Imperial Coral: The transformation of a natural material to a Qing Imperial Treasure (original) (raw)
Kathleen Davidson and Molly Duggins (eds.), Sea Currents in Nineteenth-Century Art, Science and Culture, 2023
In his landmark monograph The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (hereafter Coral Reefs), published in 1842, Charles Darwin dedicated much of his final chapter and a long, detailed appendix to explain how colour is used to illustrate the distribution of different kinds of coral reefs with reference to his coral reef theory in Plate 3 of his book. Likewise, in his description of Plate 1 -showing the resemblance in form between barrier coral-reefs surrounding mountainous islands, and atolls or lagoonislands -Darwin signals that the coral structures have been tinted 'a pale brownishred colour … in order to catch the eye' . In Plate 3, Darwin's conclusions about reef distribution are conveyed by overprinting sections of colour -bright blue, pale blue and red -on a standard map of the Indian and Pacific Oceans: The bright blue representing atolls, or lagoon-islands; the pale blue indicating barrier reefs; and the red showing fringing reefs. Without the added colours, this outline map would be meaningless for Darwin's argument. The application of colour on a standard intaglio, Mercator-style map in Plate 3 was a means of conveying the essential information in an economical way. 2 Whereas in Plate 1, which combines charts produced during HMS Beagle's surveys with those from earlier British, French and Russian imperial voyages, colour is applied solely for emphasis -to accentuate the shapes of coral atolls at certain stages of their development. 3 The method of applying colour in both examples above corresponds to the printing of colour tints in discrete sections of the principal image that was common practice for artists' lithographs. The function of the printed colour on Darwin's maps was more than an embellishment: it conveyed the main idea of each image. In this procedure of distinguishing the locations of coral reefs and highlighting different stages of reef formation, the applied colours are only notional, not naturalistic, of course. Their purpose is to signify processes of transformation, thus allowing the viewer to perceive coral reefs as dynamic rather than static environments. 6 10
Blueprints of Empire: Underwater Specters and Perishable Legacies in Andrea Chung's Cyanotypes
College of Arts Association, 2024
The Caribbean archipelago has been heavily defined by a visual economy with a strong predisposition to flatten, petrify, and render bodies transparent and intelligible, whether they be bodies of flesh, of nature, or of knowledge: long tied to physical mechanisms of control, conceptual regulation has all too often been used to justify the (over)exploitation, dispossession, and violation of these bodies, always effectively reinforced by western forms of representation and models of figuration. In this presentation, I argue that Andrea Chung's reappropriation of cyanotype-a visual technology popularized by the British empire in the 19th century for botanical research and the representation of nature-both exposes the violence indexed in these representational dynamics and hints at their structural silences and specters. Using sugar as the bleaching substance, the artist addresses the material intersections and residual entanglements of the sugar cane trade that still permeate the present, highlighting the contemporaneity of plantation economies and the afterlives of their structures of labor. A technique paradoxically reliant on process, texture, and depth, instead of surface intelligibility, this paper examines how Chung's use of cyanotype establishes a geo-poetic connection between the mystified abyss of the ocean, the transatlantic trade routes of objects and bodies, and the multiple dimensions of colonial invasion. Particularly relevant in the context of climate vulnerability, this project destabilizes linear accounts of insular history by deepening into the methodological and material legacies of colonialism-into the hidden blueprints of imperial expansion.
2002
This research investigates the roots of Chinese export watercolours - produced at Canton for Western customers, in the 18th-19th centuries - in the local tradition of painting and illustration, attributing a 'Chinese identity' to these authentic works of art, often considered as a semi-foreign piecework derivative and inferior to literati and court painting. Furthermore, their historical and anthropological importance is also vigorously stressed: these particular paintings are presented as documents that provide an insight into Chinese traditions, customs and daily life, and reflect the evolution of the diplomatic, commercial and cultural relationships between China and the West. The discussion gradually develops through the analysis of the albums in the British Museum's collection, which, despite being one of the most comprehensive of this sort, had not been specifically examined by any scholar before. The watercolour sets, described from various angles, and compared wi...
“Treasures of the Sea: Art Before Craft,” Espacio. Tiempo y Forma 5 (2017), 15-34
Abstract: The sea, like an embryo or a foetus, seems to represent “a sort of first stage in the advancement of superior life forms.” Its fluid character suggests an early age of our world’s foundation, before fluid turns to stone. It appears as an archaic cosmos into which one descends in order to find hidden treasures in its depths. How did artisans work, shape, and integrate the varied materials of the sea into an artistic oeuvre? Which meanings were attached to these materials? When, how and why were the materials’ fluid origin remembered? The sea can be considered the great global depot of the world, which includes objects of both great and ordinary character, illustrating ambitious and innocent aspirations to an equal extent. Moreover, the particular shininess of the oceanic materials, like pearls, shells or animals’ skins, was usually associated with cosmic elements and thus emphasizes the pure and primal characters of these substances. The treasures of the sea were therefore beyond national. They were global. And their aquatic identity made them universal. Metaphorically speaking, the sea, as an object, has body, shape and even face, and is demarcated by earth and air. This amorphous entity has a solid bottom, its upper surface, namely face, touches the air, and its walls constantly struggle against solid substances such as rock and stone. In addition, its depths are unknown. There, in the heart of darkness, unconsciousness resides. This introductory essay aims at opening the so-called ’Pandora Box’ of the fluid realm of the seas. It presents this space’s great potential in providing us with vast amounts of historical information, usually ‘lying concealed`, as if under the water.
