through the nineteenth century, as
evident in Beheading-Peking (see fi g. 10). Taken by an anonymous phot ograpl•er,
this image focuses on members of the Japanese army gathered around a man kn eel-
ing passively, waiting for the executio ner's blade t o strike his neck. A small dirt pile
marks the spot outside a Beijing city wall where the makeshift military court and
executi oner condu ct their business. Another prisoner squ at s beyond, t ethered or held
104
.,
,."'
"'m
"'
by what appears t o be a cl,inese offi cial who is presenting him t o a foreign mili-
t ary secretary regist ering th e sequence of beheadings. The crowd, gathered t o witness
the killings, sta nds on either side of the road. Beyond, in front of the city gate, is a
military encampment. Felice Beato's phot ograpl, of war dead at tl>e Dagu fo rt on 21
A ugust 1860 and other ph ot ographers' images of civilian beheadings are remarkably
similar t o this scene recorded in Beijing dat ed t o 1904. 50
Phot ographs of beheadin gs are tied t o the larger problem of modern Chinese
identity and the ways in whi cl, a negative, criminalized self-image became inextricably
bound to modernity. In the disturbin g image fro m 1904, the implicit parti cipation of
the large group of Chinese onlookers brands them as subjects- captives even-who are
shaped by punishment and policy control. Beijing society had been effectively crimi-
nalized: t o be Chinese in Beijing was t o be targeted for constant acts of humiliation.
Mid-nineteenth-century photographs were expensive and difficult t o produce, and their
circulation was somewhat limited. H owever, later phot ographs, including those by Rical-
t on from about 1898 throu gh 1905, were seen by a far greater number of consumers. A
culture of punishment perpetuat ed by treaty port offi cials, offi cers of the U nited Inter-
natio nal Army, and commercial business owners had become a normative part of semi-
colonial life; by the turn of the century, c l,ina was defin ed by landscapes of viol ence.
Fig. 12
Jam es Ri ca lto n (American, 1844 -1929)
Horrors o/ Wa r-Dead Chinese Floati11g in the Pei-ho, 1900,
albume n print, 8.9 x 18 .8 em (3 1h x 73/s in.)
Los A nge les, Getty Research In sti tute
Within China, intellectuals such as Lu Xun (1881 - 1936) attempted t o alter
poli cies and cust oms that ge nerated negative perceptio ns of the modern C hinese sub-
ject. The broader, on going condition embodied by th e passivity of the onlookers a nd
the kneeling man in Beheading- P eking deeply t ro ubled Lu Xun and other intellec-
tuals of the May F ourth M ovement (ca. 1915-21). Lu Xun's short st ory "Medi cine,"
authored in A pr il 1919, explains the attraction a beheading might have for a poor
C hinese famil y.5 1 In this st ory, mantou (st eamed bread) soaked with fr esh blood was
believed t o cure illn ess, in cluding tuberculosis. The father in the tale purchases thi s
remedy for his son at the expense of a young revoluti onary who has been killed at the
crossro ads near their hom e. The author criticizes the nai ve pass ivity of the ge neral
C hinese populati on t oward beheadings, which ultimately refl ects their powerlessness
and indicates tbat the civili zati on is "near death." On e passage in his slw rt st ory cre-
ates a vivid picture of this moribund state.
Tbe area by the cil-y wall outside the West Gate was ori ginally public land. T hrough
it there winds a narrow path made by the countless steps of peo ple takin g sbort-
cuts.... On tbe left lie the bodies of criminals who have either been executed or
died in prison. Paupers are buri ed on tbe rigbt. So many people bave been bro ught
 here th at the burial mounds on either side of the path now li e row upon row in
great profusion like so many mantou set out for a ri ch man's birthday feast.5 2
T J,e image of the bodi es lined up like mantou recalls the blood-soaked bread that the
family purchases for their son t o con sume; in this ficti onal tale, tbe cure is unsuccess-
ful. Lu X un, wbo studied m odern medi cine in Japan , uses irony t o make [,is case for
n on superstitious, scientific soluti on s for C bina's ills. His st ory highligbts the issue of
sb am e and self-victimi zati on tb at C bin ese intellectual s ferve ntly addressed tbro ugb-
3 compositional theme is haunting rega rdless of any possible artifi ce. The implication
out tl1e early twentieth century. 5
Painting was not as well suited t o recording and explorin g radical changes or
strange occurrences as tb e documentary medium of pbotograpby. Neverth eless, foreign mis-
sionari es did experiment with oil painting as a medium for developing a pi ct orial commen-
tary about th e fate of modern China. The missionaries' depicti ons of sick Guangdong men
and women established tbem as a m etaphor for larger social ills. AB Larissa H einrich has
noted, medical priest s and pastors substantiated tl,is image of "China" through the elaborate
54
documentation of exotic skin deformities and tbe surgeries used t o treat them. "Chinese"
55
