Picturing knowledge: Chinese brushwork illustrations of Western natural history in a late Qing periodical, 1907–1911

Abstract

In recent years, a number of studies have examined the introduction of Western learning into China after the late nineteenth century. Many of these works discuss how Chinese scholarship might have been reshaped by Western classification and structure of knowledge, and ask how it absorbed and adopted the vocabulary and language of Western learning. While defining the newly emerged idea of “national essence”, late Qing Chinese literati, notably the members of the Society for Preserving National Learning, also tried to incorporate Western scientific knowledge, as they understood and perceived it, into the framework of Chinese learning. From 1907–1911, more than a hundred botanical and zoological illustrations, drawn more or less according to Western scientific norm, appeared in Guocui xuebao, a journal published by the Society for Preserving National Learning. These pictures are an indication of the attempts made by late Qing Chinese literati to integrate Chinese and Western scholarship. Focusing on these drawings, this paper examines how the painter Cai Shou might have adopted and applied the natural history knowledge and the drawing techniques he acquired through various means. It also asks with what ideal late Qing and early Republican Chinese literati might have identified themselves.

Keywords:

• natural history drawings
• Guocui xuebao
• Society for Preserving National Learning
• Cai Shou

Notes

6. “Nishe guocui xuetang qi” [Proposal for Establishing the School of National Essence], Guocui xuebao, no. 26 (1907), Sheshuo [editorial], 1–4.

7. These essays are published consecutively in Guocui xuebao from 1907 to 1910.

8. For a preliminary study of native‐place education and native‐place textbooks promoted in late Qing, see Cheng Meibao (Ching May‐bo), “You aixiang er aiguo: Qingmo Guangdong xiangtu jiaocai de guojia huayu” [To Love Your Native‐place, to Love Your Country: The National Discourse of Native‐place Textbooks and Gazetteers in the Late Qing], Lishi yanjiu [Historical Research] 4 (2003), 68–84.

9. Huang Huiwen, Guangdong xiangtu gezhi jiaokeshu [Guangdong Native‐Place Science Textbook] (Shanghai: Shanghai guoxue baocunhui, 1908), vol. 1, chapter 16.

1. For a summary of the major ideas held by the members of the camp of “National Essence”, see Charlotte Furth, “Intellectual Change: From the Reform Movement to the May Fourth Movement, 1895–1920,” in An Intellectual History of Modern China, eds. Merle Goldman and Leo Ou‐fan Lee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 13–96, esp. 45–52.

2. Zheng Shiqu, Wanqing Guocui Pai: Wenhua sixiang yanjiu [The School of National Essence in the Late Qing: A Study of Culture and Ideas] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1997), 65.

3. Luo Zhitian, Guojia yu xueshu: Qingji minchu guanyu “Guoxue” de sixiang lunzheng [The State and the Academics: Debates on the Idea of “National Learning” in the Late Qing and the Early Republic] (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 2003), chapter 3, section 1.

4. See, for example, the various discussions in Lydia Liu, ed., Tokens of Exchange: The Problems of Translation in Global Circulations (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999); Tze‐ki Hon and Robert J. Culp, eds., The Politics of Historical Production in Late Qing and Republican China (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, forthcoming).

5. For how the two categories of pictures are distinguished from each other, see, for example, the table of contents of Guocui xuebao, no. 39 (1908).

10. “Tebie guanggao” [Special Announcement], Guocui xuebao, no. 29 (1907), no pagination.

11. Chen Zicai, “Fulu beiji” [Appended Stele Inscription], in Cai Shou, Hanqiong yigao [Manuscripts Left by Hanqiong] (compiled by Tan Yuese, Nanjing, 1943), beiji [Stele Inscription], 1; Zheng Yimei, Nanshe Congtan [A Collected Account of the South Society] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1981), 262–4. See also the magazine entitled Yigou run by Cai Shou and Tan Yuese (Guangzhou: Yigoushe, 1932).

12. See Cai Shou, “Houyu” [Horseshoe Crab], Guocui xuebao, no. 32 (1907), “Mingyue tu” [Rabbit], Guocui xuebao, no. 38 (1908). All Cai Shou's illustrations are printed on attached paper and thus have no pagination. The English or Latin names of the animal or plant appear in this paper follow those used by Cai Shou so long as he provided one in his illustrations; otherwise they are my own translation.

13. For samples of Western zoological illustrations from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, see Tony Rice, Voyages of Discovery: Three Centuries of Natural History Exploration (London: The Natural History Museum, 2000).

