Beyond the 'Ten Complete Military Victories': Images of battle in the late-Qing period

Pearce, N. (2021) Beyond the 'Ten Complete Military Victories': Images of battle in the late-Qing period. In: Potter, M. C. (ed.) Representing the Past in the Art of the Long Nineteenth Century: Historicism, Postmodernism and Internationalism. Series: Routledge research in art history. Routledge: New York and London, pp. 164-179. ISBN 9781138544352 (doi: 10.4324/9781351004183-8)

Abstract

This essay discusses a genre of art in China that has its roots both in Europe as well as China’s literary and folk art traditions. A hybrid form, it combined innovative imperial propaganda imagery following lengthy campaigns on its territorial borders at the end of the eighteenth century, with the popular art form of the nianhua (New Year print) which had a longer history. Other cultural references are also explored, such as stories and dramas familiar through theatrical and opera performances and storytellers and made visible through woodblock illustrated books and by extension, porcelain decoration. While scenes of battle and military subjects continued as images in nianhua, well into the twentieth century, such images found little favour with the revival of traditional Chinese painting (guohua), during the Republican Period (1912–49), or the parallel experiments in Modern Chinese art – again a European hybrid – of the same era.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Additional Information: ISBN: 9781032105888(pbk); eISBN: 9781351004183.
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Pearce, Professor Nick
• Authors: Pearce, N.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > History of Art
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9781138544352
• Published Online: 30 September 2021