became defined through tbese discourses as "racially pathological."
Pbot ographs taken by foreigners of a dying China appeared repeatedl y in the 105
coast al region s of Guangdon g, H on g Kon g, S hanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing, enabling
these depicti ons of sickness and violence t o permeate Chinese di scourse. T his is on e of -z
m
Ul
the criti cal factors contributing t o East-West t en sions in debates about C hina and its m
>
m odernity. 5 6
Ul
embrace of Ri calton's Dying in the "Dying-Field" conveys th e p]i g],t of the
c"'
lower-class Chinese populati on. A ccordin g t o the capti on, the maln ouri shed pauper in
the phot ograph, whose [,ope and reso urces ],ave disappeared, has been give n permis-
sion t o di e in this sm all publi c pl ot (fi g. 13). Ricalton often staged hi s photos, but the
of this po ignant subject, alon g wit[, the vi olent scenes of death and destructi on in
otber pbot ographs, is that Cbina was st ati c and un cban ging, and n ear deatb. Ri calton's
cho ice may reHect contemporary Ameri can focus on social reform during this period;
the pb ot o may bave been staged t o eli cit pity. Regardless of stagin g, tbe st ereotypin g of
Cbin ese cbaracter evident in early pbot ograpb s sucb as Mandarin in Sedan Chair and
Coolies Waiting / or E mployment, and more blat antl y conveyed by tbe lat er st ereograpbs
Dying in the "Dying-Field" and "Some o/ China's Trouble-Makers," continues t o fi x an
image of "the Cbinese" as being abjectly primitive and incapable of movin g forward.
Fig. 13
James Ri ca lto n (Amer ican, 1844-1929)
Dying in the "Dyi11g-Field," Whe re Discouraged Poor
Are A llowed to Come to Die, Ca11to11, China, 1900,
alb umen print, 8 .9 x 18 .8 em (3 1h x 73/s in .)
Los Angeles, Getty Researc h Institu te
106 Tl,e ways in which colonial photographers viewed and depicted the native
population shaped local self-image. The photograph of Cantonese men looking into
-n
"'> a stereoviewer makes clear how photographic views, even by foreigners, could be
"'m
"' recycled back to a Chinese audience (see fig. 5). Like the bystanders watching the exe-
cution in Beijing (see fig. 10), these men become complicit in the typing of "Chinese
character." The legacy of these photographic studies of national character is evident
in popular journals during the Republican period, when there is an explicit awareness
of cultural imperialism. The front cover of the Arts & L,fe issue for September 1934
declares, "I am not the sick man of East Asia," referencing and rejecting themes of
violence portrayed in the stereographs produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries as entertainment and, with accompanying text, marketed as didactic images.
In I Am Not the Sick Man a/ East Asia, the young boy symbolizes an idealized repre-
sentative of Republican society-a youthful patriot who stands firm over the Chinese
militarized response to international aggressors (at this stage, primarily focused on
the imminent threat from the Japanese). 57
Photography's ro le in shaping China's image from 1860 to 1900 is evi-
dent in the visual transformation of the Chinese subject over a half-century of colo-
nial intervention. In these shifts related to China's visual culture, the camera was
an instrument of the contemporary practice to create types, classify peoples, and
impose hierarchies upon the world as it was being observed. In the earlier phase,
the Chinese subject is configured in studios or artificial outdoor settings empha-
sizing profession, class, and gender. These reflect well-established genre scenes in
European eighteenth- and early-nineteenth- century engravings, gouacl"le drawings,
and Chinese export paintings, such as those of carpenters or barbers (pl. 41). By the
turn of the century, the photographic lens was focused on larger statements about
"the Chinese" and national character. Scenes of itinerant workers, destitute poor, and
military captives at the time of the Boxer Uprising reflect racial debates about the
modern Chinese subject prevalent in international power relations. Thougl, created a
century ago, many of these stereotypes are still operative today. This essay has exam-
ined the genesis, trajectory, and implications of these stereotypes. They arose from
proliferating photographic encounters between foreign photographers and China and
between Chinese photograpl"lers and foreign patrons. As these representational cat-
egories became more firmly entrenched, they reinforced particular themes, such as
the coolie, from which new categories were created, including "China" itself.
 - ~ --~ - -- - - -- -------~
NOTES
I wish to thank members of the Art History Colloquium of 2009-10 at the Instihtte for
Advanced Study for their insights on a draft of this essay, especially Professor Fa-ti Fan,
SUNY Binghamton. I am also grateful to participants at early presentations of this material at
the Pitt Rivers Museum, U niversity of Oxford, and Harvard Un ivers ity in October 2008.
1 >
