This page has tags:

1. 1 media/ChinaTradeOldChinaSt.jpg 2016-05-04T18:12:50-07:00 Zachary Ziebell 8eecdb2214ffc2e89ec5ed5f180953625d845cc7 The China Trade Era Caroline Frank 20 image_header 281351 2019-08-11T07:44:12-07:00 Caroline Frank a1a5e7e9a2c3dba76ecb2896a93bf66ac8d1635e

This page is referenced by:

• 1 2016-02-26T12:37:34-08:00 Export Paintings of Actual Punishments 11 plain 2017-02-01T07:49:22-08:00     Based on museum and institutional collections around the world, the paintings of Chinese punishment can be generally divided into two categories. Some paintings present penalties practiced in daily life, while others depict imaginary penalties practiced in hell. The three-volume collection of these paintings created by an anonymous 19th-century Cantonese artist and archived in the Guangzhou Museum gives us an idea of the themes they cover. Each volume contains twelve paintings. The paintings in the first collection describe the trial, whipping, decapitation, decapitation along with body cutting (凌迟), displaying an executed prisoner’s head, hitting prisoner on the head, public display of prisoners in shackles as captives, prisoner’s body cut in half (腰斬), barrel shackles(桶枷), and crushing fingers. The twelve paintings of the second collection were composed of the trial, whipping, the whipping of a thief, putting prisoners in jail, exiling prisoners, putting prisoners in shackles, delivering a sentence, shackling prisoners, hanging one’s head for display, decapitation, public decapitation and, body examination after execution. In addition, the second collection presents hitting prisoner on the head, crippling by cutting the hamstring, hanging, finger crushing, punishing of adultery, apprehending prisoners, cutting off an ear, cutting a prisoner in half, and three scenes of sentencing.
      Furthermore, Guangzhou Museum has five individual paintings in its collection that depict the trial, remanding prisoners for exile, delivering people who have been arrested, the whipping of adulterers, and decapitation. The paintings show both Chinese and Western artistic traditions and culture contexts. Notably, many employ Western techniques, such as perspective and the contrast of light and dark. Although the use of Western painting standards makes these paintings more realistic, the overall skill of their producers was constricted, and the works themselves are by no means masterpieces. Since the paintings of punishment themes are largely similar to each other, it is reasonable to assume that these paintings are the result of mass production. It is clear, moreover, that these paintings failed to present the complexity of penalties in use during the Qing Dynasty. Instead, they repeatedly depict penalties that were either common or extremely violent. In general, the paintings are both violent and accurate, and they can serve as valuable historical sources in the context of a severe shortage of official images of Chinese penalties at this time. Qing Dynasty export punishment art, therefore, conveys both an understanding of Western attitudes toward China as well as eye into actual Chinese penal practices.