Historical Stages of the Indigenization of Chinese Christian Art
March 28, 2000
China's Christian Art have experienced four stages in the process
of its contextualization and indigenization:
1. The Stage of Nestorian (The Period
of The Tang and Yuan Dynasties);
2. The Stage of Catholic Jesuits (The Period of The Ming and Qing
3. The Stage of Semi-Colonialism (The
Period of the late 19th century and early 20th century); and
4. The Stage from the 1980s to the Present.
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Part Two: The Stage of Catholic Jesuits
(The Period of The Ming and Qing Dynasties):
During the first 200 years after the Mings came to power (1368 -
1644), they drove out the Mongolian Yuan from Central China. Nestorians
and Catholics, both of which were once courteously treated by the
Yuan Mongolian minorities, were also dismissed. During the period
of the Ming Emperor Wan Li, a Catholic Jesuits missionary, Matteo
Racci came to China. He came three years after Michael Ruggieri
came in 1552. Catholicism thus returned to China and so did Western
Christian Art. At that time, the Jesuits took a mission strategy
of zealously following the Chinese customs and culture, and trying
hard not to offend the Chinese people. Though their China strategy
was criticized by other mission societies, the Jesuits unfolded
a Chinese scroll painting of Christian Art in the last part of the
Ming Dynasty. At the initiation of Jesuits missionaries, four representative
paradigms of Chinese Christian Art works were created by using the
brushwork on Chinese paintings.
1. "Chinese Madonna" Scroll Painting by Yi Ming ,1582
2. The four-piece"Treasured Imagine" of "Cheng's
Elect Specimens of lnk" by Matteo Racci , Published in 1600,
the period of the Ming Emperor Wan Li.
3. "The Method of the Rosary" by Jean de Rocha, Published
4. "The lllustrated Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ" by
Julio Aleni Published in 1637.
In the late 19th century, a missionary named Berthold Lafer found
a scroll painting in Xian titled, "The Chinese Madonna".
This painting was recognized by missionaries to be on the same level
as the "Nestorian
Tablet" which was also found in Xian. The style of the
painting is, to some extent, similar to those murals which still
exist in the Church in Rome. In this painting: Madonna wore a cape
which covered her hair, shoulders and back. She had fine, delicate
features. However, a Chinese baby was in her arms. According to
the research done by Dr. Mu Xiao Ye, Matteo Racci often displayed
this kind of painting of Madonna when he was in Zhaoqing (Guandong
Province) and Nanjing. He said, "Many people enjoy this painting
because of its great elegance, its hues, its lines and its vivid
posture, etc" (Note 1). The painting was found about the same
time as the Nestorian Tablet which was also found in Xian. Because
of that, some missionaries thought it was a sacred painting which
wae influenced by Nestorianism. However the painting, obviously,
followed those of the Italian Renaissance style and was recognized
as the painting done by Jesuit missionaries in the late Ming Dynasty,
which was created near the end of the 16th century.
When Matteo Racci came to China, he brought with him several copies
of the West European copper plate engravings. These engravings were
not one single copy. In 1598, Matteo Racci left Nanchang for Nanjing
to go with the foreign minister Wang Zhong Ming to Beijing to meet
the Chinese Emperor. He returned to Nanjing in 1599 after having
failed to get a meeting with the Emperor. While in Nanjing, he got
to know a well known businessman named Chen Da Yue (aliased as You
Bo and Jun Fang). Chen was an ink stick maker and worked with Zhu
Shi Ling, an official from the Foreign Ministry Burean.
Racci sent Chen four copies of the West European Christian copper
plate engravings as a present. Why did Matteo Racci send art works
to Chen? The answer could be he had a "mission motive."
In the 23rd year of the Ming Emperor Wan Li (1595), Chen You Bo
published "Cheng's Mo Yuan"?Cheng's Elect Specimens of
lnk? which was an album of woodcut paintings for the ink stick commercial
business. The book was complied of 6 volumes and 12 chapters, and
was divided into 6 sections: The Sky, The Earth, Human Figures,
Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. With Mateo Racci's four copies
of the copper plate engravings included, the book could be recognized
as a "complete" one. A famous Belgiun copper plate carver,
did the copper plate engravings in 1532 - 1603.
It was recorded, Chen You Bo invited a famed painter, Ding Yun Peng,
to re-draw Racci's copper plate engravings, and then invited a famed
carver by the name of Huang Ling from Hui Zhou to engrave them again
before he published them in "Chen Yuan Mo Bao" Volume
6, Book 2.
