Role of Export Art
It was under such circumstances that export art of punishment scenes emerged and thrived. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the popularity in the West of this genre of painting was not a coincidence. Instead of simply reproducing scenes of punishment that had appeared in traditional Chinese art, the painters of export paintings deliberately conformed to the expectations of the Western market. These paintings not only satisfied the Western customer’s curiosity, but they further corresponded to prevailing prejudices shaped by political propaganda regarding China. It can, thus, be concluded that the reshaping of Sino-Western relations during this period, changes in European and American perceptions of China, and modernizing developments in Western legal systems all contributed to a new environment for the production of export paintings on punishments.
Abundant quantities of such paintings were sold in Guangzhou to Americans and Europeans, and Western artists subsequently reproduced their scenes for an eager audience. In reflecting barbaric punishment without further context, these paintings enforced a notion of the Chinese as uncivilized heathens, a notion that not only deeply affected the Western perception of China in the 19th century but even impacted early serious studies of the Chinese people. In 1801, London author Major George Henry Mason published The Punishments of China (中国酷刑), based on the paintings of Guangzhou export painter Pu Qua. This book, the first of its kind by a European author, is composed of 54 pages illustrated by 22 color engravings. Every scene is accompanied by an introduction in both English and French. The punishments that this book covers includes: “a Culprit before a Magistrate, A Culprit conveyed to Prison, A Culprit conducted to Trail, An Official undergoing the Bastinade, Twisting a man’s ears, Punishment of the swing, Punishing a boatman, Punishing an interpreter, The Rack, Torturing the fingers, Burning a man’s eyes with lime, A malefactor chained to an iron bar, Punishment of the wooden collar, A man fastened to a block of wood, A malefactor in a cage, Punishment of a wooden tube, Hamstringing a malefactor, Close confinemen, Conducting an offender into banishment, A malefactor conducted to execution, The Capital punishment of the cord."[12] Even given some suspicions that the book may have been a forgery, as Major Mason and Pu Qua are not known to have existed, this publication was quite influential and should not be ignored. Its engravings were subsequently cited in various books investigating the Chinese legal system.
Following the invention of photography, photos regarding Chinese tortures and executions circulated widely in the United States and Europe, especially after the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The photos and stories about the Boxers’ attack on Westerners and Chinese Christians appeared everywhere in the West, making a strong impression on U.S. audiences. Due to the development of photography, the stereotype of the “brutal Chinese” was further reinforced. The photos of Chinese punishments, especially a 1905 French photo of lingchi, significantly impacted Western audiences and deepened the perception of Chinese cruelty and brutality.[13] Such perceptions may have served, to some extent, as an excuse for intervention in China by a league of “Great Powers.” In addition, Westerners also produced photos of the heads of decapitated Boxers exhibited on pillars after the rebellion was suppressed. For the Chinese, these photos were seen as deterrence. But for Europeans and Americans, who already enjoyed extraterritoriality in China, these photos of “head exhibition,” along with wearing cangues, beating with rods, and decapitation, became further evidence for the necessity of extraterritoriality in a lawless country.
Throughout the process of typecasting the Chinese in the West, the export art on punishments played an indispensable role in substantiating the stereotypes. The vivid color depictions presented in the paintings, as well as narratives of the “cruel Chinese” produced by Western travelers in China, served as intermediaries for “modern” Western identity constructs informed by notions of China, the Chinese, and Chinese customs. Yet, although these paintings were about Chinese people and were produced primarily by Chinese painters, they were not Chinese. They were produced from a Western perspective, for a Western audience, and for Western purposes and ambitions. These punishment paintings reflect Western moral standards that were based in racial prejudices. The empirical reality they depict is very questionable. Instead of authentically representing the Chinese legal system, these paintings are better defined as a discriminatory, purposely startling presentation of Chinese society in the 19th century.
In the last decades of the Qing Dynasty, Shen Jiaben was named Chancellor of Judicial Revision, and he was put in charge of creating a new legal code out of the old one. In the new code Ta Tsing Leu Lee, punishments such as lingchi, public display of severed heads, mutilating the corpse after execution, and tattooing on the face were abolished. Tortures for confession and human trafficking were banned, and forced servitude was prohibited. This reform marks the transition of the traditional Chinese legal system to a “modern” one. However, the stereotype of “brutal Chinese” in Western society persisted, a so-called “Eastern feature” that has been imprinted on the Chinese and is hard to dismiss.[14] The contribution of Chinese punishment images in this process of foreign relations was certainly not anticipated by the painters who devoted to their work to such art in the 18th and early 19th centuries
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[12] Zhifeng, Occidental Books on China for Aspiring collectors, Union Press, Beijing, 2009, p.56.
[13] Photographs by Francois Emile Marie Lemasle.
[14] Harold R. Isaacs, "Scratches on Our Minds," American Images of China, Translated by Yu Dianli and Lu Riyu, Chung Hwa Press, Beijing, 2006, pp.88-92.