On ly limited sections of coastal cities were actually under fore ign rule, hence the term semi-
colon ia/; see Tani E. Barlow, ed., Formations o/ Colonial Modernity in East Asia (Durham: Duke
Univ. Press, 1997).
2 A further limitati on was audience; the initial clientele for photographs of China were foreign-
ers living in or visiting treaty ports. In the 1840s, this population was small, and cameramen
operated on an itinerant basis. Terry Bennett, History o/ Photography in Chi11a: 1842-1860
(London: Quaritch, 2009), ix. Business co nditi ons changed dramatically over the next thirty
years; foreigners and locals eventua lly opened storefront stud ios in most treaty ports.
3 William Saunders (active ca . 1862-88). "Ch inese Life and Character Studies, 1863-64,"
Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute (2003.R.22, box 8) .
4 Interestingly, the picture is complicated by the fact that European engravings reflect themes in
Chinese export paintings of trades and types made by painters in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
5 Scenes on plain ground of monarchs, costumes, and romanticized, ritual torture are repro-
duced in Marcia Reed and Paola De matte, eds., China on Paper: European and Chinese Works
/rom the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute,
2007), 14, 16-17, 23, 163, and 189; and Timothy Brook, Jerome Bourgon, and Gregory
Blue, Death by a Thousand Cuts (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008), 173, fi g. 18. Later
export paintings of the same genre in clude Tingqua (Guan Lianchang), Gouache o/ Shoe
Maker, ca. 1845.
6 From 1856 to 1858, Charles Cann ing, governo r-general of British India, began an informal
project to document the peoples of India. Later, after becom in g viceroy, Can nin g turned the
effort into a massive stale project encompass in g four thousand photos; see J. Forbes Watson
and J. William Kaye, The People o/ India : A Series o/ Photographic Illustrations, with Descrip-
tive Letterpress, o/ the Races and Tribes o/ Hindus tan ... , 8 vols. (London: India Museum,
1868-75); and Mary Warner Marien, Photography: A Cultural History ( ew York: Harry N.
Abrams, 2002). 142.
7 I extend my thanks to Clui s P inn ey, who ],elped parse the dynamics of the photograph; also see
his discussion of Carlo Ginzburg's "physiognomic circularity" in Chri stopher Pinney, "Visual
Cu lture," in Victor Buchli, ed., The Materia/ Culture Reader (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 81-86.
8 Peter Mason, Infelicities: Representations o/ the Exotic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press,
1998). 12. In contrast to Miller's and Saunders's focus o n costum e, Thomson concentrates
on physiognomic detail s to stereotype race, class, and age in hi s series of ca. 1868 and 1873 :
John Thomson, Illustrations o/ China and Its People (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low,
& Searle, 1873). revised and edited by John Warner in 1977; John Thomson, Chi>w and Its
People in Early Photographs, An Unabridged Reprint o/ the Classic 1973/ 4 Work (New York:
Dover, 1982); and L. Carrington Goodrich and Nige l Cameron, The Face o/ China as Seen by
Photographers and Travelers, 1860-1912, exh. cat. (New York: Aperture, 1978), 66-67.
9 Robert G . Lee, "The Cool ie and the Making of the Wl,ite Working Class," in idem, Orientals:
Asian Americans in Popular Culture (Philadelphia: Temple Un iv. Press, 1999), esp. 51. Sir
Henry Yule, Hobson-fobson: A Glossary o/ Colloquia/ Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and o/
---- --- - --------~
Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (London: J. Murray, 1903), 107
249 -51.
10 James Louis Hevia, "Looting Beijing, 1860, 1900," in Lydia H. Liu, ed., Tokens o/ Exclwnge: I)
The Problem o/ Translation in Global Circulations (Durham: Duke U niv. Press, 1999), 192- z
m
213; and James Louis Hevia, Eng/ish Lessons: The Pedagogy o/ Imperialism in N ineteenth- "'m
Century China (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2003). 75 and 208-218 .
"'
11 John Falconer, "Ethn ographi ca l Photograpbs in India 1850-1900," Photographic Collector 5 "'c
(1984): 16-46.
12 Far East, n.s. (1876): opposite p. 46. Far East was a popular illustrated Englisb-language
journal first publisbed in Japan for the expatriate community.
13 The man is completely clothed in a patcbwork of rags, hi s body barely vis ible; James Ricalton,
The King o/ All Beggars, ca. 1900, Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute (2005.R.11). Also
see James Rica/ton's Photographs o/ China during the Boxer Rebellion: His Illustrated Travelogue o/
1900, ed. Clui stopher Lucas (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1990), pl. 17.
14 James M. Davis, Among the Fighting Boxers, Tien Tsin, China, 1900, Los Angeles, Getty
Research Institute (2003.R.22, box 2).
15 Phi lip Kuhn di scusses how both the abolition of slavery elsewbere in tl1e world and the post-
Opium War disruptions of traditional economic patterns in soutbeast China displaced millions
