selling the artist: advertising, art, and audience in nineteenth-century shanghai

Selling the Artist: Advertising, Art, and Audience in Nineteenth-Century ShanghaiAuthor(s): Roberta WueSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 463-480Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27801641 .Accessed: 14/06/2014 09:16

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Selling the Artist: Advertising, Art, and Audience in

Nineteenth-Century Shanghai Roberta Wue

In 1884, the Shanghai artist Ren Bonian (1840-1895) com memorated the friendship between himself and two others, Zhu Jin tang and Zeng Fengji, in his group portrait Picture of Three F?ends (Fig. 1 ). Simply composed, the painting shows the three men, each wearing the long, plain gown of the

scholar, seated together in the foreground of the painting, a low table heaped with scrolls and albums behind them. The

iconography was standard for group portraits and alludes to the centuries-old theme of the yaji, or "elegant gathering," in

the idealized depiction of elite friendship and its refined

pursuits. This meeting of true minds is affirmed by the snug closeness of the interlocking figures, and their casual poses, seated on the floor, indicate that they have no need to stand

on ceremony in each other's presence. The three men seem

to glance up from conversation, and the presence of the

artworks suggests that their next activity will be a joint appre ciation of these paintings and calligraphies. Artworks, at

tributes of the gentleman, were common enough features in

elegant gathering images, but their prominence here under lines the identity of at least two of the sitters as important

members of the Shanghai art world at the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Ren Bonian, on the left, was one of the most celebrated painters of the period, while Zhu Jintang (sometimes called Zhu Jinshang) was the owner of the exclu sive fan shopjiuhua tang (Hall of Nine Treasures), located on Jiujiang Road. Nothing is known about Zeng Fengji, the sitter in the middle, who may well have been another artist.

The fan shop was an institution central to the Shanghai art world. In existence since at least Ming times, fan shops sold

art supplies; by the nineteenth century, their services had

expanded to include representing artists and accepting or

ders on the artist's behalf.1 An 1889 illustrated advertisement for Zhu's shop in the popular illustrated magazine Dian shizhai huabao [Dianshizhai pictorial] (Fig. 2) provides an

interesting counterpoint to Ren's portrait in its alterna

tive?if no less idealized?vision of the Shanghai gentleman and the artwork, this time in the context of commerce. Here,

Jiuhua tang appears as an elegant emporium, staffed by clerks who attend to dapper male customers, its shelves and cases

brimming with goods, particularly the fashionable fans visible on the counter and in cases.2 This advertisement furnishes a

new context for Ren's portrait, which can thus be read as

both an image of scholarly conviviality and as an image of a business meeting between two artists and their dealer. The

commercial backdrop explains the intense attention paid to the artworks in the image, which Ren has endowed with an almost palpable weight and presence, for these scrolls and albums are more than the mere props of elite friendship rituals: they also constitute the artists' goods and form the dealer's inventory. If we consider the portrait as a represen tation of business relations, it is only appropriate that Ren's

dealer, Zhu Jintang, is the foremost figure, for there is no

more paradigmatic period figure than the middleman and

broker, facilitating the flow of products and wealth between different spheres. In fact, the image makes a real attempt to

bridge the world of the image and that of the viewer, evident in the open acknowledgment of the viewer and in the self conscious self-presentation of the three men. A similar and

no less idealized vision of the late Qing art industry can also be found in advertisements for artists and art products placed in the Shanghai newspaper Shenbao. The specific format of the newspaper classifieds was a recent introduction to Shang

hai, and the art world made full use of the advertisement to

reach a wide range of customers. The arrival of newspaper

advertising places clearly on view many of the features of the

Shanghai art world and art market equally evident in Ren's

portrait, from the unapologetic recognition of commercial

exchange, the polished presentation of the participants, and the weight given to intermediaries between artists and con sumers to the explicit appeal to readers and viewers. As such,

these advertisements have more to tell us about the art mar

ket than mere prices and products; they also demonstrate how artists at various levels of the art world hierarchy used

newspaper advertising to make contact with a new and ex

panded audience and to present a compelling public image.3 Commerce was certainly an integral aspect of the late Qing

art world; most of the artists active in Shanghai had moved there expressly to earn a living. Like Ren Bonian, who had

been forced to flee his hometown near Shaoxing, many artists had also survived the cataclysmic Taiping Rebellion of the early 1860s and witnessed the destruction of their Jiang nan hometowns. With other career prospects ruined by this

disaster, these individuals were left with little choice but to fall back on their artistic skills for a livelihood. Prosperous Shanghai was an obvious destination: after its establishment

as a semicolonial treaty port in 1842 it had grown rapidly into a major financial center. This funneling of creative talents

into Shanghai also anointed the city the new cultural center

of Jiangnan, superseding ancient cities such as Suzhou and

Nanjing, whose gradual decline had been finalized by the

Taiping onslaught. By the 1870s, hundreds of artists were

plying their trade in Shanghai. Often called collectively the

Shanghai school (although these artists had no formal orga nization), Shanghai painters and calligraphers used a tradi

tional brush-and-ink medium to produce works in every spe

cialty and at every price level. Their accessible works

possessed a flamboyance and sophistication that ensured

their popularity with their urban audience.4 While a market economy was in place in China by the Song

dynasty (960-1279 CE), Shanghai's art market can be distin

guished from its sophisticated predecessors in the increased

openness toward and intensification of commercial pursuits, which were also played out on a much larger scale. This

expanded market is evident in the visibility of middlemen


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464 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2009 VOLUME XCI NUMBER 4

1 Ren Bonian, Picture of Three Friends, 1884, ink and color on paper, 25 X 14 in. (64.5 X 36.2 cm). Palace Museum,

Beijing (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the Palace Museum, Beijing)

such as Zhu Jintang and other intermediaries (such as adver

tising) , as well as in the growth of the market from a local and

regional to a national one. This growth can be attributed to the engagement of the art world in Shanghai's new mass

media. The introduction of the Western-style newspaper and

magazine and the availability of reproduced images in new formats served to democratize the art market, drawing in a

larger and broader audience. This shift in audience size and

demographic necessarily had an impact on the artist's rela

tionship to that audience. The existence of this new mass



SELLING THE ARTIST IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY SHANGHAI 455

media also opens a window on the late Qing art market for the historian, allowing a detailed understanding of the func

tioning of that art world that is simply not available for earlier

periods lacking comparable documentation. A review of one

newspaper, Shenbao, in the 1870s and 1880s yields more than information on purveyors, products, and prices; it also dem onstrates how artists at different levels of the market pro moted themselves and negotiated their relationship with a

large and anonymous general public.5

Shenbao and Advertising Shenbao (literally, "Shanghai Newspaper") was the most influ ential and important of China's early Chinese-language news

papers. Established by its English manager and first editor, Ernest Major (1841-1908), Shenbao began publication in

