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and a proponent of the novel Yellow Box concept, is concerned here with the challenges presented by westernized exhibition spaces (the so-called White Cube), to Chinese scrolls and calligraphic works. The article is his response to an art exhibition mounted in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, where Yellow Box concepts of display were put into practice. These concepts could be significant for the future of works of art in China. The article by 魏白蒂 Wei Peh-T’i is not, strictly speaking, on art. But it does reflect on the way that a work of art––in this case an anonymous early nineteenth-century Chinese painting of the Qing scholar-official 阮元 Ruan Yuan, Governor of Guangdong––can start lively and intelligent discussion. She is, therefore, casting a backward intellectual look at what the art of the past can reveal. Dr. Wei has recently written a book on Ruan Yuan and she has taken the painting in question as a departure for providing further insights into Ruan’s personality and times, especially his involvement with the East India Supercargo, Sir James Urmston. She delves into several questions related to the China Trade that lets readers obtain a more complete portrait of that colourful and at times troubled period in China.
César Guillén-Nuñez |