The first three pieces were originally engraved by a renowned Belgium
copper plate carver. The last one "Madonna with the Baby on
Her Breast", according to Boucher's research, Jean Nicolao,
a Jesuit painted it in 1597 at the Nagasaki Jesuits Painting Institute
in Japan. Matteo Racci added Latin phonetics to the verses on the
painting. Though these four works published in "Chen's Mo Yuan"
are only copies, they have indeed become part of the Chinese folk
craftman's vocabulary. This is especially true with the painting
"Strolling in the Sea witn Faith, Sinking when Doubting"?
Though the painting is the Renaissance style of focal perspective
composition, the remote mountains, the disciple's dress as well
as their face features are evidently the Chinese folk woodcut style.
In contrast to this painting, the "The Method of the Rosary"
which was edited and published by Jean de Rocha in 1619, has actually
walked out of the imitation cage to become more creative in its
expressions to Christian themes by using Chinese traditional art.
This is the earliest and most typical series of Chinese Christian
art works that exist so far.
Dr. Gianni Criveler once had a relevant comment on the book: "
Marks of a successful fellowship among the first group of Chinese
Christians." The book uses Jesus Christ as the main character,
and depicts him as a role model in filial duties. The disciples
often used the holy name of Christ, his image as well as his crucifixion
and his resurrection as a guide in their prayers. The book helps
Chinese Christians to know God better through prayers and pictures.
This was also what Jesuits passionately wanted Chinese Christians
to know" (Note 2).
"The Method of the Rosany" was edited and published by
Jean de Rocha. "Evangelical Picture Stories" was drawn
by a renowned European Jesuit wood print carver. Jerome Nadal had
the original copies in Nanjing, Rocha invited the late famous Ming
artist Dong Qi Cang (1555 - 1636) or maybe one of his students,
to re-draw the originals and then to make woodcarving prints. "
we have been amazed by those elegant carvings which are so
unique in their method of deductions. There is no doubt that these
new refined carvings will bring the echoing sound from Chinese readers.
The unique Chinese style painting composition makes more vivid pictures
in which features of different figures (including Jesus, Mary and
the disciples), their dress, the buildings as well as other depictions
such as: gardens and lakes, are all Chinese features" (Note
3.) Chinese wood carving prints in the Ming Dynasty became more
popular as the printing technology and the civil culture became
more developed. Nanjing was then recognized as the wood carving
prints center. In the period of Wan Li, folk wood carving print
business was very popular in the cities of Huizhou, Hangzhou, Wuxing,
Suzhou and so on. The wood carving prints of Huizhou were particularly
well known. Businessmen and carvers from Huizhou were everywhere
in China. "Stories of Pi Pa", and "Stories of North
Xi Xiang" by Wang Guanghua were the best representative works
of the Hui School wood carving prints and were used for book illustrations.
The Jinling wood carving prints which had a strong Hui School influence
were known for its picture illustrations for opera and novel books.
Jean de Rocha's "The Method of the Rosary" specially represented
the use of the folk wood carving prints for book illustrations in
China. For example: the Chinese style gardens and the method of
space division unfolded in the painting of "Annunciation"
4) and the painting of "Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth"
5). They are exact copies to those illustrations in the book.
People can easily associate the skills and the composition of the
hills and woods in the painting "Praying at Gethsemane"
6) to the illustrations in the book "Pilgrimage to the
7). One thing that is worthy to mention is that in Rocha's "The
Metnod of the Rosary", there is a painting of "The Crucifixion
of Jesus Christ" shown for the first time in China. Before
that, even in "Chen's Elect Specimens of lnk", among the
four works of "Treasured Imagines", there is no theme
as "The Crucifixion of Jesus". As a matter of fact, this
is sometimes related to evangelism work of the Jesuits in China.
In the 27th year of the Ming Emperor Wan Li (about 1600), Matteo
Racci was in Beijing waiting to meet the Emperor. He clearly saw
the strong resentment from Ma Tang, an imperial eunuch and a Chinese
traditional apologist when he presented "The Crucifixion"
to him. Ma Tang resented the "nude" Jesus on the cross.