Shanghai in 1872.6 Its extensive and reliable coverage of

local, national, and international events, together with its editorials on a significant range of contemporary issues, en sured that it was widely read in government circles and by the urban elite.7 Shenbao's success in attracting readers can also

be attributed to its decision to give readers an active voice in the paper. Readers were frequendy solicited for ideas, sug gestions, and opinions; their contributions were an impor tant component of the literary pages, a daily feature and one of Shenbao1 s innovations. Shenbao's multivocality was one of its most remarkable features, and its ongoing interest in encour

aging reader participation, thus cultivating reader loyalty, may explain the paper's ability to draw advertisers and suc ceed where a number of predecessors had failed.8 The clas

sifieds, like the main body of the paper, also formed a multi authored text; together, the many advertisements placed by dozens of artists offer a rich and consistent vision of the

Shanghai marketplace. Although advertising has a long history in China, the den

sity and reach of advertising in the nineteenth-century city surpass those of earlier periods, and newspaper advertising, certainly, was a new phenomenon.9 The enthusiastic use of

advertising in Shanghai and other Jiangnan cities is described in an 1871 account of street advertising by Walter Henry

Medhurst (1822-1885), who testified to the ubiquitous post ers, notices, and handbills plastered on the city walls. Med hurst also spoke of streets lined with elaborate shop facades

featuring numerous calligraphed signs; his observations are confirmed by period photographs documenting the dense

signage that covered storefronts and projected into the air

space of narrow streets. Medhurst suggested that street ad

vertising in Shanghai had its own rules and protocols, ex

plaining that it was "not considered quite the thing to advertise" and that those who did so were often "confined to

particular classes of business, such as druggists, eating-houses,

lodging-houses, doctors, theatrical corps, lecturers, fortune

tellers." He also noted that it was acceptable for some busi nesses to advertise in the event of grand openings or reno

vations; indeed, these particular conventions appear to have

migrated wholesale onto the pages of Shenbao.10 Advertisements were crucial to Shenbao1 s survival and iden

tity as a commercial newspaper; this was signaled by the fact that advertising rates were always placed on the front page (Fig. 3), eventually becoming a permanent part of the mast head.11 Readers in search of the actual advertisements could

; If*

'

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2 Jin Gui, advertisement for the Jiuhua tang (Hall of Nine Treasures) fan shop, lithograph, in Dianshizhai huabao [Dianshizhai Pictorial], 1889 (artwork in the public domain)

find them in two places: at the beginning and at the end of the paper. Ads regularly led off the paper, running before even the editorials; this prime spot often showcased books and prints produced by the Shenbao publishing empire. The main classified section was at the back of the paper (Fig. 4). Here the reader could discover a kaleidoscopic range of

products and services, from opera listings and steamship passages to lottery tickets, auctions (frequendy of foreign goods), teashops and inns, books* gardens, fortune-tellers,

foreign goods, miscellaneous entertainments (such as freak

shows, animal shows, and circuses), and nostrums for as

sorted ailments, especially opium addiction. At first glance, the selection seems utterly random, but closer inspection reveals that the products and services mentioned generally gravitated toward the higher end of the market, with a par ticular stress on entertainment, imported goods, and luxury items. Cumulatively, these advertisements present a vision of

Shanghai and its glamorous streets as a cosmopolitan con

sumer's paradise.12 It should be noted, though, that while




3 Front page of Shenbao (Shanghai), July 28, 1881

advertisers were generally Shanghai-based, Shenbao had a na

tional readership, reaching from Beijing to Hong Kong, and that the conveniences of mail order made the actual acqui sition of advertised goods possible for readers in the hinter lands. Thus, if the readership at large of Shenbao provides a classic example of historian Benedict Anderson's "imagined community,"13

one can also posit a virtual community of

consumers around the classifieds whose tastes were shaped and appetites piqued by the consumable goods so lovingly described in Shenbao's classifieds. Art products consistendy numbered among the products featured. Such advertise

ments, placed by artists, both famous and obscure, or their

representatives, reveal a significant difference among the

products and the strategies used to reach out to potential buyers.

Touching Stone and Producing Gold: Ren Bonian and the Dianshizhai Publishing House The most established artists were most prominendy on view in the classifieds. The reputation of Ren Bonian, one of the

most renowned artists active in Shanghai in the late Qing, was based on his bravura technique and wide range. We know litde about the specific ways by which Ren built his reputation after his arrival in Shanghai in 1868, but he undoubtedly relied on his strong skills in networking and cultivating con tacts. Mentions of Ren in period guidebooks and the literary pages of the newspaper seem to echo the word-of-mouth

manner in which his name was established.14 Given his suc

cess, like other successful artists Ren Bonian had no need to

direcdy advertise for sale his original works of art. However, mentions of his name in the newspaper certainly enhanced his reputation. For example, Ren's identity as a cultural

celebrity or civic-minded public figure were affirmed when

4 Classifieds page of Shenbao, December 13, 1883

Shenbao published his poem in the literary pages or reported on his participation in raising funds for disaster relief.15

Newspaper advertising could also announce Ren's partici pation in Shanghai's exploding publishing industry. Refer ences to Ren in the classifieds are nearly always made in relation to his activity as a contributor to industrially pro duced illustrated books and art reproductions. His high pro file ensured a lively demand for his designs in the flourishing market for prints, illustrated books, and magazines, thereby creating a line of reproduced artworks that increased his

exposure and confirmed his status as one of Shanghai's most famous artists. It also gave him access to an entirely new circle of consumers who lacked the buying power or interest to

purchase original works of art. It is these prints, illustrated

books, and pictorial magazines that were regularly advertised in Shenbao, usually by the publisher, and sometimes by the fan

shops and bookstores that also sold them. Ren Bonian's

designs can be found in a large number of publications, but his special relationship with the Dianshizhai publishing house emerges from the pages of Shenbao. From advertise ments for his Dianshizhai products, we gain a fuller under

standing of his partnership with the publisher and learn that Ren's designs appeared not only in Dianshizhai's illustrated books but also in its eponymous pictorial magazine and in

lithograph prints made after his paintings. If we match im

ages to advertisements, it is evident that Ren fully understood the nature of Dianshizhai's urban reader, producing a signif icantly different kind of image for these anonymous readers than he did for his more elite painting patrons.