Coral Extinction in Contemporary Art
Universität Bielefeld, Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft, 2024
Blue humanities and animal studies: contradictions, chances … and corals The blue humanities (Mentz 2018, Alaimo 2019, Deloughrey 2019, Oppermann 2023) propose to understand critical posthumanist thinking as a trajectory from pastoral lands to the open ocean waters. The term 'Blue Humanities' has been introduced by Steve Mentz, Professor of English at St John's University in New York City. Mentz aims at a new perspective for the humanities that shifts from land to water, to the sea, to shores, and ships. On the other hand, he marks a stream of research that connects scholarly work on water and oceans to approaches from geography, economy, ecology, and political theory. The contour of such an interdisciplinary research program, within the framework of critical posthumanism, becomes visible in publications like
Dutch Crossing. Journal of Low Countries Studies , 2019
Many seventeenth-century Antwerp collections contained coral, both natural and crafted. Also, coral was a pictorial motif depicted by Antwerp artists on mythological scenes, still lifes, gallery pictures, and allegories. Coral was many things at the same time: a commodity crafted into jewellery and objets d’art, a popular collectable in its natural shape, a motif for Antwerp painters, an essential commodity in the European-Indian trade network, a naturalia associated with classical mythology as well as with the Blood of Christ, and a problematic naturalia that raised questions about classification, origins and natural processes. This paper provides an itinerary of coral in early seventeenth-century Antwerp. It is argued that collecting in general and collected coral in particular were related to new understandings of matter and material transformation. Coral functioned in the collection as: first, a place of appreciation for artisanal work - or ‘process appreciation’; second, as a conversation piece; and third, as a visual motif related to the understanding of matter and material transformation, the process of petrifaction in particular. Added up, this explains the value attached to this ‘unusual excrescence of nature’. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03096564.2017.1299931
Oceanus Resartus; or, Is Chinese Maritime History Coming of Age
Crossings, 2018
Perhaps the most salient feature of the transformation of China's economic policy is its tack into the oceanic sphere. This is a break with the country's traditional past as an inland-looking, continental power: the landscape is now complemented by the seascape. This article suggests that China's new relationship with the sea asks for a master plan for reclaiming a neglected maritime past-the invention of a national maritime tradition, a newly tailored past to explain China's former relationship with the sea.
Journal of Curatorial Studies, 2020
Over the last decade, a wave of ocean-themed exhibitions has swelled in international and interdisciplinary contexts. Ranging from large-scale permanent displays in national museums of maritime and natural history to transient exhibitions of contemporary art and international biennials, this surge of curatorial activity corresponds to increasing public and scientific awareness about the ecological devastation of the Earth's oceans. Indeed, the 'oceanic turn' in exhibitions parallels the emergent scholarly field of the Blue Humanities (Winkiel 2019: 1). 1 This special issue investigates how curatorial practice can uniquely contribute to understanding the complex relationships between ocean ecosystems, marine wildlife and human activity at this time of environmental crisis. Together, the contributors critically reflect on this exhibitionary turn to the sea in its multivalent forms and begin to chart the heritage of this practice. As such, these texts make a marine-focused contribution to the nascent field of curatorial and museum studies concerned with ecology and sustainability, examining the oceanic Anthropocene through the lens of exhibitions. 2 The most recent iteration of the Venice Biennale, May You Live In Interesting Times (2019), curated by Ralph Rugoff, was marked by an overall disastrous tone that responded to surrounding international circumstances in which climate change played a major role. Notably, a strong oceanic thread ran
‘Shaped by the Sea’ is a two-day workshop examining how the ocean environment has shaped science, medicine and technology. Our aim is to draw together scholars working on any aspect of science, medicine and technology in or on the global ocean. Through focus on a range of contexts, we hope to address questions such as: How did working and travelling within a maritime environment affect medical, scientific and technological practice? How did the oceans shape the production of knowledge? How did science, medicine and technology underpin the dynamic relationship between land and sea, and how did this shape understanding of the oceans?
In recent years, the notion of "curiosity" has gained widespread appeal. Whether one looks to academic scholarship, contemporary art, the programmes of natural history and science museums, or even educational rhetoric, the peculiarly alluring category of "curiosity" appears to have garnered a great deal of currency. The word lends to things a certain indefinable aura, and has been used by many curators, artists, editors, writers, and journalists with varying degrees of discrimination and sensitivity to the complex history of the term. "Curiosity" is a seductive notion, which, used with the sophistication of some, has revealed its tricksy art in the possibility of opening up a treasure trove of imaginative thinking, creatively historical ideas, and productively surprising connections. On the other hand, "curiosity", particularly in terms of the cabinet of curiosities, has also been used somewhat opportunistically by some wishing to gild with its magic any old rag and bone collection of objects or ideas, in the hope that its aura might lend a point or a paradoxically organizing principle to a dog's dinner of thoughts and objects.