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Abstract
This article addresses the impact of photographs produced during campaigns of exploration in Northwest China during the transition period between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. I propose to focus on an area that had experienced intense scrutiny, namely the oasis of Dunhuang. By scrutinizing the extensive photographic archive created during the French Mission Paul Pelliot (1906–08), this paper underlines the emergence of preservation and archaeological concerns, and the growing place of photography in academic disciplines like archaeology, while highlighting how these images interacted with local and international cultures. Addressing these questions is intended to help delineate the photographs’ visual grammar and to gauge their effect in (re)constituting China’s national heritage.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Notes
1 In accordance with current views, I prefer to use the term silk roads instead of the term “Silk Road” coined in 1877 by the geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833–1905). There are few reasons why the umbrella term Silk Road is misleading. First the acceptance of the term started only in the mid-to-late 1930. Second it does not reflect the actual plurality of roads crossing Eurasia. Third it neglects the fact that goods traded included not only silk but also spices, metals, and saddles among other goods. V. Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 5–7.
2 Y. Mo, “Itineraries for a republic—tourism and travel culture in modern China, 1866–1954” (PhD diss., University of California, 2011), 111.
3 Central Asia is generally thought of as a region encompassing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, which are bounded on the north by Russia and on the south by Iran, Afghanistan, and China.
4 J. P. Desroches, E. Starcky and C. Gras, Âges et visages de l'Asie : un siècle d'exploration à travers les collections du musée Guimet : Dijon, Musée des Beaux-arts, juillet-octobre 1996 (Dijon: Le Musée, 1996), 116.
5 P. Pelliot, J. Hackin and J. Bacot, Bulletin Archéologique Du Musée Guimet: Asie Centrale Et Tibet : Missions Pelliot Et Bacot (documents Exposés Au Musée Guimet) (Paris: G. Van Oest, 1921), 5.
6 R. Whitfield, S. Whitfield and N. Agnew, Cave Temples of Mogao: Art and History on the Silk Road (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute and the J. Getty Museum, 2000), 34.
7 C. Debaine-Francfort, The Search for Ancient China (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 21.
8 The following is a selection of the latest scholarships on Pelliot. M. Zink, J.P. Drège, G. J. Pinault, C. A. Scherrer-Schaub and P. E. Will, Paul Pelliot: de l'histoire à la légende : colloque international organisé au collège de France et à l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (palais De L'institut), 2–3 Octobre 2008 (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2013); P. Pelliot, J. Ghesquière and F. Macouin, Carnets de route: 1906–1908 (Paris: Indes savantes, 2008); H. Walravens, Paul Pelliot (1878–1945): His Life and Works : a Bibliography (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2001).
9 A great majority of Chinese periodicals have been digitized on Dacheng 大成 and Chinese Periodical Full-text Database民國時期期刊全文數據庫. Most French periodicals can be found at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and its digital library Gallica.
10 The Qing Dynasty ruled China between 1644 and 1911. For an in-depth study on the Muslim Rebellion in this region, see: H.D. Kim, Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004).
11 S. Gorshenina, Explorateurs en Asie centrale: voyageurs et aventuriers de Marco Polo à Ella Maillart (Genéve: Éditions Olizane, 2003), 66.
12 S. Dmitriev, “Archéologie du Grand Jeu : une brève histoire de L’Asie centrale,” in Le Grand Jeu: XIXe siècle, les enjeux géopolitiques de l'Asie Centrale, ed. J. Piatigorsky and J. Sapir (Paris: Autrement, 2009), 71–72; F. Wood, The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia (London: British Library, 2003), 147.
13 R. Vinograd, “Strategic Landscapes,” in Ershi Shiji Shanshuihua Yanjiu Wenji [Studies on twentieth Century Shanshuihua] (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2006), 293.
14 Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 5 (1905): 511.
15 Pelliot’s experience started few years before in 1899 in Hanoï when he had been appointed head of an archaeological mission by the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO). Zink et al., Paul Pelliot: de l'histoire à la légende, 53.
16 The word operator is deliberately used to designate people who manipulated camera, as not all of them were professional photographers.
17 P. Pelliot, “Charles Nouette [Necrologie],” Toung Pao, XI, no. 2 (May 1910): 293.
18 Nouette suggested bringing one 18 × 24 and one 9 × 18, 9 × 12 cameras according to his letter sent to Pelliot on 10 April 1906. Pelliot asked to see the negative plates to be purchased. See letters exchanged between Pelliot and Nouette between 1905 and 1906. Pel Mi. 21. Musée Guimet, archives de la bibliothèque.
