ming/turkish bow in qing gallery

[Scott M. Rodell]

Looking at these two details from the Freer Gallery scroll, I think it would be difficult to argue that the artist paid attention to detail in every aspect except the archery equipment.

Note the bow length, short ears and the forked end that Stephen Selby has pointed out was a feature particular to Ming bows. It seems quite unlikely that the artist would get that feature right, or even know about it, if he wasn't paying very close attention to the details of these bows.

[Justin Ma]

What dates were these Freer Gallery paintings made?

[Scott M. Rodell]

What dates were these Freer Gallery paintings made?

Stephen Selby asked me the same thing... Unfortunately, I do not know. I snapped these several years ago. All I can say is that they are Qing period. Overall, I find them very interesting & a genuine surprise. I would not have expected to find any Manchus using Ming style equipment of any kind, particularly in light of the way they made the Han people of the Empire adopt Manchu fashion right down to their hair style. Quite curious, eh?

[Bede]

I think I may have a reference to it somewhere.

I repeat an earlier assertion. These could easily be copies of an earlier Ming painting, updated with contemporary clothes and a gun. This is quite common and one of the variations of dealing with copying. Sometimes details were left out and in other cases new contemporary ones were added in. The famous painting scroll of the Qingming Festival from the Northern Song spawned a series of imitators which updated or altered the detail in each copy.

Anyone acquainted with Chinese art has seen dozens of such "updated" copies. They are not meant to deceive but rather to give contemporary relevance to an old subject.

Portrait artists in China in the Qing were not operating in the same world as were artists in the West. In ancestor portraits they assembled the elements from a standard repertoire of stock items. In some cases the sitter many have never even seen the object involved. The general style of the paintings you have been concentrating in this thread is one that is tied to a class of painting referring to foreigners in pursuits such as hunting. Ming examples of this are in the Musee Guimet in Paris. If you compare the stances and activities, you will see clear correspondences. The treatment of the drapery of clothes is also similar as are some hats. I don't think this is an accident.

[Scott M. Rodell]

... repeat an ... assertion. These could easily be copies of an earlier Ming painting, updated with contemporary clothes and a gun...
Anyone acquainted with Chinese art has seen dozens of such "updated" copies. They are not meant to deceive but rather to give contemporary relevance to an old subject.... In ancestor portraits they assembled the elements from a standard repertoire of stock items... The general style of the paintings you have been concentrating in this thread is one that is tied to a class of painting referring to foreigners in pursuits such as hunting...

Thanks for you ideas...

I am fairly familiar with ancestor portraits, though no expert, I can not recall a Qing period portrait where Ming styles were worn or used. Can you please site or post a specific example to support your assertion?

Given the Qing position as conquers of the Ming, & early edicts against wearing Ming robes, etc, it is difficult to see a Manchu commissioning a painting of his hunting party using Ming bows to try & make some connection to the Ming ancestors. Generally I would expect hunting paintings to be bought by those who hunted, i.e. Manchus & not the Chinese literati. Wouldn't these Manchus want their people depicted accurately? Also, given that we have plenty of examples of Qing era hunting scenes where the Manchus are using Manchu style bows. Why would the painter update the other arms but not the bows if these were not the bows actually in use? If these painting were commissioned by Han Chinese, then would they not just go with a copy of the classic image & not Manchu riders?

[Peter Dekker]

Scott
For clarity, what exactly is the theory you are attempting to put forth here?

[Scott M. Rodell]

... what ... theory... put forth here?

No theory per say, just sharing intriguing evidence of the possible use of Ming type bows during the Qing. It was suggested that there was no evidence in art for short bows in use during the Qing.

I was thinking some more about the points Bede made above, re: these are copies of old paintings that have been updated. It appears that there is a double standard being applied to historical images. If the image supports a current standardly held positions, in this case that Manchus used only their long bows with long siyah, it is taken as accurate. And as such, we use them as historical reference and resource. But when paintings of equally fine artistic quality are found, that present a different view of equipment, then they are labeled as inaccurate misrepresentations. Does it make sense that every detail of an older painting that was being copied was updated except the archery equipment? Particularly when the men who are the subject of that painting are Manchus who held their archery in such high esteem? Does that not seem a bit of a stretch?