of subsistence- leve l workers. Their plight (evoked in many of these photos) forced a consid-
erabl e portion of the male population to accept paraslavery work contracts that sent tbem
to plantations in Southeast Asia, Cuba, and Peru, and to U.S. compan ies, where tbey were
indentured for exten ded periods. Philip A. Kuhn, Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern
Times (Lanbam, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). 111-14.
16 See Lydia H. Liu, The Clash o/ Empires: The Invention o/ China in Modern World Making (Cam-
bridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2004); and Hevia, English Lessons, 197-208.
17 Jam es Ricalton, A Study o/ Ch inese Faces, ca. 1860-ca. 1939, Los Angeles, Getty Research
In stitute (2003.R.22).
18 Further research into Chin ese opti cs will allow us to analyze witb more precision tbe ways tl1at
photography functioned as sc ientific reform chall enging Qing hierarchies. One sucb study
subverts the notion that foreign pbotographers contro lled the Chinese photographic subject;
see O liver Moore, "Zou Boqi on Vision and Photography in Nineteenth- Century China," in
Kenneth J. Hammond and Kristin E. Stapleton, eds., The Human Tradition in Modern China
(Lanbam, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 33-53. For a parallel study, see Zeynep Ce lik,
"Speaking Back to Orientalist Discourse," in Jill Beaulieu and Mary Roberts, eds., Oriental-
ism's Interlocutors: Painting, Architecture, Photography (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2002),
19-42.
19 Miller could also have misinterpreted their clotbing; it cou ld simp ly be southern summer dress.
Anotber (unattributed) photo of tbe same men wearing identica l clotbing and labeled Old
Gentlemen o/ Ca11ton Dressed in Summe r Clothing, 1861, must have also been taken by Miller,
indicating that captions were easi ly chan ged and possibly manipulated; Goodrich and Cam-
eron, Face o/ China, 71. These observations about sartorial details, however, change neither the
date of tbe photograph nor its chrono log ical proximity to tbe deatb of the emperor, who ruled
during tbe Second Opium War.
20 Beato's photo of 4 ovember 1860 depicts Prince Gong (1833-98) after be signs the unequal
treaty on behalf of bis brother, the Xianfeng emperor, who had fled Beijing during the Allied
108 invasion. See Jeffrey W Cody and Fran ces Terpak, "Th rough a Foreign Gla ss: Th e Art and
Sc ience of Photog raphy in Late Qing China; thi s volume, pp. 33- 68 , fi g. 1.
., 21 Be nn ett, History o/ Photography in Chi11a, 222 -26; Terry Bennett, "China; in John Han navy,
"',_ ed., E 11cyc/opedia o/ Ninetee11th- Ce ntury Photography ( ew York : Tay lo r & Fran cis, 2 008),
"'m
"' 1:295; and Jo nath a n Hay, "Notes on C hinese Photography and A dverti sing in Late
N inetee nth- Ce ntury S hanghai ; in Jaso n C . Kuo, ed. , Visual Culture in S hanghai 1850s-1 930s
(\'V'a shin gt on, D. C .: New Academia, 2 00 7 ), 95-9 7.
22 See the photog raph of Qu ee n's Road by William Pryor Fl oyd held by the Peabody Essex
Mu seum and illu strated in Mari en, Photography: A Cultural History, 107.
23 In the exhibiti on, six cartes-de-vi ste by four phot og raphers from Guangz hou-Pun Lun, Ye
C hun g, Kai S ack, and am Tin g-are dated (possibl y by the same foreign hand) to 1868; see
Cody and Terpak, "Th rough a Foreign Glass; 33-68, fi gs. 6, 8 , 9, and 10; as well as pl. 56,
on p. 187 .
24 Afo ng's adverti se ment (see fi g. 6) in Th e Chronicle and Directory .. ./or the Yea r 1889 indi cates
hi s late-1880s studi o loca ti on is on "Ice H ouse Lane behind the New O ri ental Bank; in
th e hea rt of tb e co lonial bu sin ess sectio n. Terry Bennett, "Lai Afong; in John Han navy, ed. ,
E11cyc/opedia o/ Ni11eleenth- Century Photography (New York: Taylor & Fran cis, 2 008) , 2 :815.
A fo ng claims to have started h is studi o in H ong Ko ng by 1859-three years before Milto n
Miller (Hong Kong) and Willi am Saunders (S hanghai) opened th eir shops; so me early, dated
ph otog raphy in C hin ese co ll ecti ons may co rroborate Along's claim, but independent eviden ce
see ms to suggest A fong was establi shed no earli er tban 1870 . Bennett, History o/ Photography
in China, ix.
25 S hiju tu (S ituati on in the Far East) B~JE51i!, printed in H ong Ko ng in 1898, depicts foreign
powers represe nted by zoo morphi c prey: the Russ ian bear desce nds fro m the north; tl1e Am eri-
ca n eag le fli es north from the Philippines; the French frog leaps from Vi etnam; th e British
bulldog stubbornly occupi es Guangdong; the Japanese sun looms westward; a nd the German
snake entwin es Tianjin and S handong. Al so see Jam es L. H evia, "Leaving a Bra nd on China:
Mi ss ionary Di scourse in the Wake of the Boxer Movement; in Tani E . Barl ow, ed. , Formations
a/ Colonia/ Modemity in East Asia (Durham: Duke U ni v. Press, 1997 ), 113 - 3 9 .
26 O n the science of C hinese photog rapl1y and its appli ca ti o n in popu lar medi a, see Wan g Bin
.:f_m\ and D ai Wu san Jl:IZ:ef =-."Cong Dianshizhai huabao kan xifang keji zai Zhongguo de