19 See photo AP7228. Musée Guimet, archives photographiques.
20 The photographic archive encompasses views along the Yangtze River up to Shanghai. Pelliot declared that once the work finished in Dunhuang, the team headed for Shanghai where his companions sent all the documents back to France by the end of 1908. P. Pelliot, “Trois ans dans la Haute Asie,” L’Illustration, 12 (March 1910): 266.
21 The old EFEO transcription writes these names as the following: Toumchouq, Koutchar, Touen-Houang. P. Pelliot, “Rapport de M. Paul Pelliot sur sa mission au Turkestan chinois (1906–1909)”, Académie des inscriptions & Belles-Lettres – Comptes rendus des séances de l’année 1910 (1910), 58–68.
22 Twenty of the surviving photographs taken by Capus across Central Asia, including Northwest China, are now at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Ref: SG WD-74). For an account of the genesis of the exploration of Western regions by the French, see: S. Geng, “Boxihe Xiyu Dunhuang tanxian yu Faguo de Dunhuang xueyanjiu,” in Faguo Dunhuang Xue Jing Cui [Essence of France Dunhuang Studies], ed. B. Zheng (Lanzhou Shi: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 2011), 1–53.
23 J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins, Mission scientifique dans la Haute Asie 1890–1895 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1897).
24 The Académie gave him a grant of 15.000 francs (equivalent of 42.500 euros) on 16 May 1890. S. Jacques, “La mission de Dutreuil de Rhins en Haute-Asie (1891–1894),” Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 152e année, no. 3 (2008): 1268–69; F. Grenard, “La dernière mission Dutreuil de Rhins, de Paris à Pékin,” Le tour du monde (1896): 313–60.
25 The majority of the photographs from the Mission Citroën are held in the Centre d’archives de Terre Blanche in Herimoncourt (France). Over a hundred of photographs are also held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, reference: Richelieu – Société de Géographie – magasin, SG WD-354.
26 J. Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 84.
27 Wood, The Silk Road, 211; J. Fan, The Caves of Dunhuang (Hong Kong: Dunhuang Academy in collaboration with London Editions, 2010), 227.
28 Mo, “Itineraries for a republic,” 115.
29 C. H. Wang, “New Printing Technology and Heritage Preservation: Collotype Reproduction of Antiquities in Modern China, circa 1908–1917,” in The Role of Japan in Modern Chinese Art, ed. Joshua A. Fogel (Berkeley, CA: Global, Area, and International Archive/University of California Press, 2012), 273–373; R. E. Murowchick, “Despoiled of the Garments of Her Civilization: Problems and Progress in Archaeological Heritage Management in China,” in A. P. A Underhill, ed., Companion to Chinese Archaeology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 16; For an up-to-date study of the China and its heritage see: J. B. Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 88–120.
30 Debaine-Francfort, The Search for Ancient China, 25; S. A. Hedin, Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China Under the Leadership of Dr. Sven Hedin (Stockholm: Tryckeri Aktiebolaget Thule, 1952).
31 James and Lucy Lo’s photographic archive, manuscript collection, and artist renderings belong to Princeton University’s Art Museum, P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, and the East Asian Library.
32 The transculturality of archaeology has been advanced by: M. Díaz-Andreu García, A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology: Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 196–97. For a summary of archaeological studies in China, see: L. Chi, “Archaeological studies in China,” in Essays on the Sources for Chinese History, ed. D. Leslie, C. Mackerras, G. Wang and C. P. Fitzgerald (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973).
33 M. L. Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession, 91 (1991), 33–40.
34 Also called the philosophy of science, Positivism was developed in the early nineteenth century by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857).
35 There were early attempts, such as Joseph Philibert Girault de Prangey’s (1804–1892) daguerreotypes of the Middle East shot during Richard Lepsius’ expedition between 1839 and 1850, which is argued to be amongst the earliest ones. J. P. Girault de Prangey’s, Monuments arabes d'Égypte, de Syrie, d'Asie Mineure (Paris: chez l'auteur, 1846); G. Feyler, “Contribution à l'histoire des origines de la photographie archéologique: 1839–1880,” Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Antiquité, vol. 99, no. 2 (1987), 1021.
36 E. Edwards, “Photography and the Material Performance of the Past,” History and Theory , 48.4 (2009), 139; 141; 143.
37 Centuries old interests in the preservation of Chinese antiquities, epigraphy, philology, and religion among others paved the way to nineteenth-century French archaeology in China. The discourse over the importance of archaeological evidence originated in seventeenth-century antiquarian thinking, with the French physician Jacob Spon (1647–1685) being one of the most fervent defender. E. Gran-Aymeric, Naissance De L'archéologie Moderne, 1798–1945 (Paris: CNRS éditions, 1998), 23; 90; J. Mohl, Histoire des Etudes Orientales 1840–1854 (Ganesha Publishing, 2003), 5; T. Chang, Travel, Collecting, and Museums of Asian Art in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), 19. It has been argued that the creation of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in Saigon in 1900 participated in the development of fieldwork in archaeology. F. Pouillon, Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue francaise (Paris: IlSMM, 2008), 350.