Personally, I do not have a strong belief one way of the other. I would find it easier to accept Bede's assertions if it were not for details like the forked end on the bow in it's holster in the second Freer Gallery image I posted. It would be quite interesting to find a hunting painting like these that had both types of bows, Manchu & Ming, in use.

[Scott M. Rodell]

I did an image search for Qing dynasty ancestor portraits thru both google & baidu today, using several different word/character combinations. I was looking for images that would support the suggestion that these portraits included Ming objects/styles. I did not find any that did. Only 2 portraits were found that included weapons, one was the Bannerman Portrait from the Mactaggart Art Collection in Canada, that I believe most here will be familiar with. The other is believed to be a painting of Dorgon. In both cases the weapons are consistent with Qing era weapons. The jian on the table next to the Bannerman is, however, in a bag, which was a practice during the Ming.

The descriptions accompanying the Bannerman portrait reads-
Portrait of a Manchu Bannerman: Everything about this portrait says something important about the unknown sitter. His style of clothing ? especially his hat ? cast him as a fourth-ranked Manchu, the nomads who conquered China in the 17th century establishing the Qing dynasty. His brocade-covered sword and his bow and arrows are a testament to his military prowess, while his other accessories ? the brush, the books, the teapot ? reveal his refined tastes as a Confusian wenren, or man of letters.

The words, "a testament to his military prowess," jump out at me & are why I find the Ming bows depicted in the images posted above so curious. That would seems to argue against the use of Ming bows as they don't present an image of Manchu power, but there they are. But only in Hunting paintings. This thus appears more of a choice than a chance or an element left up to the painter.

Thoughts?

[Justin Ma]

I was browsing the Freer Gallery online, and it looks like a lot of the dates are screwed up. Here's a painting of Manchu hunters, but one of them is carrying a non-Manchu bow: http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/zoom ... ectId=4628

The captions say the painter is Wang Meng (1308--1365) but that it's a Qing dynasty (1644-1911) piece.

[Scott M. Rodell]

... browsing the Freer Gallery online... dates are screwed up. Here's a painting of Manchu hunters...

Thanks for finding that, did you notice the young man standing next to the man on horse? The bow he is holding is similar to the short siyah "Southern Bow" in Stephen Selby's recent article on Chinese Bows in "The Journal of Chinese Martial Studies."



The more one looks closely at this painting, the less it feels like just a redo of an older painting.

[Justin Ma]

I dunno, judging by the forked tips, the setback handle and the lack of string bridges, the bow in the painting looks more like a Ming dynasty small-siyah bow rather than the Qing Southern bow from Stephen's JCMS article (which lacks forked tips, has a straight handle and has string bridges).

I find myself leaning towards the "remake" theory. The heterogeneous mix of bows, muskets and crossbows in the scene seem like something the Ming would bring, rather than something the Manchus would bring out for a hunt.

[Scott M. Rodell]

... judging by the forked tips, the setback handle and the lack of string bridges, the bow in the painting looks more like a Ming dynasty small-siyah bow r...

You could certainly be right, but I was talking about the bow the boy is holding, not the one in the bow holster.

... I find myself leaning towards the "remake" theory...

I'm not against that theory, I just want to see an example of a Ming painting in this style as solid evidence of that. The only Ming dynasty hunting paintings I've seen didn't mix weapons as these paintings do. Have you ever encountered one that has? On the other hand, there are a fair number of paintings of Manchus hunting with matchlocks and there is the one of Yongle hunting a tiger with a trident in "Western" grab.

[Bede]

Perhaps I was misunderstood. I did not say that Qing ancestor portraits included Ming details. What I wrote was that things in portraits were not necessarily present in the life of the subject.

Furthermore, I am not implying that the bulk of the paintings being discussed in this thread are portraits by any stretch of the imagination. They are genre scenes and as such even less likely to accurate representations. In one case where there is a portrait, and not an ancestor one in this case, the archery equipment is carefully observed.

This occurrence of inaccurate detail or anachronism is not confined to Chinese art or even old art. There are plenty of twentieth century pictures and sculptures in the West of military figures with inaccurately depicted uniforms and equipment. And this occurs when there are manuals of uniforms and equipment available to the artist and even photographs of the subject.