Dianshizhai, of course, was not just any publisher. It was the first commercial lithographic publisher in China (hence the name, which literally means "Studio of Touching the

[Lithographic] Stone") and certainly one of the most inno




vative.16 Major and his comprador, Chen Huageng, founded Dianshizhai in 1878 shordy after the introduction of lithog raphy to Shanghai. An offshoot of Shenbao's publishing house, Shenbaoguan, Dianshizhai largely specialized in illus trated materials.17 The accuracy, speed, and cheapness of

lithography was especially valued following the widespread destruction of libraries by the Taiping upheavals a decade

earlier; at this time, many scholars were seeking to rebuild their libraries and to gather the classic texts they needed to

prepare for the imperial examinations. Dianshizhai capital ized on this demand with a series of highly successful reprints of these classics (one of its initial publications, a reduced-size edition of the 1716 Kangxi dictionary, sold out its run of forty thousand copies within a few months), but Major also recog nized lithography's advantages in reproducing pictorial ma terial and thus its appeal to general and less literate audi ences.18 Both Dianshizhai and Shenbaoguan issued an

impressive array of illustrated materials, producing original and reprint editions of illustrated books, maps, lithograph reproductions of stela rubbings, calligraphy, and even paint ings, with Dianshizhai's most famous product the pioneering pictorial magazine, one of the earliest published in China, Dianshizhai huabao.19 These items were readily available at Shenbao's bookstore, the Shenchang shuju (the Shenchang Book Office, later called the Shenchang shuhua shi or the

Shenchang Hall of Books and Images), or Dianshizhai retail outlets (Fig. 5), and also via mail order. In a depiction of the

Shenbaoguan offices by Wu Youru (d. 1893), Dianshizhai huaba?'s foremost illustrator, the Shenchang shuhua shi next door is shown filled with images for sale on display (Fig. 6) .20 The output of both publishing houses was constantly adver tised in Shenbao, their products placed in the optimal spot of the first item on the front page.

The art world was deeply invested in this new field of mass

media, and the successes of the art and publishing domains

proved to be mutually reinforcing. While Dianshizhai did a

lively business in reprints, including the older huapu, or

"painting manuals," that had long been standard purchases by consumers in search of self-cultivation (huapu is also a term that more generally refers to books centered on illus

trations) , it also issued new huapu and images by living artists. The late Qing Shanghai huapu diverged from earlier exam

ples, particularly those produced in the Ming, in its mini mized pedagogical component. Instead, these new huapu focus on diversion. Dianshizhai's collectanea volume of 1885. Dianshizhai conghua [Collected Images of the Dianshizhai],

gathers into one volume an assortment of illustrated books and materials of various periods that Dianshizhai had previ ously published or reprinted.21 As in many Shanghai huapu, images are presented with litt?e text or commentary, only loosely organized by subject. Earlier huapu are not lacking this element of amusement, but Dianshizhai conghuds images are not organized into a didactic structure or framed as a

polite art. Its freeform collection of a variety of images from well-known artists of past and present seems to point the

publication at the city dweller who would recognize the names of fashionable artists and appreciate the images' ref erences to current Shanghai culture. In addition, the com

pact size and nonnarrative structure of books such as Dian

shizhai conghua made them perfect for flicking through in an

5 Shan Xiang, advertisement for a new Dianshizhai retail

oudet, lithograph, in Dianshizhai huabao, 1889 (artwork in the public domain)

idle moment. Industrially produced and cheaply priced, these books were aimed at a wider audience seeking the status not of the elite scholar but of the au courant urbanit?.

Long lists of huapu appeared in advertisements placed by publishers, bookstores, and fan shops, particularly in the

1880s, as the lithograph market gathered force.22 The appeal of the images found in books like Dianshizhai

conghua can be explained by one of Ren Bonian's contribu tions to the book, an untided depiction of a plump and

glowering cat (Fig. 7). Deceptively casual in design, this small

image, in its iconography and composition, is wholly of its time. Cats were common motifs in Shanghai painting, signi fiers of modern urban life that could be frequendy found in

popular representations of the city, such as Dianshizhai hua bao's depictions of Shanghai. The juxtaposition of Ren's cat with shredded banana palm leaves and chrysanthemum flow ers reinforces the urban nature of the image, for these were familiar garden plants in a city known for its popular com mercial gardens. This snapshot of urban flora and fauna is




6 Wu Youru, The Shenbao Offices, lithograph, from Wu Youru, Shenjiang shengjing tu [Illustrations of Famous Sights of Shanghai] (Shanghai: Shenbaoguan, 1884) (artwork in the

public domain)

presented in the daring and breezy formal language Ren invented for these mass-produced images; he generally did not employ the tight cropping and dashingly abbreviated forms of this image in the more formal medium of painting. Here Ren took advantage of the print medium by using a

boldly mannered line and a stripped-down layout; strong diagonals playfully slice up the composition in such a way that the viewer is forced to look twice to make sense of the image.

As a piece of popular imagery, Ren's cat possesses a tough yet elegant charm, and its sly shorthand depiction of metropol itan leisure is perfecdy calculated to appeal to the urban 23 viewer.