chuanbo" (Co nsidering the di sseminati on o f Western techn ology tluough the exa mple of the
Dianshizhai huabao) f)f «!!.!ti:O~iiflh ~g§:fjf4f)Z{f cp ~EJI;}{$J'I, in K epu yanjiu (Popu-
lar sc ience) f4~liff:tE, no. 3 (2 006) : 20-28.
27 Rudo lf G . Wagner, "Joinin g the G lobal Im ag inaire: T he S han ghai Illu strated Newspaper
Dianshizhai huabao: in Rudolf G. Wag ner, ed .,Joining the Global Public, Word, Image, and City
in Early Chinese N ewspapers, 1870-1910 (A lbany: S tate U niv. o f New York Press, 2 00 7),
105-73, esp. 10 7.
28 Yet in 1876 , even when the H o ng Ko ng ph otog raph er Li ang S hitai (most co mmo nly kn own
as See Tay) was marketing hi s new Sh angha i studi o exclu sively t o C hinese bu sin ess men and
offi cials, he cl aim s techni ca l experti se via foreign trainin g; see Cody a nd Terpak, "Throu gh
a Foreign Glass; thi s vo lume, pp. 3 3 -68, fi g. 16. Thi s indi cates th at the techni ca l-and,
one could argue, the compos iti onal- auth ority in the photog raphi c world rested with foreign
cameramen. A tran slati on of th e adverti se ment (printed in S henbao $¥&, 2 9 May 1876) is
cited by Cody and Terpak, "Th rough a Foreign Glass; thi s vo lume, pp. 3 3 -68 .
29 Phot ography tbat critiques social inju sti ce (by, for exampl e, S ha Fei or Fan g Dazeng) is studi ed
in Eliza H o, "Art, D ocum entary, and P ro paganda in Wartim e C hina: Th e Photog raphy of
Sha Fei 191 2 -1950" (Ph.D. diss., O hi o State U niversity, expected D ece mber 2 010);
and Richard K. Kent, "Reclaiming D ocumentary Pl, ot ograpl,y; in Jerome S ilberge ld a nd
Ri chard K. Kent, Humanism in China: A Co ntemporary R ecord a/ Photograp/1y (New York:
C hina In stitute Gallery, 2009) , 19-3 5.
30 H owever, amateur ph otog raphers am ong tbe inco ming offi cia ls, traders, trave lers, and th eir
famili es most likely outnumbered loca l amateur ph otographers until th e end of the Qin g
dynasty in 1911.
31 For th e raciali zed view o f Chin ese, see Antho ny W Lee, Picturing Chi,wtown: Art a11d O riental-
ism in S a11 Francisco (Berkeley: U ni v. o f California Press, 2 001), esp. 58 - 99 and 150; a nd
Mary Tin g Li Lui, The Chinatown Tru nk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other D angerous
Encounters in Tum- of-th e-Century Ne w York City (Prin ceto n: Prin ceto n U niv. Press, 2 005) . In
separate publi cati ons, Mae Ngai a nd Philip Kuhn di scuss the C l,in ese diaspora in global t erms;
see Mae M. gai , Impossible S ubjects: Illegal Aliens and the Ma king o/ M odern A merica (Princ-
eto n: Princeto n U ni v. Press, 2 004) , 2 1-55; and Kulm, Chinese among Others. Kuhn's hi story
makes vi sibl e connecti o ns an1 o n g C hin ese co mmuniti es ac ross the Pac ifi c.
32 Larissa H einri ch, The A/ter/,fe o/ Images: Translating the Pathological B ody between Chi1w and
the West (Durham: Duke U ni v. Press, 2 008); a nd Larissa H einri ch, "The Patholog ica l E mpire:
Early Ph otog raphy in C l1ina; History a/ Photography 3 0 (2 006): 2 5-37.
33 For Qin gdao, see Torsten Warn er, "Der Aufb au der Ko lonial stadt Tsin gtau: Land ordnun g,
Stadtplanun g und Entwi cklung; in H a ns-Martin Kinz a nd C hri stoph Lind, eds., Tsingtau: Bin
Kapitel deutscher Kolonialgeschichte i11 China 1897-1 914, exh. ca t. (Berlin: D eutsches Hi sto-
ri sches Mu seum, 1998), 84-95.
34 Ri ca! to n often depl oys tbi s conceit; he fram es hi stori call y signifi cant spaces with fi gures to
mark an area where foreign (often British) activiti es are in a tense rela t io nsbip with C hin ese
occupants and ownership is in qu esti on. For exampl e, (1) the Imperial O bservatory in Beijin g
fram es a sin gle fi gure in lo ng robes, (2 ) a sin gle Beijin g res id ent gazes at the ruin s o f tl1e Bei-
jing legati ons in the a ftermath of the Boxe r U pri sin g, a nd (3 ) a farmer whose fa ce is obsc ured
by a large bat squats in a field. See tl1 e C lark Wo rswi ck co ll ec ti o n of ph otog raph s of C bin a
and S outbeast A sia, ca. 1860-ca . 193 9, G etty Research In stitute (2 00 3 .R.22); and james
Ricaltan's Photographs a/ China, pl. 2 9, facin g p. 148; pl. 50, fac in g p. 199; pl. 52, fac in g
p. 2 03; and pl. 65, fac in g p. 222.
35 James Ri calton, China through the S tereoscope: A journey through the Drago11 Empire at the Tim e
a/ the B oxer Uprising (New York: U nderwood & U nderwood, 1901), 23 , pl. 2 .
36 O n the use o f cl ocks to sta ndardi ze time, see Wolfgang Sc bi ve lbusch, T he Railwayjoumey: T he
Industrialization and Perception o/ Tim e and S pace (Berkeley: U niv. of C alifornia Press, 1987 ).
37 Liu, Clash a/ Empires. James H evi a al so writes persuasive ly about the symbo li c and ritu al acts
that worked to strip the imperial Qin g court of its ri ght t o rul e; see H evia, E nglish Lessons,
197- 2 08, and earli er articles.
38 Imperial interests regularly exerted extensive colonial control over tbe interi or and constructed a
labyrinth! ike hierarchy based on a civili zed "Han continuwn" encompassin g minority eilinic cultures.