38 A. Davanne, La photographie appliquée aux sciences, conférence faite a la Sorbonne le 26 Février 1881 (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1881), 21.
39 E. Loydreau, De la photographie appliquée à l'étude de l'archéologie : notices lues à la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Châlon-sur-Saône, les 26 juin 1856 et 30 juin 1857 (Beaune: imprimerie de Lambert, 1866), 9.
40 K. Weiler, “Picturesque Authenticity in Early Archaeological Photography in British India,” in Archaeologizing’ Heritage? Transcultural Entanglements between Local Social Practices and Global Virtual Realities : Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Cultural Heritage and the Temples of Angkor, 2-4 May 2010, Heidelberg University, ed. Michael S Falser and Monica Juneja (Berlin: Springer, 2013), 6. Abelé argued that scientists and artists collaborated with each other. Christine Abelé, “La photographie de paysage en France au XIXe siècle: des oeuvres et des hommes: 1839–1878” (PhD diss. Université Paris X-Nanterre, 1994), 17.
41 E. Trutat, La photographie appliquée à l'archéologie: Reproduction des monuments, oeuvres d'art, mobilier, inscriptions, manuscrits (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1879), 38; 39; 51.
42 The art historian Feyler has advanced these subject matters, which belong to what she defines as “archaeological photography”. Feyler, “Contribution à l’histoire des origines de la photographie archéologique”, 1035–38.
43 C. E. Bonin, “Les grottes des Mille Bouddhas,” Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, no. 2 (1901), 212.
44 Zink et al., Paul Pelliot: de l'histoire à la légende, 537.
45 The notion of depersonalization of archaeological vision was mentioned in: F. N. Bohrer, Photography and Archaeology (London: Reaktion Books, 2011), 25.
46 E. Chavannes, Mission archéologique dans la Chine septentrionale (Paris: E. Leroux, 1909), 1.
47 Trutat, La photographie appliquée à l'archéologie, 41.
48 The substantial diminution of stock of glass plates might have been one of the reasons why Nouette employed celluloid film at times, but this currently remains unsubstantiated. It is only known that between their arrival on 14 February 1908 and their departure on June 8, 1908, the team created a consequential set of over four hundred photographs, exhausting almost the entire stock as indicated by Pelliot’s letter dating from April 30, 1908. Pelliot et al. Carnets de route, 417.
49 Amongst the 1530 negatives held currently at the Musée Guimet archives, 1027 are glass plates, 461 are celluloid film, and 35 are prints on paper.
50 Richard Leach Maddox was the first to successfully make a gelatin dry plate negative in 1871. The process underwent many improvements by a variety of people before it was commercially viable in 1879. “Gelatin Dry Plate,” in Graphic Atlas, accessed November 7, 2015 http://www.graphicsatlas.org/identification/?process_id=303.
51 B. Lavédrine, Jean-Paul Gandolfo, and Sibylle Monod, (Re)Connaître et conserver les photographies anciennes (Paris: Éd du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 2007), 254.
52 The publications should have been published in 1914 but the outbreak of World War I postponed it until 1924. Another series of volumes was dedicated to facsimiles of manuscripts, other texts, and research outcomes such as in linguistics, translations, and glossaries.
53 Pelliot, Les grottes de Touen-Houang, 2.
54 Ibid., 5.
55 Previously named Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner and founded in 1901, Geuthner’s publications targeted mainly an educated audience and covered disciplines ranging from Humanities, arts, philology, to religion among others. Éditions Geuthner website, accessed November 11, 2015, http://www.geuthner.com/a-propos.
56 Letters sent to Pelliot on 10 March 1911 and 14 May 1913. Pel Mi 67. Paris, Musée Guimet, archives de la bibliothèque.
57 For instance a letter written on 26 December 1909 attests that Pelliot received the amount of “five thousands francs” on behalf of Mister Tongkang so as to obtain the photographic reproduction of documents found in Dunhuang. Pel Mi. 67. Paris, Musée Guimet, archives de la bibliothèque.
58 Pelliot et al., Carnets de route, 321.
59 The page six of the report states that: “The photo-engravings published in this report are made after the M. Nouette’s photographs, photographer of the Pelliot’s expedition”. P. Pelliot, Trois ans dans la Haute Asie: conférence de M. Paul Pelliot : au grand amphithéâtre de la Sorbonne, le 10 décembre 1909 (Paris: Comité de l'Asie Française, 1910), 16.
