Lesson Three

Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System – Lesson 03

Imagining China: Exploring 19th-Century American Impressions of China through Canton Trade Artifacts

Introduction
The primary products of the Canton trade changed over time, and that change frames the story of the rise of Western power in China and the lead-in to China’s century of humiliation (ca. 1850 to 1950). Although Westerners sought wealth through the China trade, initially this trade developed to the disadvantage of Western nations: while China had much that Western nations and consumers wanted, the West had few “big ticket” commodities that the Chinese sought. As a result, by the 1750s 90 percent of Western nations’ exports to China consisted of silver, which Western nations paid in return for Chinese tea.

Western nations, primarily Great Britain, staunched the outpouring of silver into Chinese coffers with the decision to promote opium for import into China. Opium’s addictive properties meant that, once introduced and used by the Chinese, the demand would grow continuously. The sale of opium to China reversed the balance of trade and set the course for China’s relations with the West for a century.

For more than 100 years—from the early 1700s until the treaty ending the First Opium War established the right of Western nations to open treaty ports along the China coast—China carried out trade with the West primarily through Canton (Guangzhou) on China’s Pearl River. At Canton, Westerners were restricted to foreign enclaves, where their interaction with Chinese—other than merchants—was minimal. Foreigners celebrated their own lives and work as merchants and traders. Foreign residents in Canton demonstrated their taste and culture by collecting Chinese artwork and artifacts. They created a market for paintings, sculpture, porcelain, and other works of craft and art that employed Chinese art forms to portray their own lives and pastimes.

The Westerners found in China a vast, colorful, exotic landscape filled with novel commercial products. There was much they could not see, restricted as they were to the Canton region. They saw little of rural China and only a small part of the official architecture that defined the imperial bureaucracy. By and large, they were cut off from Chinese culture and the experiences of the large majority of the Chinese population. At the same time, they fed a growing fascination with “Chinoiserie”—things Chinese—back home.

In this lesson, students consider the trade in “chinoiserie”—art and craft commodities developed to feed the growing fascination among Europeans and Americans with things Chinese. These consumer products developed from indigenous traditions in ceramics, porcelain, carving, and painting, but integrated Chinese form with Western tastes to meet market demands. The artists and artisans captured what Westerners wanted to see of China, as well as what they wanted to see of themselves in China. The art and artifacts they created presented to Western viewers an idealized view of China, and of Western nations’ involvement there.

Objectives
At the conclusion of this activity, students will be better able to:

Analyze art as historical text.

Consider art as a visual record of Western involvement in China in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Discuss the role that the commodities trade in Chinoiserie played in creating an idealized image of China in Western imaginations at this time.

Time Required
Two class periods.

Materials and preparation
This lesson is designed for use within a unit of study on the beginnings of the China trade and Western-Chinese relations in U.S. history or world history, or within a unit on the Qing dynasty in Chinese history. Students should be familiar with the beginnings of Western interests in China and the China trade. Teachers should be familiar with the MIT Visualizing Cultures units Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System I and Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System III.

Handout 03-A for all students.

Lesson 03 mini-database, “Chinoiserie Artifacts,” (.pdf, 2.4 Mb) for all students or groups.

Access to computers for four or five student groups.

Access to the MIT Visualizing Cultures website (highly recommended).

Procedure
1. Provide background on the Canton trade system, as provided in Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System I: China in the World or in the introduction to this lesson (above). Establish with students the following basic information about the trade system:

The growing importance of Canton as the center of China’s trade with the West in the late-18th century.

The types of restrictions on interactions between Westerners and Chinese in Canton.

The growth of trade in Western silver for Chinese tea through the 18th century and the resulting growth in the foreign presence in Canton.

British efforts to find an export that China would buy in order to halt the depletion of silver from the British treasury; the decision to grow opium and sell it to China.

The growth of trade in arts and crafts items as a secondary market, in addition to tea, in the China trade.

2. Ask students to think about things that they collect or things friends and family members have brought back to them as souvenirs from visits to other countries. Ask volunteers to offer some favorite examples.

