18th Century Chinese Figurine Artist - Amoy Chitqua

 

At ‘The Royal College of Surgeons of England’, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, there is an oil on canvas painting. It is a three-quarter-length portrait and is attributed to the renowned eighteenth century British figure and landscape painter John Hamilton Mortimer ARA. The portrait was executed sometime between 1770 and 1701, and is of a man who is obviously Chinese, clothed in his traditional national dress. The painting is titled ‘Chinese Mandarin’.

Chitqua, who was born in Amoy, Canton (modern day Guangzhou), China, in 1728, was the sitter for the ‘Chinese Mandarin’, and is the first ‘recorded’ Chinese artist to have visited Britain. According to various sources of the time, Chitqua was a very successful ‘unfired’ clay modeller in his own country. London’s monthly magazine ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’ (1771, p238) had this to say about him…

‘He is remarkably ingenious in forming small busts with a sort of China earth, many of which carry a striking likeness of the person they are designed to represent. He steals a likeness, and forms the busts from his memory.’

It is reputed, that while in London, Chitqua charged the not insubstantial sum of ten guineas for a small painted clay bust, and fifteen for a whole-length figure, indicating his quick ascendancy into monied London society.

In his short stay in London, Chitqua quickly began to move in rarefied circles. He became acquainted with Queen Charlotte (Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover) a known lover of the arts, as well as the biographer, diarist, and Scottish lawyer James Boswell, and Josiah Wedgwood (potter and founder of the Wedgwood company), and many other British notables.

Chitqua’s status is further confirmed by his being painted as a ‘non-academician’ into Johann Zoffany’s canvas ‘Portraits of the Academicians of the Royal Academy’ (a group portrait of the, essentially but not exclusively, founding members of the Royal Academy, which was established in 1768). This epic painting is now in the Royal Collection. 

This esteemed work by Zoffany, of selected Royal Academicians, was exhibited at London’s Royal Academy in 1772. Zoffany himself had painted Britain’s Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons and George III, Queen Charlotte and their six eldest children, and had been inducted into the Royal Academy by King George III, in 1769. Zoffany had exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1770 to 1800. 

Standing in front of Johann Zoffany’s large canvas (39.8 in × 58.1 in), to the left, near the back and on a line of heads (and entrapped by two gentlemen wearing grey wigs) separating the bottom two thirds from the top third of the canvas, is an obvious Chinese head wearing a Chinese headpiece similar to that witnessed in Mortimer’s portrait (‘Chinese Mandarin’) round about the same time as this canvas by Zoffany.

In eighteenth century London, the ‘small bust’ Chinese gentleman artist, featured in Zoffany’s array and Mortimer’s portrait was known by many names. He was Tan Che Qua and described as having a bald head except for a long (Chinese style) ponytail. He was

“…. a middle-aged man, of proper stature; his face and hands of a copperish colour; is elegantly clothes in silk robes, after the fashion of his country.”
The Leeds Intelligencer and Yorkshire General Advertiser, 29 Aug 1769, Page 3.  

Whereas Richard Gough (China tradesman, antiquarian and topographer) remarks of Chitqua...

“He wears the dress of his own country, a pointed stiff cap, with a border turned up of quilted silk, an under vest like a banian ( a kind of loose fitting dressing gown-like robe) of green silk, with a lining; his upper vest a kind of mantelet [cloak]; his drawers the same as his under vest; and his slippers yellow.”

Chitqua often signed his figurine work as ‘Amoy Chitqua’ or, variously, ‘Tan Chitqua’ or ‘Tan Chetqua’, ‘Chitqua’ (with variant Romanisation of ‘Chit-qua’, ‘Chit Qua’, ‘Chet-qua’, and ‘Che Qua’) and was considered exceptional in his ability to model accurate clay (portrait) likenesses.
In the 1700s, when Chitqua arrived, England was already in the throes of Chinoiserie (‘chinois’ from the French for Chinese) which was a European middle class stylistic fad. The Victoria & Albert Museum suggests that …

“Chinoiserie is characterised by a number of frequently occurring motifs. In 18th-century Britain, China seemed a mysterious, faraway place. Although trade between the two countries had increased over the 17th and 18th centuries, access to China was still restricted and there were few first-hand experiences of the country. Chinoiserie drew on these exotic, mysterious preconceptions.”

The notoriety of items resembling Chinese artifacts became enormously popular with companies such as the Chelsea Porcelain Factory and others, manufacturing faux Chinese figurines, such as ‘Chinese Musicians‘ by Joseph Willems (1755) and ‘Five Senses’ by Agostino Carlini made by the Derby Porcelain Factory (1752 – 55). The stage, it seems, had been set for the acceptance of this Chinese maker of small clay portraits.