60 P. Pelliot, “Rapport de M. Paul Pelliot sur sa mission au Turkestan chinois (1906–1909),” Comptes rendus des séances - Académie des inscriptions & belles-lettres (1910), 62.
61 P. Pelliot, La Haute Asie (Paris: L'Édition artistique J. Goudard, 1931).
62 L’Illustration was the first weekly-illustrated newspaper in France that targeted a bourgeois audience due to its price (75 centimes). Its format and feature articles that sought to supply useful knowledge in light of contemporary news were greatly indebted to its British precursor The Illustrated London news. It was founded by Edouard Charton (1807–1890), Adolphe Joanne (1813–1881), Alexandre Paulin (1793–1859), Jean-Jacques Dubochet (?–1868). It ran between 1843 and 1944, and later between 1945 and 1955 under the name of France Illustration. C. Bellanger, J. Godechot, P. Guiral and F. Terrou, Histoire générale de la presse française: 2 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1969), 300.
63 Pelliot, “Trois ans dans la Haute Asie,” 262.
64 The databases that can be regarded as the most all-encompassing are Dacheng 大成 and Chinese Periodical Full-text Database民國時期期刊全文數據庫.
65 “Sitanyin shi yu Dunhuang shishi: Dunhuang Qianfodong quanjing zhi yi jiao,” Xuesheng Zazhi, no. 9 (1930), 34.
66 “Dunhuang de Fojiao yishu,” Dongfang Zazhi [The Eastern Miscellany], no. 17 (1931), 1; “Sitanyin shi yu Dunhuang shishi: Dunhuang Qianfodong quanjing zhi yi jiao,” Xuesheng Zazhi, no. 9 (1930), 34; “Dunhuang Shiku quanjing,” Weimiao sheng, no. 3 (1937), 56; “Boxihe xiansheng guanyu Dunhuang jianzhu de yi fengxin,” Zhongguo yingzao xueshe huikan [Bulletin of the Society for Research In Chinese Architecture], no. 4 (1932), 1.
67 Many of Pelliot’s writings were translated into Chinese mostly one or two decades after his discoveries in Dunhuang. Among the relevant texts: Dunhuang shishi fang shuji (Beijing: Guoli Beiping Tushuguan, 1935), which was a translation of his Une bibliothèque médiévale retrouvée au Kansou; P. Pelliot and C. Feng, Xiyu Nanhai shidi kaozheng yi cong (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1934).
68 “A Century On: Documenting Archaeological Sites in Xinjiang: Stein’s Silk Road Legacy Revisited,” IDP News, no. 32 (2008), accessed September 10, 2012, http://idp.bl.uk/archives/news32/idpnews_32.a4d.
69 B. Zheng and G. Gao, Dunhuang Mogaoku bainian tulu: Boxihe Dunhuang tulu (Lanzhou Shi: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 2008). See also the reutilization of Nouette's photographs in: H. Gu, Shijie De Dunhuang (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2011); P. Pelliot, L. Hambis, K. Riboud, N. Vandier-Nicolas and M. Paul-David, Mission Paul Pelliot: documents archéologiques publiés sous les auspices de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1961); R. Grousset, De la Grèce à la Chine (Monaco: Documents d'art, 1948).
70 The Lao Zhaopian publishing phenomenon has notably been discussed by: W. Hung, Zooming in: histories of photography in China (London: Reaktion Books, 2016), 219–49. For most recent research on Lao Zhaopian, see Ed Krebs and Hanchao Lu, eds., China in Family Photographs: A Peoples History of Revolution and Everyday Life (Encino, CA: Bridge21 Publications, 2018).
71 According to the research thus far, the following institutions also possess photographic records of Pelliot’s expedition: the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris), and the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA, Paris). D. Morelon, “L’image documentaire et ses métamorphoses: les collections photographiques de la bibliothèque de l’INHA,” in Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History, ed. Costanza Caraffa (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011), 291.
72 Launched in 1994, the IDP is a collaborative online platform in which international institutions and libraries around the world share knowledge about Dunhuang studies and its latest news. Among the various documents supplied, a comprehensive database encompasses all photographs taken during Pelliot, Stein and other expeditions.
73 Wo. Ernst and J. Parikka, Digital Memory and the Archive (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 2; 28; 121.
74 L. W. MacDonald, Digital Heritage: Applying Digital Imaging to Cultural Heritage (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006), 448.
75 This cross-cultural approach of photography in Asia has been advanced by the art historian Luke Gartlan in several articles, in particular: L. Gartlan, “Samuel Cocking and the Rise of Japanese Photography,” History of Photography, 33, 2 (2009), 145–64.