While Ren contributed original designs to any number of

Shanghai huapu advertised in Shenbao, his works were also advertised in the form of lithograph prints. As we know from advertisements in Shenbao, Dianshizhai began producing lithograph prints based on stela rubbings, calligraphies, and

paintings in 1879; one of the earliest advertisements an nounces the availability of lithographed calligraphies "by fa mous men of past and present, convenient for scholars and

merchants to hang up." The ad also emphasized the novelty and verisimultitude of these lithographs, claiming that they were "indistinguishable from calligraphy written with a brush. This amazing and clever Western technique has never before been seen in China!"24

In 1879, the press also began advertising prints made after "famous paintings." These came in several formats, available

for purchase individually or in sets, such as the four-scroll set of standard plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum sub

jects after the popular early Qing painter Yun Shouping (1633-1690), priced at two jiao. Also advertised were figure subjects by a contemporary painter, Wang Lanfeng, includ

ing a print of An Immortal Departing the World for only five fen. This ad is again quick to stress the closeness of the prints to the originals, stating that these lithographs "look as if they

had been painted with brushes. Indistinguishable from real

paintings, they are truly one of the world's treasures!"25 Weeks later, yet more images are publicized: "The outlines are finely crafted and the expressions are lifelike: they have met with the unceasing praise of Chinese and foreign con

noisseurs."26 Advertisements chart the range of prints pro duced by Dianshizhai and eventually incorporate a generous selection of images by artists past and present, such as Zhao

Mengfu (1254-1322) or the eminent landscape painter Hu Yuan (1823-1886) .27 Affordably priced, with highly accessible

subjects favoring the auspicious and the decorative, again joined with the familiar names of celebrity artists, these works were positioned to attract the widest possible audience.

In number and range, the Dianshizhai prints made after

designs by Ren Bonian surpass those by any other artist. One Shenbao advertisement of 1879 lists for sale a variety of Ren's

bird, animal, flower, and plant subjects, available in black and-white or colored (probably by hand), and even mounted like a painting for a few jiao apiece.28 Yet other ads herald

prints after Ren Bonian designs of popular figurai subjects, including one of the eccentric Song literati artist Mi Fu

(1051-1107) bowing to a rock (MiDian baishi [Crazy Mi Bows to the Rock]). According to the ad, the prints are:

all five chi in length, unmounted, each is three jiao five fen; if mounted with silk sides, seven jiao. Buying them sepa rately or together is up to the customer's convenience. If

bought separately, they can be hung in the reception hall. If bought together, then they can serve as a large hanging screen. As for the divine excellence of his painting

method, Mr. Ren has long been famous far and near.. . ,29

All these ads for Ren's individual prints highlight the range of choices open to the viewer, who can select from a variety of

formats; they also identify these prints as close facsimiles of




paintings, colored and mounted on silk to heighten their verisimilitude.30 In short, customers had the chance to pur chase a mass-produced Ren Bonian, just as attractive as the

genuine article yet economically priced.31 For Ren Bonian, the sale of prints expanded his output and clientele by mak

ing his products available to buyers that otherwise lacked the means and connections to obtain original works. Ren's im

portance to Dianshizhai is apparent in an advertisement of 1880 for the publisher's most elaborate print to that date, an ambitious and large-scale New Year's print designed by Ren. It was with considerable fanfare that Dianshizhai offered this

print to Shenbao readers, featuring the ad on the paper's front

page:

Ren Bonian's picture of An Assembly of Gods in a Landscape for sale: After the destruction of the winter solstice drums

[according to local custom the drums were beaten to drive out disease], the year is on the verge of changing to a new one. Ten thousand families render thanks to the gods, and there are none who do not make sacrificing to the gods the first order of the day.... At great expense we have invited Mr. Ren Bonian to use the divine landscape style of Litde General Li [Li Zhaodao, active ca. 670-730, known for his blue-and-green landscape style] to paint a work about six chi tall. This company will use lithography to create a landscape, elegantly colored in blue and green. ... Amidst the landscape and flowing clouds, four tall pine trees brush the heavens. Below the pines stand four gods: the City God, the God of the Earth, the Kitchen God, and the God of Wealth. Only the God of the Well is sitting cross-legged.... [Ren Bonian] 's painting brush is quite different and unlike what people usually hang in their

reception halls and [yet] is quite suitable. This work is

currendy for sale at our company's Shenchang shuhua shi.

[The price] for those in ink, five jiao; in color, one yuan; if mounted, add a mounting fee of six jiao.32

Everything about this print exceeded any image previously produced by the press, beginning with its enormous size at six chi (approximately seven feet) tall. Added to the magnificent scale of the print were the grand multifigured subject of

tutelary gods, elaborate composition, and rich Tang blue

and-green landscape style. All of these factors, together with the expense of the commission, so carefully noted in the ad,

must have justified the extravagant price of a yuan and a half for a colored, mounted version. The size and spectacle of the

print made it impressive enough to hang in the most formal of rooms, the reception hall, during the most important holiday of the year. The ad points out that the imagery is new and explains its function, while remarking that this litho

graph departed from what was customarily displayed at the New Year, presumably alluding to the lithograph being nei ther the modest and disposable New Year's woodblock print nor a genuine ink painting. Instead, it was a modern hybrid, with the domestic deities ordinarily depicted in New Year's

prints made over by Ren Bonian in the imposing dimensions and archaizing style of elite ink painting, produced in cut

ting-edge lithographic form. The eye-catching combination of high and low culture, along with the elements of novelty and celebrity cachet, made it especially suitable for a modern

7 Ren Bonian, Cat, lithograph, from Dianshizhai conghua [Collected Images of the Dianshizhai] (Shanghai: Dianshizhai, 1885), juan 6, p. 21 (artwork in the public domain)

urban audience. The success of this image is suggested by the fact that advertisements for it reappeared year after year.33

A final category of Dianshizhai lithographed images for which Ren served as designer was tied to Dianshizhai's pop ular illustrated magazine Dianshizhai huabao. Beginning pub lication in 1884, the pictorial came out three times a month,

with nine double-page images of news events, sensational

stories, and social commentary, executed in a Sino-Western

journalistic style. Although Dianshizhai had its own in-house artists producing images for the pictorial, beginning in 1885 it commissioned designs from eminent artists such as Ren Bonian for a special series of print inserts to be given away with the magazine as part of a promotional campaign. Like so

many Dianshizhai projects, th?se were extensively advertised in Shenbao. Their novelty is such that advertisements include instructions to readers on how to save and appreciate these collectible prints.34 The entire series of prints remains to be

reconstructed,35 but a glance at Ren Bonian's designs indi

cates that he responded to this project with a topicality gen erally not seen in his paintings. He chose unusual subjects for their capacity that appear to address a contemporary audi ence and its concerns, appropriate to their placement in a

magazine that focused on events and mores of the day. A number of Ren's designs engage in political commentary,




~ ^^^^^

while others are more personal, the most unexpected of these a depiction of the artist himself, enjoying an outing

with his two young sons in the Shanghai suburbs (Fig. 8).36 The choice is notable for an artist who rarely painted

scenes direcdy depicting modern life, nor was the autobio

graphical subject characteristic of Ren's painted oeuvre. Here his self-image is juxtaposed with a common motif from the popular media: the Western horse-drawn carriage. Like the cat, the Western horse and carriage was a recurrent motif

in this period, emblematic of a contemporary fascination with fashionable amusements, conspicuous consumption, and flamboyant display.37 Carriage rides were often described in guidebooks and featured in novels, and numerous prints and illustrations showed handsome carriages pulled by sleek horses (Fig. 9). Ren deliberately depicts not such a carriage but, instead, a modest cart pulled by a plodding black don

key. Its occupants are not Shanghai's gilded youth but the artist himself, one small son in his arms, another clinging to



SELLING THE ARTIST IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY SHANGHAI ^\

9 Wu Youru, Traveling on the Road to

Jing'an Temple, lithograph, from Wu Youru, Shenjiang shengjing tu (artwork in the public domain)

the back of the cart.38 Ren's inscription locates cart and

passengers in the western suburbs, on the modish tree-lined

horse-and-carriage routes to destinations such as Longhua

Pagoda or Jing'an Temple, and further forces a comparison with more glamorous images by noting that his "firewood cart

pulled by a miserable nag" had just been passed by a fine horse and carriage. This print replays the theme of urban leisure: overdy of the moment in its representation of city diversions, it also acknowledges, while mocking, the idea of the "famous artist," a term frequendy found in Shenbao and the popular press. Even as Ren seems to offer himself up for the consumption of a large and popular audience, he evades his viewers' close examination by showing himself and his children as small faceless homunculi half hidden by trees,

moving away from the viewer and soon out of sight.

The Shanghai Illustrated Book: Chen Yunsheng and Renzhai huasheng Ren Bonian's appearances in the classifieds came with mini mal characterization of the artist; as a known entity to read

ers, he had a name brand recognizability requiring no intro duction. Mid-range artists also used newspaper advertising to

publicize their work and raise their profile. A striking and unusual example is provided by the Ningbo painter Chen

Yunsheng (1820-1884) and his remarkable illustrated book of landscape images, Renzhai huasheng [Renzhai's Painting Legacy] (Renzhai was Chen's style name). Renzhai huasheng departed from the usual Shanghai huapu on several fronts. A

relatively rare example of a Shanghai illustrated book based on the oeuvre of a single artist, apparendy intended as a

capstone to his career, it is far more ambitious than the

average huapu. The extensive advertising that accompanied the book's publication and documents its reception rein forced its singularity to a contemporary audience. These

advertisements shed light on how the book was positioned and marketed to its potential audience.

Chen Yunsheng was a landscape painter, calligrapher, and seal carver, all specialties pointing to his identity as a scholar artist. Though not especially well known outside the art

world, within it Chen was a respected figure; he could be considered something of an artist's artist.39 It would be diffi cult to find another book in this period to match Renzhai

huasheng s high production values. Chen evidently spared litde effort in its conception and execution, and the features and format of the book seem intended to affirm his literati status and reputation. In fact, Renzhai huasheng more closely resembles the liter?tus's wenji, or collected writings, than the standard Shanghai illustrated book. Like any proper wenji, it

gathers together the author's best works, which are carefully introduced by laudatory prefaces written by respected indi viduals (each preface is meticulously reproduced in its au thor's calligraphy). The book even boasts a dignified author

portrait by Ren Bonian, with the inclusion of details such as Chen's carelessly arranged clothes and unshaven pate and chin to evoke the scholar's unworldly disregard for conven tion (Fig. 10) .40 All of these features?the prefaces, wood block format, and landscape imagery?suggest a book that

deliberately invokes traditional models and emphasizes its author's investment in scholarly values.

However, the weighty literati apparatus of Chen's book does not detract from its handsome appearance and the

captivating quality of his designs. The book's introduction

explains that the designs were based on Chen's study sketches, yet the polished elegance of each image, matched

by an inscription in Chen's lively calligraphy, indicates that each design had been painstakingly worked up for publica tion. The richly varied scenes of the Jiangnan landscape, filled with engrossing details of figures, animals, and archi




10 Ren Bonian, frontispiece portrait of Chen Yunsheng, woodblock print, from Chen Yunsheng, Renzhai huasheng [Renzhai's Painting Legacy] (Shanghai?: Deg? huanshe, 1878) (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by

Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University)

tecture, add accessible appeal to the book's general air of erudite intimacy. An example of one of the book's engaging vignettes is a winter scene of leafless trees. The inscription alludes to Song sources, but the image's decorative use of line and the visual wit are very much of its time, seen in the reiterated forms of spiky branches and the playful peekaboo appearance of a woodcutter in their midst (Fig. 11). Chen was equally meticulous with the book's initial advertising campaign; few contemporary huapu were individually adver

tised, certainly not at the length found in the two 1878 advertisements announcing the imminent issue of Renzhai

huasheng. The first ad, posted by one Renshou zhuren (Mas ter of Human Longevity) and placed in Shenbao a month

11 Chen Yunsheng, Landscape with Woodcutter, 1877, woodblock print, from Renzhai huasheng (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University)

before the book's publication, thoroughly enumerates both the author's and the book's outstanding features:

Renzhai ''s Painting Legacy for sale: Mr. Chen Renzhai is an

independent scholar from Ningbo. In his poetry, painting, and calligraphy he attains the Three Perfections, and can

be compared to recent masters Hu Gongshou and Yang Nanhu. When compared to the ancient masters of the

past, far-fetched Ni [Zan, 1301-1374] and silly Gu [Kaizhi, ca. 344-ca. 406], there is none whose level he did not reach. For year after year, every landscape study he made, both horizontal and vertical, amounted to hundreds and several tens [in number]. His oldest son, together with his

disciples, have gathered these sketches together and sub mitted them to the engraver. ... If you glance through the

book, you will perceive the vibrant spirit and exuberance that pour like a torrent from the gendeman's ten fin

gers. . . .

Every picture is accompanied by a poem, with

every act of the brush yielding a wondrous result. It truly is




a treasure that must be passed on. Famous gentlemen and

great officials have inscribed it, and poems are many. The

engraving is fine, the paper and printing are neat and clear: one could not name all their qualities. When this book comes out, it goes without saying that it will be as rare as paper in Loyang [that| is, sell extremely well] !

,41

Chen is presented as the consummate liter?tus, a master of

poetry, painting, and calligraphy, comparable to the ancient

masters and to famous modern masters such as Hu Yuan

(better known as Hu Gongshou, 1823-1886) and Yang Borun

(1837-1911), who, like Chen, were literati painters specializ ing in landscape and calligraphy (Hu was one of the best known painters of the period). The book is identified as a

superior work, both in conception and execution, dense with

prefaces, images, and poems. The ad continues by urging interested parties to purchase this edition as soon as possible before it is pirated in the form of inferior knockoffs. A month

later, another ad came out, this one authored by none other

than Hu Yuan and Yang Borun themselves (Hu, in fact, had

provided one of the prefaces for Renzhai huasheng) :

First printing of Painting Legacy for sale: This Painting Legacy was created by Ningbo's Mr. Chen Renzhai. His imitations of the various masters of landscape have a solid

foundation. As for the excellence of the engraving, superb

workmanship, and secrets of binding and printing, there are truly none that are superior.

. . . [This book is available

at] Shuhua chuan [Boat of Painting and Calligraphy shop] on Huajing Lane in the foreign concessions [and] the Yunlan ge [Cloud Blue Pavilion] on Dumu Bridge ... in four volumes for four foreign yuan, with those printed on

special cotton paper for five yuan. . . . This is announced

by Huating's Hu Gongshou and Xiushui's Yang Borun.42

This ad reiterates the book's many qualities and informs readers where it can be purchased. The considerable price of

four yuan suggests that the book was a luxury object, and

buyers had the choice of buying an even more expensive

edition, printed on finer paper.43 Interestingly, the advertise

ment also announces the sale of other works by Chen, as well

as the author's personal appearances at the fan shop Shuhua

chuan, where individuals could meet him and purchase his works at discounted prices (proceeds were to go toward

famine relief in north China). These extensive advertise

ments were followed by others placed by more friends of Chen's. Most notably, the Xiao Garden bookstore, located on

Fuzhou Road in the foreign concessions, ran several ads on

Chen's behalf, in which the owner, Xilin xiaoyin, explicitly states that Chen is a good friend.44

The relation of later ads to the author is less clear. Within

three years, Renzhai huasheng was reissued in lithograph form

by Dianshizhai.45 While the advertisements for the first edi tion stressed the book and its author's many scholarly at

tributes, the advertisement for the Dianshizhai edition only fleetingly touches on Chen's literati credentials, choosing instead to emphasize the book's popularity by stating that it "has already pleased all tastes for a long time!" The ad goes on to underline the dramatic entertainment value of images of "strange peaks, inaccessible precipices, eccentric rocks,

hoary pines, remote fauna and rare flora!" Dianshizhai's

reprint, much smaller than the original, was a photolitho

graphed pocket edition (xiuchenban, literally, "sleeve treasure

edition," also called a suoben, or "shrunken edition"), sized to

be tucked into a pocket or sleeve for readers on the go.46 The

ad, nonetheless, promises that the new edition "does not pale in comparison to the original," pointing out its fine printing and elegant silk binding, making it a "treasured curio of the art world." Despite all of these features, the most notable

aspect of the Dianshizhai edition must have been the low

price of six jiao. Chen's original luxury edition was trans

formed into a cheap mass-produced picture book, to be

enjoyed on the run.

It is unknown whether Dianshizhai's reprint was published with Chen Yunsheng's permission, but it was not the only reissue of Renzhai huasheng.47 In fact, as predicted by the first

ad, pirated editions proved to be a headache for the painter, including an unauthorized Japanese edition, which report

edly caused Chen great distress.48 Despite the clear success of

Chen's book, one wonders how much the painter ultimately profited from its publication. Sadly for Chen, there is evi dence that the book's popularity undermined his career as a

painter, by effectively supplanting his painted oeuvre. Chen's

biographies always made admiring mention of Renzhai hua

sheng, but in his memoirs of the late Qing art world, Chen's friend Zhang Mingke (1818/19-1908/9) is more frank about the book's relation to Chen's paintings. Zhang states that "by circulating [his book] among the art world, it was no less than

giving away his tricks of the trade, like an enormous raft

benefiting those wishing to cross the river."49 Zhang's com

ments indicate that by publishing a career's worth of studio

sketches, the starting point for the artist's painting composi tions (which were usually jealously guarded), Chen had ac

tually relinquished his trade secrets. As originally produced, the work was obviously intended to

enhance the author's career and to establish his literati iden

tity for a larger audience. Chen's project was understood and

supported by colleagues in the art world, but once the book left the author's hands, it clearly took an unanticipated path.

Chen may have expected to attract a respectful market capa

ble of appreciating the book's many excellent features, but advertisements imply that the book caught on with a much wider audience that, judging by the ad for the Dianshizhai

edition, may have been more attracted to the book's enter

taining imagery than its literati provenance. As a result, Ren

zhai huasheng was marketed and knocked-off in ways clearly not sanctioned by Chen himself. Although Chen may have also expected the book to affirm his reputation, ironically, the book's reputation soon eclipsed his own. Chen's encoun

ter with popularity and a broad audience played out signifi cantly differently for him than it did for Ren Bonian; as

Zhang Mingke suggests, the book ultimately became its au

thor's own worst competitor.

Selling the No Name: Advertisements for Obscure Painters and Calligraphers

While the preponderance of art advertising in Shenbao was

devoted to reproduced images and books, there were artists

who directly advertised original works of art for sale. It was not Shanghai's famous artists who placed these ads but the




very obscure. Almost none appears in the standard history on

the Shanghai school, Yang Yi's 1920 account of Shanghai painting, Haishang molin [Shanghai's Forest of Ink], and as

many of the several hundred late Qing artists recorded by Yang Yi had only modest reputations in their own time and are today completely forgotten, the thorough anonymity of these Shenbao advertisers can only be imagined.50 These ad

vertisements offer a glimpse into a segment of the art world

otherwise erased from record, and while it is nearly impossi ble to match works with these artists, their advertisements

document how newcomers to the market sought to promote

themselves and to generate a public image attractive to po

tential customers.

Ads in Shenbao were not inexpensive, and many artist ad

vertisements were terse and ran only briefly (some for only a

day). Nevertheless, almost all included the basic information

of the artist's native place, speciality in subject or style, and where works could be purchased (usually the artist's lodgings or at fan shops and other commercial establishments). These

advertisements may furnish the only remaining record of

individuals such as the Beijing painter Liao Lusheng, who

painted ink plum blossoms in the style of Luo Ping (1733 1799); Wu Chuqing, who painted squirrels and grapes; or

Pan Jiarang of Mt. Tientai, specializing in ink orchids and

rocks.51 With time, ads increased in length and detail, yet few have much to say on the products for sale, as the majority of advertisements focus on the artist's artistic character, often

with particular attention to the artist's standing and prestige. The advertisement placed by the painter Meiyin shanren

(Plum Recluse Mountain Man) in 1882 exemplifies this:

Excellent landscape paintings: Meiyin shanren lives on

Mt. Wu's south slope and is sixty years of age. He is skilled in landscape and is talented in painting mon

keys; his manner is lofty and antique ... he can convey

[these qualities] in his brush. . . . He is now sojourning

in Shanghai: if there are those who want his paintings, please come to Jinyun ge [Brocade Cloud Pavilion] on

Er malu Qiujiang Road]. . . .52

The ad is succinct, but its few details concentrate on Meiyin shanren, and these details?use of a poetic style name only, residence on distant Mt. Wu, auspicious age of sixty?and the

invocation of resonant, even clich?d, adjectives such as "lofty" and "antique" together quickly sketch out the millennium old literati ideal of the otherworldly hermit, albeit one paint ing and advertising in the late Qing treaty port Shanghai. The

powerful associations of these terms and stereotypes are in

tended to testify to the hermit's cultural authority and act as

a guarantee of quality for his paintings?about which we

actually know next to nothing. If Meiyin shanren's advertisement conjures up

a literati

fantasy that alights only briefly on his actual landscape and

monkey paintings, others provide more information on their

goods for sale. An advertisement placed by another visiting artist, Zhou Jutan, also sketches out

a literati persona, but it

is very businesslike in laying out an extensive list of products and prices. Zhou is careful to

excuse his bluntness by pre

senting himself as a scholar pressed by circumstances to sell

his works:

. . . Mr. Zhou Jutan is widely learned and has many abilities

and skills. Recently, because he is seeking a cure for his

illness, he has come to Shanghai and uses brush and ink to

pass the time. He now uses his brush to defray the costs of his stay. Apart from engraving seals, composing birthday prefaces, funeral odes,

. . . poetry, and inscriptions, which

all require face-to-face discussion; his painting and callig

raphy price list is given below. . . .53

The ad proceeds to itemize his price list for an impressive range of literary compositions, calligraphies, and paintings. Zhou's paintings of flowers and plants, birds and animals, trees and rocks, insects and fish are available in reception hall

sizes, with those eight chi in height costing five yuan, those six chi in height costing four yuan, and so on, down to round and

folding fans priced at five jiao apiece. As was customary,

figurai subjects fetched higher prices (interestingly, his list omits landscapes). Despite his protestations that he used brush and ink merely to fill his leisure hours, Zhou's clear and comprehensive price list suggests that his skills were not

just gentlemanly accomplishments and that he was no

stranger to selling his work. The relatively high prices he

quotes also indicate that he possessed a certain reputa

tion?or wished readers to think so.54 Zhou's forthright pub lication of his price list is not unusual for the period, though artists in earlier times, particularly those who identified them selves as literati, were circumspect in displaying price lists to

avoid connotations of commercialism. However, Zhou may

have published his price list out of necessity: unlike Meiyin shanren, he had no fan shop representation, telling readers

to seek him at his guesthouse on Hankou Road.55 While it was standard for many of these unknown artists to

lay claim to a scholarly identity, not a few described them selves as a mingshi, or "famous scholar," a ubiquitous term of

praise.56 It is a term used by the calligrapher Liu Jieshi of

Jiangxia; other artists advertising in Shenbao, such as the

painters You Meilin and Master of the Lanshi tongxin shi,

employed parallel phrases, such as "famous near and far" or

"famous in the four directions."57 Still others, like the callig rapher Liu Liujie, admired by "famous dukes and nobles," were sought after by many.58 The fixation on fame and

celebrity status was a distinct phenomenon of the period, reflecting consumers who bought in accordance with fashion

and trend, a practice frowned on by contemporary observ

ers.59 Nevertheless, it is startling to see advertisers, in an effort

to generate a reputation and attract buyers, make such bold

and patently untruthful claims.

Some chose to boost their desirability by presenting bona fides in the form of the testimonial, a strategy similar to the

modern-day dust-jacket blurb. It was commonplace for the

unknown artist to publicize his connections by using the name of a friend, colleague, or fellow townsman with

a

greater reputation in his advertisement, and often it is this

friend who "narrates" the advertisement. The benefits of this

advertising strategy are obvious: the advertiser avoids appear

ing boastful and also enjoys the endorsement of a figure higher in the cultural hierarchy. Often the booster's reputa

tion, like the advertiser's, has since dropped into obscurity,

but occasionally a completely unknown artist managed to

secure a famous mentor, as in the case of the venerable




Zhang Xiong (1803-1886), the patriarch of the Shanghai school, and his promotion of the minor painter Xu Jieyi.60 An advertisement placed by the Huzhou calligrapher Shen

Pinqiu constitutes a particularly extravagant example of the use of the testimonial. Unusual for its length, Shen's adver

tisement begins by noting the calligrapher's many distin

guished attributes, ranging from his skills as a raconteur and

calligrapher to his elegance and refinement, all confirmed by his acquaintance with seven high-ranking officials. The ad then continues:

... we that frequently see his calligraphy know that his brush technique approaches that of the ancients. More

over, on reading his poem "Traveling the Mountains," we

respect even more his loftiness and utter lack of vulgarity. Mr. Shen currently works in the China Merchants' Steam

ship Navigation Company. ... If there are those desiring

his work they may make payment at the Guxiang shi and

Manyun ge on [Jiujiang Road], Wang Yuancheng brush

shop on Painted Brocade Lane, or Zhuanshi lou [Hall of Faithful Transmission] bookshop on Fuzhou Road.