39 For imperi al attempts to propagate a Han domin a nce in Chin a's interi or reg io ns, see Dru C .
Gladn ey, Dislocating C/,ina: Muslims, Minorities, and Other S ubaltern S ubjects (Chi cago: U niv. of
C hicago Press, 2 004).
40 In bi s fortbcoming manu script, "Line and tb e Curve: Spatia li ty and Ambiva lence in the 1903 in C hin ese in 1985 and tran slated as T/,e Ugly CJ,·nama" a11d the Crisis of Chi,ese Culture, 109
Delh i Coronation Durbar," C bri stopher Pinney di scusses how Rica! ton's preference for the trans. and ed. Don J. Cohn and Jing Qing (North Sydney: A ll en & Unwin, 1992) .
elevated view pushes the scene to botb visible and invi sibl e dimensions-the threat of the 54 The o il paintings of Lamqua (Guan Qiaochang) are analyzed in Larissa Heinrich, Afterlife of
all- enco mpa ssing stereograp hi c view is to render a place invisible, beyo nd ba sic com preben- Images, and in H ei nrich, "The Patbo log ica l Empire," 25-37. z
m
sion. C hri stopher Lucas di scusses the circum sta nces of Ri ca lto n's Durbar pbotography in fames 55 David Sobenbaum bas also stu di ed the ways in wbicb the theme of a sickened Chin ese body "'m
>
Rica/ton's Photographs of China, 35, pl. 3 . was used as a metapbor for larger soc ial ills and the related, growing obsession with medi-
"'
41 Leo Lee, "The Cu ltural Co nstructi on of Modernity in U rban Shanghai : Some Preli minary ca l and sc i e nti~c cures tbat appeared in ear ly-twe nti eth-century ~ction; David Sobenbaum, "'c
Explorations," in Wen-hs in Yeh, ed., Becomi11g Chinese: Passages to Modernity a11d Beyo11d "Fictional Medicine: Diseases, Doctors, and the Curative Properties of C l,in ese F icti on (Cao
(Berkeley: U n iv. of Ca liforn ia Press, 2000), 31-33. Xueqin, Lanlin g Xiaoxiao Sheng, Liu E, Xia Jin gqu, Wang zl,enbe)" (Pb.D. di ss., Co lumbia
42 Lee, "Cultural Co nstruction," 32 . University, 2004).
43 "Zbonghua min guo jiyuan diyinian " (The ~rst year of tlw Republic of Cbina) 'i='~~~~[,j[;:m 56 Wi lli am Scbaefer, "Reli cs of Ico noclas m: Modernism, Shi Zhecun, and S hangbai 's Margins
- :if-, a calendar published by the Nationa li st governme nt for the renzi year, effective 1 January (Pb .D. di ss., Un ivers ity of C bi cago, 2000).
1912, Hoover Co llection , S tanford U niversity. The ca lendar features illustra tions of mi li tary 57 See Wo fei do11gya bingfu (I a m not the sick man of East Asia), from Meishu s/1enghuo (Arts &
victories and photos of Sun \'V'e n (Sun Yat-sen), th e new "temporary president"; Yuan Sbikai, the Life), no. 6 (1934): cover.
military com mander; and Li Yuan lwng, the "t empora ry vice president." The left and right lowe r
portions of the page are divided by so lar {Western) and lun ar (Chinese) ca len dars.
44 The date 1904 appears o n the mountin g, but the pboto was probably taken fou r yea rs ea rli er,
during tl1e Boxer Upr isi ng. Originally mounted side by si de as proofs for stereographi c cards,
the sixtee n photos are now cut apart.
45 Sara h E. Fraser, "A ntiquariani sm or Primitivism?: The Edge of History in tbe Modern
C hin ese Ima ginatio n," in Wu Hung, ed ., Reii1Venti11g the Past: Archaism and Antiquaria11ism
in Chi11ese Art and Visual Cultu re (Cbicago: Cent er for the Arts of East Asia, U niversity of
Chicago, 2010).
46 Tbe extensive bibli ography on tb e stereogra pl1 includes Mary Warner Marien, Photography:
A Cultural History, 2 nd ed . (London: Laurence King, 2006) ; and Jo nathan Crary, Tech11iques
of the Obse rver: 011 Visio11 and Modernity in the Nineteenth Centu ry, 5th ed. (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1994).
47 In another photo, the Boxers, deployed in imperial arm ies, are emac iated to the extent that
the division bel-wee n laboring on behalf of the Chinese court to defeat fore ign enemi es a nd
other kinds of labor may bave been moot for tbe poor underclass. See B. W. Kilburn , Among
the Fig/1ti11g Boxers, Tien Tsi11, Ch ina, ca. 1900, Los Ange les, Getty Researcb In stitute
(2003.R.22) .
48 Japanese so ldi ers and two civ ilian s appear just beyo nd the dea d in Ri ca lto n's photograph
titled Chinese Who Paid War's Penalty-South Gate Immediately a/ter Allies Entered the
City-Battle at Tientsin, Chi1w, 14 July 1900, Los Angeles, Getty Researcb In stitute
(2005.R.ll).
49 See tl,e boxed children's game celebra tin g the First Opium War, The Siege of China by the
Englisl1me11, ca. 1838-60, 15.2 x 22.8 x 1 em, Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute
(2005.PR.79*, cover).
50 Good riel, and Ca mero n, Face of Chi11a, 32-33 .
51 It was ~rst published in New Youth 6, no. 5 (1919), and later in Lu Xun, Diary of a Madman
a11d Other Sto ries, tra ns. Wi lli am Lyell (Hono lu lu: Un iv. of Hawai'i Press, 1990), 49-58 .
52 Lu Xun, Diary of a Madmal1, 56 .
53 Writers continue to address the ways that tradition is to blame for the failures of Chinese
culture, most fam ously Bo Yang ffim, in Choulou de Zhongguoren ~il®fl';J'i='~A. published
 NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