Hence, in order not to hurt the Chinese's feelings, the Jesuits
often jumped over the part of the cruel "crucifixion of Jesus"
in their teachings in China. They never taught "Jesus died
on the Cross" to non-Christians. Even to seekers, they would
not teach this part until the person as to be baptized." So,
at this point, it is imaginable that among the four paintings which
Matteo Racci presented to the ink stick maker, Chen You Bo, there
was not a single painting of "The Crucifixion of Jesus".
Dr. Gianni Criveler once had a wonderful comment on the book "The
Method of the Rosary", published by Jean de Rocha. He said,"Among
other things, explanations would be given from the Chinese perspective
even to the same element, such as: to assort more than one picture
together to make one piece. These pictures are absolutely able to
display Dong Qi Cang's style, which is to display the corner of
a person's heart. In his painting, he kept a central idea and left
much empty space. This is not only for the sake of highlighting
the central idea, but also to make a mark which symbolizing the
sacred meaning. We could use the "Crucifixion of Jesus"
as an example. The Chinese painter, Dong Qi Cang put two of Jerome
Nadal's works together to produce an amazing effect. In the painting,
on the top of a barren hill (inside Jerusalem's city walls) there
one cross was erected, and the two other crosses on which there
were two thieves crucified disappeared. Only the cross, the cross
on which Jesus was crucified, stands strikingly up to the sky and
down to the earth, so alone that it seems He is the only one left
in this world, and only His Heavenly Father is His witness. Those
who surrounded the cross represents the humiliation, the cruelty
and the apathy of the soldiers who killed Jesus; the indifference
of the people in power who insulted Jesus, as well as the compassion
and lamentations of the women who were with Jesus to the end. The
general appearance of the picture is an expression of strong perception,
and is also a Chinese understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus.
It also state how Chinese understood the miracles of Jesus in the
early period of evangelization in China, especially the sufferings
of Jesus. In Jean de Rocha's painting album, Jesus has Chinese features
and lives in the Chinese context" (Note 4).
To omit the two crucified thieves from Jerome Nadal's original painting
"The Crucifixion of Jesus" and to state the main theme
so directly is a way that expresses the Chinese style of appreciation
of art. This painting has actually omitted an extra explanation
as to why Jesus was crucified with two thieves.
In 1637, 18 years after the publishing of "The Method of the
Rosary" by Jean de Rocha? there was a "lllustrated Life
of Our Lord Jesus Christ" which was edited and published by
Julio Aleni, It was published in Fuzhou.
The Jesuits from the beginning (1491-1556) had used the methods
of visual art as a means to evangelize and to rely on these images
to meditate more deeply on the Holy God. Julio Aleni published "The
True Record of the words and Deede of the Lord of Heaven Become
lncarnate" in 8 volumes in 1635, and two years after, he published
"The lllustrated Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ". The book
was recognized as a successive copy to the former one, in which
a series of picture stories systematically depicted the life and
deeds of Jesus in a form of wood carving prints.
The book illustrations
were popular among the Chinese. There were altogether 57 pictures.
"The Method of the Rosary" was also edited and included
Jean de Rocha's pictures of the wood engraving prints. He also used
Jerome Nadal's "Picture of Gospel Stories" as the original
copy in his book. But Aleni chose something closer to the original
copy, something more like a simply Chinese folk wood engraving than
to copy the western ones.
"The Illustrated Life of our Lord Jesus Christ" would
be printed over and over again, it still can not compare with "The
Method of the Rosary" edited and published by Jean de Rocha
in artistic achievements and in the uniqueness of its artistic expressions
which the Chinese wood engraving print possesses. So, without the
involvement of Chinese masters of art like Dong Qi Chang, the Chinese
style artistic originality of "The Illustrated Life of Our
Lord Jesus Christ" has been greatly reduced. They are at most
simply the copies to Jerome Nadal's works.
are just like the copies, they do not really carry on the achievements
of the West European Renaissance in Art: the manner of realism-emphasizing
the figure anatomy, the focal perspective as well as the western
costumes and western architectures. "The Illustrated Life of
our Lord Jesus Christ" opened a window as far as the development
of Chinese traditional art is concerned, and offered as a display
that there were exchanges between China and the West in the field
of wood engraving prints. The one exception is that in the last
work "The Coronation of St. Mary"? (Picture
8)? Aleni intentionally highlighted the Chinese features in
the upper part of the painting, at each side of the Holy Mother,
the Holy Father and the Holy Son, he added more than ten Chinese
angels; in the lower part, fifteen Chinese figures stood at the
left side, opposite to a group of western figures at the right side.