Manchus hunting on horseback in the South of China is not likely to have been very common so generic hunting scenes are more likely to have been copied, however inaccurately, from paintings originally conceived in the north. Their value as pointers to equipment used in the South of China is therefore doubtful.

[Peter Dekker]

It appears that there is a double standard being applied to historical images. If the image supports a current standardly held positions, in this case that Manchus used only their long bows with long siyah, it is taken as accurate. And as such, we use them as historical reference and resource. But when paintings of equally fine artistic quality are found, that present a different view of equipment, then they are labeled as inaccurate misrepresentations.... ....Does that not seem a bit of a stretch?

I can see how this may appear so. Let me elaborate a bit more on the use of artwork for research.

Period artwork falls in certain categories, with one category being generally more accurate than the other. When we take the immensely detailed paintings of Jesuits and Jesuit-trained artists in the Qing imperial workshops, all items depicted are exactly how we find them in collections of antiques. The arrows carried by the men can all be found in the 1759 Huangchao Liqi Tushi. So when we see something new on one of these paintings, it is quite likely that this is also painted after reality rather than filled in. As such, these paintings can serve as good guidelines of what equipment was like. (It is interesting to note that due to their high attention to realistic detail, these men were not considered actual artists by established Chinese artists whose art was more inspired by dreamy and fantastic images.)

Then there is the vast bulk of Chinese artwork which was mainly reproduced in local workshops by painters of so low status that they didn't even have the right to sign their work. They mostly copied elements of existing paintings and quite often added elements of other works. It was pretty much copy/paste work. These pictures are highly suspicious and are often a mix and match of elements. A painting comes to mind with bannermen being inspected by the emperor. In one version of the painting they only have bows, in the other, they carry sabers as well. The style of saber is unlike any antique that ever surfaced, so we can reasonably assume that this artist wasn't there and added the sabers himself. Now some of these paintings are of good quality, it's just that the painters weren't any good in drawing something entirely new from scratch.

A genre of paintings typically made in these shops were ethnic paintings of frontier people. This is a subject well-studied by Laura Hostetler. Usually these paintings were based on line drawings and descriptions coming from officials and their clerks at the front lines. Details were filled in later in the city workshops. (The Qianlong emperor also ordered officials to deliver such material for an album made for him personally, but of course with a lot more attention to detail.) Of the non-imperially commissioned bulk of such paintings there are often many versions, some lacking items or with more items than a previous version. As for the Yi tribesman I mentioned pictured in one of these with a short-eared bow: We can reasonably assume this is a correct representation because antique bows of the area are in fact short-eared and exactly like in the picture.


Now let's go through all the pictures you posted so far:

1. Manchus hunting tiger
From the looks of it this is an early to mid. Qing painting, non-imperial.
Type of bow: A short version of the Manchu bow is depicted but one can't help to notice that everything is a little awkwardly depicted.

2. "Not the finest example of Qing era painting, so we can't put too much stock in it. That being said, the bows depicted are quite short with fairly stubby ears."
These are not Manchus, but a depiction of an earlier era. The people depicted are most likely Mongolians of the Yuan dynasty. The bow is a dead ringer for bows of that period as well: The string does not touch the ears when strung and there are no string-bridges. This is the predecessor of the Manchu bow, and was also in use by the earlier Jurchen of the Jin. A magnificent Yuan painting in the National Palace Museum in Taipei depicts Kubilai with a bow just like it, and actual examples of these bows have been found in Northern China.

3. 4 hunters with a dog
A low-quaity watercolor, probably 19th century. The people are definitely Manchus by the looks of them. The bows are so badly drawn that we can't give the picture much credit overall. It is as if the artist thought they were supposed to be made of wooden or bamboo sticks. (A common assumption for non-archer artists, by the way. William Alexander did the same when painting Manchu bows during the Macartney Embassy in the late Qianlong reign.)

4. Hunters with bow, crossbow and trident.
This is interesting, because the bow depicted is definitely not a downsized version of a Manchu, but a Ming bow that seems quite accurately portrayed when compared to Ming imperial artwork. The people are no doubt Manchus as well, judging by their clothing. The overall style of painting is very Ming in appearance though. Note details like the way the fabric moves with the wind and the expression of the horse.