JEFFREY W. CODY is a senior project specialist in the Education Department at the Getty Conser- WU HUNG is Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History,

vation Institute. From 1995 to 2004, he taught architectural history in the Depart- director of the Center for the Art of East Asia, and the consulting curator of the

ment of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he specialized Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. An elected member of the

in research about late Qing and Republican China. He is the author of Building in American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has published widely on both traditional

China (2001} and Exporting American Architecture, 1870-2000 (2003}, and the co- and contemporary Chinese art. His major works include The Wu Liang Shrine: The

editor of Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts (2011} . Ideology o/ Early Chinese Pictorial Art (1989), Monumentality in Early Chinese Art

and Architecture (1995}, The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese

SARAH E. FRASER is an associate professor of art history at Northwestern University. Her teaching Painting (1996}, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End o/ the Twentieth Cen-

and research are primarily in the field of Chinese art, with an emphasis on cognition tury (1999}, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China (2000}, Reinterpretation: A Decade

in artistic production, national identity formation and archaeology, and the ethno- o/ Experimental Art in China (1990-2000} (2002}, Remaking Be1jing: Tiananmen

graphic impulse in the research of twentieth-century Chinese art. Her books include Square and the Creation o/ a Politic Space (2005}, and Making History: Wu Hung on

Per/arming the Visual (2004) and Merit, Opulence and the Buddhist Network o/ Wealth Contemporary Art {2008} . He has also curated many influential contemporary art

(2003). The research and writing of her current manuscript on modern painting exhibitions, including The First Guangzhou Triennial (2002}, Between Past and Future:

were conducted as a Getty Scholar and a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, Academia Sinica, New Photography and Video /rom China (2004, with Christopher Phillips}, and The

Taipei (2007 -8}, and a Frederick BurkhaLdt Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Sixth Gwangju Biermale (2006} .