Among those western figures, the Pope and one European monarch were
included; among the Chinese figures, there were different people
who wore different hoods and represented people from different walks
of life. There was even a military man and a child with forehead
hair. In the distant, there was a ray of European and Asian architectures
(buildings, palaces and temples) between the people and the clouds.
At the lower part of the painting, a footnote was written: [Emperors,
kings, soldiers and people from different countries hope that the
Holy Mother will be the Mother of Grace for the whole world; churches
and cathedrals were built on earth to worship the Holy Mother and
wish to be protected by her.]
The information which Julio Aleni wanted to pass on was: "Chinese
are part of the church today, they should have equal status with
others, and their exclusion from redemption would not happen again.
China would finally become a part of the church universal and become
members in redemption history. Through this painting, Jalio Aleni
cleared up the suspicions of Chinese being excluded from God's salvation
plan" (Picture 5).
From the late Ming to the early Qing Dynasties, there wasn't a discontinuation
in the Jesuits' mission of evangelizing China. The German Jesuit
missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell who came to China in the
late Ming Dynasty continued to be held in high esteem. Emperor Shun
Di of the Qing Dynasty once appropriated special funds to purchase
him a piece of land in Xuan, Wu Men Gate in Beijing, and in the
spring of 1650, a Chinese style cathedral was built at the site
of the first Catholic Church in Beijing, named "Nan Tang"
(later changed to western style architecture). During the period
of Emperors Kang Xi and Qian Long, there were Jesuit missionary
painters who served, off and on, in the Imperial Court. Among them,
the Italian painter, Giuseppe Castiglione was the best known one
who advocated the "Chinese painting techniques being used in
western paintings". Within half a century of his stay in China
(1715 - 1766), he used his western painting skills to paint traditional
Chinese paintings. Apart from drawing the political, historical,
bird and flower and animal paintings for the Imperial Court, he
left some valuable Chinese style paintings with Christian themes.
The representative ones are: "The Leading Angel"? (Picture
9), and "Michele Defeating the Demon" (Picture
10). In his painting, Giuseppe Castiglione not only gave special
attention to the dissection of structure proportions, focal perspectives,
light and shadow effects as well as effects of trio-dimensions,
but also absorbed the skills of traditional Chinese realistic painting
with a detailed fine brushwork. In his paintings, the appearance
of human figures are soft in color, and the landscapes which served
as backgrounds in the paintings have obviously been influenced by
the Chinese traditional landscape paintings. One thing noteworthy
is that in the painting, "Michele Defeating the Demon"?
Giuseppe Castiglione intentionally avoided the direct visual image
of the dragon when he painted . Angels led in defeating a vicious
monster --a big red dragon, which is a biblical story found in "Revelation",
and a very popular Christian theme among western Christian churches.
Giuseppe Castiglione,who knew traditional Chinese culture well,
was certainly unwilling to draw the dragon as a vicious symbol which
was also a symbol of the Chinese Emperor who was the "real
son of the heavenly dragon" and a totem of the Chinese nation
who claimed to be the "offspring of the dragon". In order
not to be offensive to the traditional Chinese culture, Giuseppe
Castiglione used the implicit method to draw only an obscure dragon
tail behind the monster, so that the Chinese work would not lead
the ordinary Chinese to connect the vicious monster with the dragon.
Besides Giuseppe Castiglione, there were other Jesuit missionary
painters who served in the Imperial Court in the period of Emperor
Qian Long, such as A Qimeng (1708-1780) and Wang Zhicheng and Pan
Tingzhang. They served respectively at the South Cathedral, the
North Cathedral and the East Cathedral. The one thing different
is that they were not as influential as Giuseppe Castiglione. Because
the "rituals dispute" became more intensified during the
reign of Emperor Kang Xi, the Qing government thus implemented a
prohibition policy towards Christianity. Jesuits, however, still
had space to survive because of their respect for traditional Chinese
customs and rituals. The Roman Catholic Pope repelled the Jesuits
mission strategy and gave orders on July 21, 1773, to ban the Jesuits.
The Jesuits left when the orders arrived in China in 1775. To this
end, after two hundred years of painstaking efforts, the Jesuits
who came to China in the late Ming Dynasty pulled off of this historical
stage, and left behind them their successful fruit of evangelization
with respect to the indigenous Chinese culture.
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