|
(3) Tingqua [Guan Lianchang; Kuan Lien-ch’ang; Tinqua]
(b c. 1809; fl 1840–70). Brother of (2) Lamqua (i) and probably a close relation of (1) Spoilum. Tingqua’s studio at 16 China Street, Guangzhou, was perhaps the most prolific source of Chinese export paintings of its time. Working in a manner influenced by Western artistic traditions, Tingqua and the painters of his studio restricted themselves to gouache and watercolours, perhaps to avoid rivalry with Lamqua’s oil paintings. Their pictures, which were often sold in sets, represent manufacturing processes (of tea, cotton etc.), deities, ceremonies, gardens, boats, decorative objects and specimens of natural history, as well as views of Guangzhou, the Pearl River at Huangbu (Whampoa), Macao and Shanghai. Tingqua’s landscapes (e.g. Houqua’s Garden, gouache, 267*349 mm; Salem, MA, Peabody Mus.) are generally sunlit, with little gradation of shadowing. Characteristic mannerisms are trees represented with thick clusters of yellow-green leaves and seas denoted by regular parallel lines, sometimes with ripples in the foreground. Tingqua and his studio also redrew works brought in to them. The substantial collection of Tingqua pictures (c. 1855) brought back by the American China trader Augustine Heard (Salem, MA, Peabody Mus.) includes Tingqua’s version of a country-house view by an American amateur artist and a series of watercolours depicting Filipino men and women, based on originals by the Filipino artist Justiniano Asunción (see Crossman, 1991, pls 93–5).
Part of the Guan family
|
|
There are more than 45,000 articles in The Grove Dictionary of Art.
To access the rest of this article, including the bibliography, subscribe to
www.groveart.com.
To find out more about this subject, click on a related article below and
subscribe to www.groveart.com
|