3. Next, ask students to consider the process of selecting souvenirs and what it may say about our views of a foreign country. What kinds of things are they looking for as souvenirs when they travel? What do they want the souvenirs they buy to capture about their trip and experience? What do they want the souvenirs to “say” about the place they visited? What kinds of souvenirs do they try to avoid and why? Do students think the things they buy say anything about them as the buyers or students of another country? If so, what?

In this discussion, students may note that they want things that are “authentic”—that show something “real” about the place they visited. They may say that they try to avoid buying items made just for tourists. They may say they look for souvenirs to mark a special place they visited or experience they had. In any case, their responses can provide a starting point for an examination of Chinoiserie as a window on Westerners in China in the 18th and 19th centuries.

4. Introduce the idea that art provided a mechanism for (a) the Westerners living and trading in Canton in the 18th and early-19th centuries to capture their experiences for themselves and (b) people back home to gain knowledge of China. Collecting artwork was, in essence, a process of gathering souvenirs, or capturing what Westerners saw of China. Over time, as trade piqued Western interest, people in Europe and the United States clamored for the arts and crafts of China. Collecting Chinoiserie (things Chinese) became a popular pastime, and suggested that the owner had a certain level of culture, sophistication, and knowledge of the world.

5. Explain that, just as the souvenirs we collect today may tend to paint a positive image of our travel experience, the same may be said for Chinese artwork created to be sold to Westerners at Canton. The Westerners living or trading in Canton had “selective vision,” as many visitors to an unfamiliar culture do; they exported items that would spark Western imagination about China.

6. Inform students that, in this activity, they will work in groups to examine several different categories of artwork coveted and collected by Westerners to represent China during this period. Students will analyze these sets of artifacts in order to describe and discuss Western images of China that developed at that time.

7. Divide the class into four or five groups and assign each group one of the following types of artifacts:

Group 1: Fans
Group 2: Figurines
Group 3: Porcelain bowls
Group 4: Other art objects
Group 5: Paintings

Explain that each group will work with a collection of items in their category, provided in the Lesson 03 mini-database “Chinoiserie Artifacts.” Distribute Handout 03-A. Each group has four or five images of artifacts within the mini-database. Direct student groups to their sections of the mini-database to view their images and instruct them to complete the analysis guide provided on the handout for each of their images.

Alert students that each image in the mini-database links to its gallery on the MIT website. Allow the remainder of the class for student groups to analyze their set of artifacts.

Note: teachers may assign student groups the full collection of each type of artifact in the “Commodities” image gallery in Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System IV. Doing so will provide additional practice in research for students, if this is a goal.

8. When class convenes on day two, ask students to return to their groups to proceed with the next step of the lesson. Groups will use the data they recorded on the handout to create a profile of China and the Chinese. Have student groups create PowerPoint presentations that use the four images they examined, plus their findings from their artifact analysis, to complete the statement:

In the early 1800s, when Americans imagined China, they saw…

9. Have groups share their presentations. As they do so, ask the class to consider information and images of China that came across in analyzing several or all the different art forms. Use the following questions to prompt discussion:

What seemed to be the most interesting aspects of China to Westerners at this time?

Would students categorize the China portrayed in these collections of Chinoiserie as real or idealized?

What, if anything, about these Chinoiserie collections promotes an impression of China as exotic?

What don’t we see in any of the art forms? That is, what aspects of Chinese life are missing? Why might this be so?

10. Be sure students recognize that Westerners had limited access to China. Remind students that these art forms were developed specifically to meet the interests of buyers from Western nations. Given this, what did Westerners want to capture about China? What did they want China to be? Why might this be the case? Ask students to keep these early Western images of China in mind as they study the next chapters in China’s relations with the United States and/or the world—China’s century of humiliation.

13. Optional: as an extension or alternative assessment activity, have student groups develop marketing brochures designed to sell Chinese luxury items to American consumers in the 1800s.

Table of Contents | Lessons: