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Subject:Re: Help with an inscription
Posted By: John R Mon, Nov 27, 2017
My extensive research on the 8 horse painting included, the history of the
horse in Chinese art , literature, and paintings, especially Castiglione's
horse paintings. Why did Castiglione present some of his horses in the act of
biting? He would never have seen anger or violence presented in Chinese art.
It simply did not exist in the Chinese artistic psyche. There is an ancient fable
told of an imperial horse who jealously bit a horse of state, but he then
suffered both remorse and regret. Was it as a display of Castiglione’s own anger
directed at the Emperor? According to history, his anger would have been justified.
“In reality, the placid, bucolic impression that Lang Shinang gave to One Hundred
Horses could not be farther from what was happening in every-day life of the
Jesuit Castiglione in his workshop in the Forbidden City. In spite of the Jesuit
presence at the court, persecution of Christians had become widespread by the
time Kangxi died and proselytizing by missionaries was severely repressed,
especially during the reign of his son, Yongzheng. Anti-Christian sentiment made
the Jesuit presence at court fraught with tension, ambiguities, and often downright
danger. On the one hand, as an imperial servants, it was necessary to please the
Emperor's every whim, and all of the Qing emperors were exacting taskmasters.
This difficult, relentless, artistic output had to be done cheerfully and calmly by
the Jesuits in the face of individual members of their order being imprisoned, harrased,
and even executed. But then came a mandate of expulsion for all missionaries except
those, like Castiglione, who were specifically working for the emperor-these were
simply put under house arrest, and even old Father Pedreni, the famous musician and
former tutor of the new emperor, was imprisoned. This recession was still in effect
when Yongzheng died in 1735.”
[Lauren Arnold, Pacific Rim Report April 2003 Dark Days for the Jesuits in the Forbidden City]
I had stated in my last post Catiglione was ordered to use horse paintings from
The imperial collection as models for his 100 Horses. Which paintings did
Castiglione use? I’ve identified some of the paintings of horses Castiglione likely
used as models for his 100 Horses.These include the horses from Li Gonglin's
[1049-1106] copy of Wei Yan's Pasteuring Horses, the horses from Ren Renfa
[1254–1327], the horses from the paintings of Zhao Mengfu[1254-1322], and
the politically charged, emaciated horse of Gong Kai[1271-1304]. All of these
paintings were in the Imperial collection.
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