Back in Canton, China, ‘Chitqua’ had had a store in one of the Chinese areas of Canton which foreigners had been restricted to. Gough (again), had said this about Chitqua in a letter of 3 August 1770 (according to the Whitley Papers in the British Museum, Prints and Drawings Room),that Chitqua was

“...well known to our people who have been to Canton, where he keeps a shop for making figures”.

Chitqua had developed a unique business making portrait figurine ‘sculptures’ of and for foreign traders, merchants and ship’s officers.  It was ultimately through these contacts that this Chinese artist was later able to find his way to London accompanied by a Mr John Walton, on the East Indiaman ship (the Horsendon) captained by one Captain Alexander Jameson, on 19th August 1769. 

The 18th century (Manchu Qing dynasty) Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–95) had restricted China’s interaction between foreigners and Chinese subjects, as well as restricting the travel of Chinese subjects. This was why, to reach the West, Chitqua obtained travel documents to what was then Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (Jakarta, Indonesia), which had a history of Chinese immigration, but travelled instead to England, taking with him a quantity of Chinese clay to continue his modelling there. Chitqua remained in England until 1772 with a hatter, one Mr Marr, who resided at the corner of Norfolk Street (which then ran from the Strand in the north to the River Thames), London.

Chitqua returned to China in 1772 and died in 1796.

 

This article will appear in The Blue Lotus magazine (issue 49) with s greater selection of images.

The Blue lotus 10th Anniversary Issue 2011 - 2021

 https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/the_blue_lotus_magazine_10th_annive_1a03da97f923bb

Huang Guo Qiang in colour

 

“When the Sages of Antiquity and the First Kings accepted Heaven’s command and received the (divine) tablets they thereby came to hold the magic power in the Tortoise Characters and the proffered treasure of the Dragon Chart….. Then Creation could no longer hide its secrets….. At that time writing and painting were still alike in form and had not yet been differentiated.

Zhang Yanyuan (mid-9th century) “On the Origins of Painting” Taken from “Why Chinese Painting is History by Wen C. Fong (Fong, Wen C. “Why Chinese Painting Is History.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 85, no. 2, 2003, pp. 258–280. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3177344. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.)

 

In his paper “Why Chinese Painting is History” Wen C. Fong explains “For the Chinese both the ideographic script and pictorial representation functioned as graphic signs (tuzai) that expressed meaning.” He goes on to say, “Rather than colour or light, the key to Chinese painting lies in its calligraphic line, which bears the presence, or physical ‘trace’ (ji) of its maker.”

 

Huang Guo Qiang is a Chinese master of line, brush and of colour. Born in 1932, he is of Chinese descent yet hails from the sleepy West Coast Malaysian town of Muar, described in the Encyclopaedia Britannica as “…a town and port on the southwestern coast of Peninsular (West) Malaysia”. Muar is where the Nanyang Chinese artist Liu Kang had sojourned when the Japanese invaded China in 1937, and was to later comment on Malaya’s Japanese occupation (1941 to 1945).

 

Huang Guo Qiang, like Liu Kang, had studied at the Muar Chung Hwa Secondary School and graduated from there, in 1949. Nineteen-fifty saw Huang Guo Qiang studying in Singapore’s Zhongzheng Middle School (by Singapore’s Zhongzheng lake), and stepping out for further studies in China.

 

In Huang Guo Qiang’s teens he had studied oil painting and had been influenced by the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, especially the Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh and the French/Peruvian Paul Gauguin, like many of his South East Asian contemporaries.  A ‘Nanyang Style’ (or South China Seas style) of art, based on the fusion of Western (Parisian) and Eastern (Chinese) art styles with the addition of imagery from South east Asia grew as a fresh style of art, specifically in Singapore, and what later became Malaysia and being most active in the 1930s to the 1950s, but still relevant to the art of the region. Theoretically, Huang Guo Qiang could be counted in their number, but practically not.

 

Unlike the proponents of the Nanyang group of artists, where a distinct stylistic lineage may easily be traced back to European ‘Modernist’ artists, but more especially Gauguin, Huang Guo Qiang fully internalised Western ‘Modernist’ styles, making them his own. Those influences may be seen more clearly in Huang Guo Qiang’s ink, watercolour and oil (coloured) works like “Mom, Mom” and his images taken from the 500 Buddhist caves (Qianfodong, located in the desert, 15 miles south-east of the town of Dunhuang, north western China).  In “Lin Dunhuang Mural” his paintings sing not just with the eloquence of his line work, but with his sheer joy of colouration and, perhaps, a hint of magic.

