Abstracts II: Nordforsk

Photograph by Osvald Sirén of his garden in Lidingö, Sweden, 1938 (from photo album in the Department of Art History, University of Helsinki)

NORDFORSK NETWORK

VISIONS OF THE PAST: IMAGES AS HISTORICAL SOURCES AND THE HISTORY OF ART HISTORY

Minna Törmä

> Reflection/Practice: Historiography, History and Conceptions of Contemporaneity

Stockholm, Sweden, September 2010

"Discovering Chinese Art and Art History"

The history of Western writings on Chinese art history is fairly young, roughly one hundred years. One of the pivotal figures among Western scholars and collectors when it comes to pioneering research and defining the canon of Chinese art is Finnish-Swedish art historian Osvald Sirén (1879–1966). My own research and the forthcoming publication New Horizons in East Asia: Osvald Sirén’s Encounter with Chinese Art focuses on the middle years of Sirén’s career mid-1910s to late 1930s, when the internationally known scholar of Italian art turned his eyes towards the East and in many respects began his career again.

The choice of focus on those particular decades springs not only from the fact that they form a fascinating period in Sirén’s career, but also from the importance of reflecting on the events from post-colonial perspective. The directions of present day research interests affect our choices when we define the scope and issues to be covered in our research. While endeavoring to understand the motives behind Sirén’s change of career and his subsequent projects concerning Chinese art, it is useful to keep in mind our own motives: why have I chosen this particular period? What does that choice tell about the present?

This research contains, in addition, reflection on the multiplicity of narrating the history of Chinese art: who is the narrator and what is the background? In Sirén’s times, there was a clear distinction whether the story was narrated by a Chinese or Japanese. Like Sirén, a western scholar or a collector would in the early years on the 20th century be introduced to Chinese art by a Japanese, which then determined the choice of emphasis. Presently, it is the western discipline of art history which directs and dominates the field.

> What Do Visual Representations Do? Processes, Performativity and Tradition

Bergen, Norway, September 2009

”A Chinese Emperor Plays Photographers Assistant”: Osvald Sirén’s Images of China

On a late May day in 1922, Osvald Sirén (1879–1966) was setting up his photographing equipment in one of the inner courtyards of the Forbidden City in Beijing. He had been granted a special priviledge to photograph the private quarters of the palace, where Puyi, the Last Emperor, resided with his court. His project took an interesting turn when the young Emperor appeared at his side directing him to views which would present the place to its best advantage.

My paper focuses on Sirén as a photographer and considers both the documentary and aesthetic dimensions of his work. The material consists of his photographs taken in China in 1918–1935, most of which have been published: The Walls and Gates of Peking (1924), Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century (1925), The Imperial Palaces of Peking (1926), Bilder från Kina (1936) and Gardens of China (1948). These publications have still today documentary value, since so much of what he captured by his camera was destroyed during the following turbulent decades in Chinese history. The illustrations form the outwork of the published research, like prefaces and introductions, bibliographies, critical reviews and footnotes. The documentary aspect of images is discussed in relation with the text: are the images explained or left alone to tell their own story.

The camera was, however, for Sirén more than a tool to document objectively for his research what he saw around him. He has mentioned that it was also his ”brush”: he could not use the brush like a Chinese painter, but he could paint with the camera. Photography was for him a form of expression, an art. In this respect, a question to be posed is whether one can detect changes over the years in the way Sirén composes his images.

> Encountering the Past: Theoretical Challenges and Critical Concepts

Pyhtää, Finland, 2008

The Formation of a Canon: Leading Masters of the History of Chinese Painting?

This paper focuses on different approaches to the Chinese painting canon by scholars and connoisseurs, the foremost example being the work of Osvald Sirén (1879–1966). Sirén was an internationally known scholar of Italian art and a pioneer of Chinese art studies in the West.

Sirén had formed his approach to analyzing paintings according to stylistic analysis, following the ideas of Giovenni Morelli and Bernanrd Berenson. From the Renaissance masters he moved in his researches to earlier periods concentrating on Giotto and also the so called primitive masters of the trecento and duegento. Around 1914 Sirén became captivated by Chinese art and decided to begin his career again, in a way. During the 1930s he concentrated on researching and writing the basic histories of Chinese painting: ”A History of Early Chinese Painting” (1933), ”The Chinese on the Art of Painting” (1936 and ”A History of Later Chinese Painting” (1938).

In Sirén’s work one can detect traces of the impact of Japanese scholarship on Chinese painting as well as the tradition of art history in China. In 1910s, when he first travelled to East Asia, he was introduced to Chinese art by connoisseurs and scholars in Japan. The Japanese had a long tradition of collecting Chinese art and since Japan was, in those days, more accessible for a foreign visitor, it was understandable that the Japanese collectors and scholars served as mediators and ’teachers’ for several westerners. During the 1920’s this situation began to change, when China slowly became more accessible and more westerners settled in Beijing and the Shanghai area.

Japan, then, formed one context where certain clearly defined conventions ruled and tastes determined what was to be appreciated and collected. In contrast, the context for the activities of a foreign collector or a scholar where only taking shape in China. Westerners were able to take on a more active role than in Japan: they could, for example, act as dealers as well, not only as admiring buyers. The investigation of Sirén’s work during this time will bring into focus various details related to this development and changes in the ways of action. In this respect, this study is part of the ongoing re-evaluation of orientalism. While the focus has been largely on orientalism concerning the Near East, Middle East, India – major examples in post-colonial criticism – some studies have recently taken a closer look at Chinese or Japanese cultural studies.