Princeton University (2009-10) .

WEN - HSIN YEH is Richard H. and Laurie C . Morrison Chair Professor in History and director

EDWIN K. LAI is a senior lecturer and subject coordinator of photography at the Hong Kong Art of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her

School. He studied photography at Derbyshire College of Higher Education (now most recent book is Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making o/ Mod-
Derby University}, England, from 1988 to 1991. In 2000, he received his Ph.D. ern China (2007} . She is a frequent recip ient of awards and fellowships in Chinese

from the Fine Arts Department at the University of Hong Kong for his research studies, including the American Council of Learned Societies Senior Scholar Fel-

on the history of Hong Kong and Chinese photography. Lai has pub lished widely in lowship, in 2005.

both Chinese and English, including in journals such as History o/ Photography and
the Daguerreian Annual. He authored an essay in the Asia Society exhibition catalog

Picturing Hong Kong 1855-1910 (1997) .

FRANCES TERPAK is curator of photographs at the Getty Research Institute, where she has built

the rare photograph and optical devices coll ections and developed exhibitions, pub-

lications, and public programs highlighting these holdings. She is the coauthor of

the award-winning exhibition catalog Devices o/ Wonder: From the World in a Box to

Images on a Screen {with Barbara M. Stafford, 2001} and coeditor of Walls o/ Algiers:

Narratives o/ the City through Text and Image (with Zeynep <;elik and Julia Clancy-
Smith, 2009}.
Other hooks featuring the holdings of the Researclt Lihrary at tlte Getty Research Institute

G: An Avant- Garde journal o/ Art, Architecture, Design, and Film, 1923-1926 Lucien Herve: Building Images

Edited by Detlef Mertins and Michael W. Jennings O li vier Beer

Translation by Steven Lindberg with Margareta Ingrid Chri stian ISBN 978-0-89236-754-2 (ltardcover)

ISBN 978 -1-60606-039 -1 (hardcover)

Had Gadya: The o,ly Kid: Facsimile o/ El Lissitzky's Edition a/ 1919
Printing in the Grand Mmmer: Charles Le Brun and the Monumental Prints i11 the Age o/ Louis XIV Edited by Arnold J. Band

Louis Marchesano and Christian Michel ISB 978-0-89236-744-3 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-89236-980-5 (hardcover)

Aida Rossi: I Quaderni azzurri

Visual Planning and the Picturesque Aldo Rossi

Niko laus Pevsner ISBN 978-0-89236-589-0 (boxed set)

Edited by Mathew Aitchi son

ISBN 978-1-60606-001-8 (hardcove r) Devices o/ Wm,der: From the World i11 a Box to Images 011 a Screen
Barbara Maria Stafford and Frances Terpak

The Aztec Calendar Sto11e ISBN 978-0-89236-590-6 (paper)

Edited by Khristaan D. Villela and Mary Ellen Miller

ISBN 978-1-60606-004-9 (hardcover) Making a Prince's Museum: Drawings /or the Late-Eighteenth-Century Redecoratio11

o/ the Villa Borghese

Walls o/ Algiers: Narratives o/ the City through Text and Image Carole Paul
Edited by Zeynep <;;elik, Ju lia Clancy-Smith, and Frances Terpak ISBN 978-0-89236-539-5 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-295-98868-9 (paper)

Maiolica i11 the Making: The Ge11tili/ Bamabei Archive

The Getty Murua: Essays on the Maki11g o/ Martin de Murua's "His to ria General del Piru," Catherine Hess

]. Paul Getty Museum Ms . Ludwig XIII 16 ISBN 978-0-89236-500-5 (paper)

Edited by Thomas B. F. Cummins and Barbara Anderson

ISBN 978-0 -89236-894-5 (hardcover) Russian Modernism

Comp il ed by David Woodruff and Ljiljana Grubisii:

Meyer Schapiro Abroad: Letters to Lillia11 a11d Travel Notebooks ISBN 978-0-89236-385-8 (paper)

Ed ited by Daniel Esterman

ISBN 978-0-89236-893-8 (hardcover)

Art, Anti-Art, No11-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar ]apa11, 1950-1970

Edited by Charles Merewether with Rika Iezumi Hiro

ISBN 978-0-89236-866-2 (hardcover)