Like those artist exponents of the Nanyang style of painting, Huang Guo Qiang deepened his love of China and traditional Chinese arts and culture in his sojourn at Chinese art school. His love for Western Modernism and for the arts of China melded, integrated within him, enabling him to look afresh at the world and at his creations.

 

   At the age of 21 (1953) Huang Guo Qiang left Malaysia (then called the Federation of Malaya), for China.  He relates that…

 

“The influence of Malaysia's geographical and cultural influences, the formation of my habits and hobbies, until now (I am now more than 80 years old), still remain. The loves of drinking coffee, eating durian and so on are still there. Malaysia is a peninsula with three sides facing the sea. My home was in the Straits of Malacca on the western side of that small country. Every day I could feel the majestic, broad, vast sea, experience ochre skin, warm eyes, equatorial bodies resonant with colour, for these are the characteristics of all living beings under the hot equator, strong, warm, simple, and naturally integrated into my heart, and have, naturally, become the root stone of my art world. This hot flame of the equator ignites the blazing passion of my heart and never goes out.”

 

Born in the sun-drenched tropics, Huang Guo Qiang absorbed the brightness and colouration of the land of his birth. This can be seen in his many outstanding works of colouration. Even in his works concerning Chinese ethnicities, or depictions of the Dunhuang Buddhist murals, there is colour vibrancy, a warmth of colour in which the viewer bathes. There are intimations of Zhang Daqian’s love of colouration too, as well as his love for the Buddhist mural paintings at Dunhuang. Like great artists before him, Huang Guo Qiang has acknowledged the good and the great of Chinese and Western painting, while developing his unique style of painting, grounded in traditional Chinese mediums as well as Western notions but is, perhaps, better known for his stunning Chinese ink and watercolour works.

 

Huang Guo Qiang’s coloured Chinese ink paintings have all the exuberance and magical grace of a combination of the two traditional Chinese ink and brush styles – ‘Gong-bi’ (meticulous) and ‘Xie Yi’ (spontaneous freehand style).  Coming from a Western art historical perspective, Huang Guo Qiang’s brilliant works have all the sparkle, and strength of line seen in Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Parisian art works and exciting modern coloured Chinese paintings, reminiscent of the grand Chinese artists Zhang Daqian (mentioned above) and Liu Haisu (founder of the Shanghai College of Graphic Art later to become the Shanghai Art School, in 1914), especially in works like Liu Haisu’s ‘Huangshan Landscape’ (1978) and  ‘Huang Shan mountain peak’ (1989). Lui Haisu, along with Lin Fengmian and Xu Beihong were instrumental in sharing their knowledge of Parisian artists, the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, especially Van Gogh and Cezanne.

 

While Tsinghua University was founded in 1911, and once housed scholars like   Fu Lei and Zhu Ziqing on its site in “Qing Hua Yuan (Tsinghua Garden)” which was the royal garden of the Qing Dynasty. China’s Central Academy of Arts & Design (CAAD), the art school Huang Guo Qiang attended, came into being several years later, in 1956. That is where Huang Guo Qiang enrolled to study ink art, book design and decorative art, in 1957. He graduated in 1960.

 

Beijing’s CAAD is now the Academy of Arts & Design (AADTHU), at Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing. Huang Guo Qiang counts as one of the most honoured alumni. Huang Guo Qiang has served as the deputy director of the Department of Decorative Arts and book art; and has been the director of the foundation department, professor and member of the Academic Committee and title judging committee of the College.

 

Huang Guo Qiang is a former Director of Education of the Malaysia International Modern Art Group in China, as well as former Dean and Director of the School of Modern Art of Yunnan University, and former Vice President of the Hunan Zhengshan International School of Design and Art. Huang Guo Qiang is a member of the China Artists Association and a Director of the Beijing Art Education Society.

 

He has taught for more than 50 years, and is both an outstanding artist and a most revered educator. He has edited the book "Traditional Chinese Decorative Art", and has had the "Huang Guoqiang painting collection", and "Huang Guoqiang Painting Collection of Sketchs" published, and wells, "Huang Guoqiang Painting Collection of Soot Ink painting", and the "Huang Guoqiang Painting Collection of Coloured Ink characters".

 

Huang Guo Qiang has held exhibitions and academic lectures in Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Austria, Germany and Hong Kong, as well as in Harbin, Beijing, Shanghai, Lanzhou, Weihai, Jinan and other places in China. His work "snow lotus" was selected by the Ministry of culture of China to participate in the 33rd International Monte Carlo painting exhibition in Morocco. His biography may be found in the "Chinese Artist Celebrity Dictionary", and in the "World Contemporary Painting and Calligraphy Dictionary". The Japan Xiangyang Society published, "Chinese Painter Named Kam". His works have been collected by a number of national museums, art centres, art academies and private collectors.

Last Year (virtually) in China