14. Cai Shou, “Yiyuan” [Unusual Ape], Guocui xuebao, no. 39 (1908).

15. Cai Shou, “Mang” [Boar], Guocui xuebao, no. 45 (1908).

16. Cai Shou, “Bailang” [White Wolf], Guocui xuebao, no. 46 (1908).

17. Cai Shou, “Mao” [Yak], Guocui xuebao, no. 37 (1908).

18. Cai Shou, “Shiyingcao” [Flytrap], Guocui xuebao, no. 30 (1907).

19. Cai Shou, “Zhuxie”, “Zhubang”, “Hailuo” [Pearl Crab, Pearl Clam, Maritime Shell], Guocui xuebao, no. 35 (1907).

20. Cai Shou, “Yangtao” [Five‐Star Fruit], Guocui xuebao, no. 49 (1909).

21. Cai Shou, “Maodaicao” [Asplenium‐Rutœfo], Guocui xuebao, no. 52 (1909).

22. Cai Shou, “Mingyuetu” [Rabbit], Guocui xuebao, no. 38 (1908).

23. Cai Shou, “Shaozuiniao” [White Spoonbill], Guocui xuebao, no. 43 (1908).

24. Cai Shou, “Wuhuaguo” [Chinese Fig], Guocui xuebao, no. 33 (1907).

25. Cai Shou, “Puan Yishou” [Unusual Beast in Puan], Guocui xuebao, no. 32 (1907).

26. Lisa Claypool, “Zhang Jian and China's First Museum,” Journal of Asian Studies 64, no. 3 (2005), 567–604.

27. Cai Shou, “Maodaicao,” Guocui xuebao, no. 52 (1909); see the textual description attached to the illustration.

28. Ibid.

29. Cai Shou, “Kongzhi” [Violent Sea‐snail], Guocui xuebao, no. 37 (1908).

30. So far I am not able to identify the original title of the book. With reference to the British Library catalogue, we know that there was a book called The Natural History of Animals published in 1903 by the Gresham Publishing Co. However, the author of this book is J.R. Ainsworth Davis, and it is quite unlikely that “Davis” would have been transliterated into “Lishi”. According to Liang Qichao's “Du Xixue shu fa” [Methods for Reading Books of Western Learning], a zoological work entitled Dongwuxue [Zoology], published in Tianjin, was translated into Chinese by Li Renshu. But even Liang Qichao himself had not seen this book by the time he wrote the article. See Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji jiwaiwen [Collected Works of Yinbingshi, supplementary essays] (compiled by Xia Xiaohong), (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2005), vol. II, 1162.

31. Cai Shou, “Kongzhi” [Violent Sea‐snail], Guocui xuebao, no. 37 (1908).

32. Cai Shou, “Jieshichoubashi” [Gastropod], Guocui xuebao, no. 36 (1907).

33. Cai Shou, “Bike Gena” [B. Gurnard], Guocui xuebao, no. 50 (1909).

34. Cai Shou, “Yashi Di’an” [Ascidian], Guocui xuebao, no. 31 (1907).

35. According to Harold Otness, the 1872 printed catalogue of the library of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society showed 1,300 titles in Western languages plus 1,023 volumes in Chinese, and by 1907 the printed catalogue showed 2,125 titles. This library probably held the best and largest collection of Western works available in China by early 1900s. See Harold Otness, “Nurturing the Roots for Oriental Studies: the development of the Libraries of the Royal Asiatic Society's Branches and Affiliates in Asia in the Nineteenth Century, IAOL Bulletin, no. 43 (1998), 9–17.

36. Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian yu wanqing shehui [The Transmission of Western Learning to the East and the Late Qing society] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1994), 198, 486.

37. Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi heji jiwaiwen, vol. II, 1127, 1150.

38. See the series of articles on zoology published in Gezhi xinbao [Scientific Review], nos. 1–16 (1898).

39. See Christopher Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), 28–9, 45–51; Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian yu wanqing shehui, 481–4.

40. See Christopher Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai, 59–61; Zhang Shudong, Pang Duoyi and Zheng Rusi, Jianming zhonghua yinshua shi [A Brief History of Printing in China] (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2004), 245.

41. Shijie [The World], no. 1 (1907), B2–6.

42. For a biography of Pan Dawei, see Huang Dade, “Huanghua xindeng wei zhonghun: Pan Dawei xiaozhuan”, [Consoling the Loyal Soul with Yellow Flower and Lantern of Heart: a Short Biography of Pan Dawei], “Pan Dawei nianbiao” [A Chronological Account of the Life of Pan Dawei], in Hun ji Huanghua: Jinian Pan Dawei danchen yibai ershi zhounian [His Soul Attaching to the Yellow Flowers: A Volume in Comemoration of the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Pan Dawei], eds. Guangdongsheng zhengxie wenshi weiyuanhui, Guangdong meishuguan (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 2001), 254–75; Chen Ying, Lingnan huaniaohua liubian: 1368–1949 [Changes and Continuities in Lingnan Flower‐and‐Bird Painting, 1368–1949] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2004), 407.

43. Zheng Yimei, Nanshe Congtan, 263.

44. Guangdongsheng zhengxie wenshi weiyuanhui, Guangdong meishuguan, eds., Hun ji huanghua, 163.

45. For a biography of Gao Jianfu and a discussion of his paintings, see Chen Ying, Lingnan huaniaohua liubian, chapters 8 and 9.

46. Ibid., 412, 554–5.

47. Ibid., 427.

48. See Saburo Nishimura, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsu gaku (Tokyo: Kinokuniya Company Ltd., 1999), vol. I, chapter II.

49. See Li Weiming, “Jiuxue xinzhi: Bowu tuhua yu jindai xieshi zhuyi sichao – yi Gao Jianfu yu Riben de guanxi wei zhongxin” [Old Learning and New Knowledge: Natural History Drawings and the Idea of Modern Realism – A Study of Gao Jianfu and His Connection with Japan], Yishushi yanjiu [The Study of Art History], no. 4 (2002), 135–81; Chen Ying, Lingnan huaniaohua liubian, 473–4.

50. See Zhang Su’e, ed., Ju Chao Ju Lian nianpu [A Chronological Account of the Lives of Ju Chao and Ju Lian] (Guangzhou: Guangzhou chubanshe, 2003).

51. Chen Ying, Lingnan huaniaohua liubian, 325.

52. For the relationship between the garden owner's family and the Ju's brothers, see Yang Baolin, ed., Keyuan Zhangshi jiazu shiwenji [Collected Poems and Essays of the Zhang's Family of Keyuan] (Dongguan: Dongguanshi zhengxie wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui, 2003).

53. See Gao Jianfu, “Ju Guquan xiansheng de huafa” [The Drawing Technique of Ju Guquan], in Guangdong Wenwu, (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian 1990, reprint of 1941 edition), 696.

54. For an outline of the history of export art in the eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century Guangzhou, see Carl L. Crossman, The China Trade: Export Paintings, Furniture, Silver & Other Objects (Princeton: Pyne Press, 1972).

55. See Fa‐ti Fan, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Cambridge [Mass.]: Harvard University Press, 2004), chapter 2.

56. I have seen a number of album illustrations copied from illustrated versions of Bencao Gangmu in the British Library, Natural History Museum, and the Royal College of Physicians in London.

57. Regarding how John Bradby Blake instructed the Cantonese craftsmen he hired for drawing natural history illustrations, see “Memoirs of John Bradby Blake,” Gentleman's Magazine, no. 46 (1776), 348–51.

58. The majority of the botanical illustrations drawn by Cantonese craftsmen under William Kerr's instructions is collected at Kew Garden, London.

59. The majority of the botanical and zoological illustrations drawn by Cantonese craftsmen under Reeves's instruction is now collected in the Natural History Museum and the Royal Horticultural Society in London.

60. See C.E. Wurtzburg, Raffles of the East Isle (London, 1954), 113, which quotes from John Turnbull Thomson, trans., Translation from the Hakayit Abdulla (Bin Abdulkadar), MUNSHI, with comments by J.T. Thomson (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874).

61. Chen Ying, Lingnan huaniaohua liubian, 427.

62. See Craig Clunas, Chinese Export Watercolours (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1984); Ching May Bo (Cheng Meibao) and Cheng Cunjie, eds., Views from the West: Collection of Nineteenth Century Pith Paper Watercolours donated by Mr. Ifan Williams to the City of Guangzhou (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001).

63. Ruan Yuan, “Xiaoshu qian zuo zongfangchuan you Beihu Nanwanliu tang shu bieye” [Touring the North Lake in the Boat and Lodging in the Cottage of Nanwanliu tang on the Eve of the 11th Solar Term], in Yanjingshi zaixu ji [Collected Works of Yanjingshi, second continuation] (1842 edition), juan 6.

64. See the advertisement of Guocui xuebao, no. 75 (1911), no pagination.

65. Cai Zhefu, Xiezhuyan tu [A Painting of Crab and Rock], collection of the Institute of Chinese Culture Museum, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, no. 93.341.

66. See “Shunde Cai Zhefu xiansheng huajia zhi qing zhengqiu zhushu kezi qi” [A Notice Calling for Donation for the Publication of the Works by Mr. Cai Zhefu of Shunde for Commemorating His 60th Birthday], 1939, private collection of Mr. Wang Guichen. I would like to thank Mr. Wang for showing this pamphlet to me.

67. See Huang Binhong, “Xu” [Preface], in Cai Shou, Hanqiong yigao [Manuscripts Left by Hanqiong] (compiled by Tan Yuese, Nanjing, 1943), “xu” [Preface], 3.