It would be nice to have some provenance on this one, but I have a hunch that it may be late Ming. It could well be that the artist was depicting Jurchen hunters (before the Manchu conquest) that he knew were equipped with bows but had no detail of the bows used and filled in the gap with a Ming bow. The crossbow is also Ming. The Qing used a very similar crossbow, but mounted with a composite bow with ears and string bridges, just like their larger bows. The "carriage spring" style only remained in use for cheaper repeating crossbows and tiger traps.

5. Details from a Freer Gallery Scroll
Again the bow is definitely Ming and indeed accurately portrayed. The painting style is again very Ming, and may fall in the same genre of ethnic portraits of the late Ming.

6. The MacTaggart picture
I know this one very well because I have a very large resolution file for research. (It is on the cover of the latest Journal of Martial Studies, accompanying my article on Manchu archery.) The details of the bows and arrows are an exact match to some of the equipment in the 1759 Huangchao Liqi Tushi . It is also in the Jesuit style of the imperial court painters but seems privately commissioned because the style is much more relaxed and informal. Because the proven accuracy of various items, and the extremely high level of detail I would consider this a more reliable source than most pictures. The jian is indeed interesting, one wonders whether it is an antique or a remake in the Ming style. With very few depictions of 18th century jian and so few surviving complete with all fittings it is difficult to say whether this style persisted through the 18th century or not.

7. Another portion of the aforementioned scroll.
The bow the young man holds is not of the Southern style that Stephen Selby published, those are pretty much Manchu bows with shorter ears. When you look closely you will see it has a gradual bend at the knee, a curve in the short ear and no large string bridge. This is definitely the profile of a Ming bow, that is very similar to today's Korean traditional bow. Again this seems like a Ming painting to me, or a copy thereof, perhaps depicting Jurchen hunters. It is not in the accurate style of the Qing imperial workshops and therefore not as reliable as a source.

Having that said, there is no doubt that a Manchu may have picked up a Ming bow during the transition phase or shortly thereafter. It would be strange if they hadn't, as an archer people. But so far there is no evidence that these bows were used by anyone much later. The "Southern bow" is generally made as a Manchu bow but with shorter ears, it is much like today's "traditional" Mongolian bow in that it is faster, more maintenance friendly, but unable to launch the large arrows the Manchus did. It was mainly common among minority peoples such as the Yi, Hui and Tibetans. Even in hot and humid Shanghai the regulations for military Manchu bows were the same as in the capital, with long ears.

If the Ming bow was used much longer, as you suggest these pictures prove, we would expect to find more evidence of this fact in sources other than these pictures whose accuracy is not guaranteed. But so far no actual examples of these bows or references to them in period texts have surfaced.

Lastly, there is a tendency in even the most accurate of artwork to make Manchu bow ears shorter than they were. A good example is Qianlong's grand review bow, being depicted with ears just a tad shorter than the actual example which is still preserved in the Palace Museum today.

-Peter

[Scott M. Rodell]

... I wrote was that things in portraits were not necessarily present in the life of the subject... In one case where there is a portrait, and not an ancestor one in this case, the archery equipment is carefully observed.

Manchus hunting on horseback in the South of China is not likely to have been very common... Their value as pointers to equipment used in the South of China is therefore doubtful.

Bede, I'm not discounting your observations, but they would be easier to accept if you posted some, any, examples supporting your assertions.

As I wrote above, there appears to be a double standard being applied. If a painting shows the equipment we expect to see it is correct & we use it as a reference as to historical reality. If it has things we don't expect, then it is incorrect. I've spent the last few days search thru my books of Chinese art & on line & can not find images that support your statement. What other images I do find of men hunting all have equipment proper to the period of the painting. Please show us a Ming era painting in this style that a Qing dynasty artist could have copied.

As for the suggestion that these paintings are from Southern China, no one asserted that, what made you arrive at that conclusion? No one said these were Manchus hunting in the South of China. In any case, if they are copies of Northern paintings, where Manchus were certainly hunting, then the artist should have gotten the bows right if they were using Manchu style bows exclusively in the north. We certainly have many examples of paintings of grand hunts where Manchu style bows are being used.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but if you will forgive my repeating myself, presenting examples from other period of hunting genre painting supporting your assertion would make it much easier to accept...