. . .61

The generic descriptions of Shen's refined nature are famil

iar and suitably reinforced by mention of his poetic talents,

yet other details, such as Shen's employment by the China Merchants' Steamship Navigation Company, place him firmly in modern Shanghai.62 Yet this advertisement may be most notable in that it largely consists of lists of names, beginning with the names and positions of the seven officials and end

ing with the names of four shops representing the calligra pher. The advertisement has been ostensibly placed by no

fewer than seven prominent artists, including the well-known

calligraphers Tang Xunbo and Wu Jutan and the famous

painters Zhu Cheng and Ren Bonian himself. Shen Pinqiu's advertisement is an extreme example of the testimonial in

action and the uses of fame?even if begged or borrowed?

for self-marketing. Despite his numerous professed connec

tions, nothing further is known about Shen Pinqiu. The artists mentioned above, all wishing to demonstrate an

elite standing based on their cultural accomplishments, are

thus careful to avoid any discussion of technical skill or

handiwork that would relegate them to the lower status of "craftsman" or "artisan."63 Advertisements placed by artists

valued for their technical skills tend to be more forthcoming about the goods for sale, as seen in examples placed by portrait painters:

Portraitist returns to Shanghai: My friend Mr. Yin Xiao

xia's son, Lisheng, is talented at portraits and his repre

sentations are complete likenesses. He packed his talents

and went traveling and this fall returns to Shanghai to stay on Baoshan Street at the Shusheng shop. The people and

gentlemen of [Shanghai] can observe his skills at "apply ing hairs to the jaw" [that is, portraiture]. Jia Yusheng announces this.64

The advertisement assures readers of the faithfulness of the

artist's portraits, focusing on his work rather than on his

social status and personal refinement (though, interestingly, Yin's ad also employs the testimonial format). Ironically, Yin

Lisheng (1836-1899) was better known than the majority of

artist advertisers. A native of Chenmu, near Suzhou, like his

grandfather, father, and son, Yin specialized in figure paint

ing and portraiture. By the 1890s, Yin was based in Beijing, where his portraits were in heavy demand.65 However, at this

stage in his career, Yin Lisheng had been working for almost

two decades as an itinerant portraitist, and Shanghai was

doubtless a regular stop on his route. Yin differs from other artist advertisers in another respect: one of his works can

actually be identified. This is the portrait of Yang Jixian (1893, Nanjing Museum). A rather perfunctory image, its survival is probably due to the identity of the sitter, who was

married to the prominent painter Wu Changshuo (1844 1927), and, even more important, to the identity of Yin's collaborator on the portrait, Ren Bonian, who furnished the

body and background of the image (Fig. 12). If Yin Lisheng is an exception to the general run of artist

advertisers, equally unusual is one final category of artist

advertisements: those placed by artists who were not Han

Chinese males. Shenbao represented a man's world and as

sumed that its readers were elite Chinese men (advertise

ments, for example, exclusively addressed readers as "gentle

men"); other evidence also suggests that the Shanghai painting world was predominantly masculine and Chinese in

identity.66 Advertisers who fell outside that category were

careful to note their conspicuous otherness. This included

female painters such as Shen Xiushan of Changzhou, who, like so many others, was a recent arrival in Shanghai. Shen

presents herself differently from her male colleagues; her ad describes her as simple and pure, quiet and reserved, all characteristics that carefully combine the stereotypically fem

inine and literary.67 Art advertisements also provide a glimpse

of foreign artists passing through Shanghai. For example, one ad announces the arrival of a "famous scholar" from

Japan named Danzhai, skilled in regular and running script.

Another, just as brief, explains that "a famous brush from

Korea," Yoon Kon, from a "good gentry family," was in Shang hai to sightsee and hoped to earn some money with his

calligraphy; he could be found at the third Yangjing Bridge, above the Taichang warehouse.68

Artists and Markets As a document of the Shanghai art world's commercial prac

tices, Shenbao's art advertising is particularly revealing of the new relationship it prompted and demonstrated between the

artist and a broad public. The interactions between producer and consumer as expressed in the advertisements was

a com

plex one, its dynamics readily recognizable from Pierre Bour

dieu's classic model of the market for symbolic goods. In

deed, many of the features of the late Qing Shanghai art

marketplace neatly parallel Bourdieu's characterization of

the autonomized artistic producer of the Industrial Revolu

tion and later who, with the rise of the daily press and

quasi-industrial methods of mass-producing art, encounters

an extended and anonymous public.69

Certainly, art advertisements were addressing and making

possible an expanded and democratized art market, enabling

buyers to make contact with the famous artist through the mass media and to acquire his or her goods in the form of accessible mass-produced reproductions. It then follows that

the changing nature of the art market, directed toward this




12 Yin Lisheng and Ren Bonian, Yangfixian, 1893, ink and color on paper, 53 37 in. (133.9 94.7 cm). Nanjing Museum (artwork in the public domain)

large and largely anonymous audience, necessitated a shift in how the artist interacted with and appealed to this audience. This was not an audience of connoisseurs and cognoscenti, and while more elite art consumers had not disappeared, these are not the buyers targeted by the Shenbao advertise

ments. Instead, this audience constituted an anonymous,

urban demographic, with a further emphasis on those buying according to trend and fashion. The latter is especially sug gested in the advertisements for Ren Bonian's Dianshizhai

produced designs and products: images that were themselves a form of mass medium that both referenced and generated an urban iconography. The newness of these images is evi dent in the careful instruction offered to readers by Dian shizhai advertisements on how to use and enjoy the products. And as much as the advertisements reveal the expansion of the market, this enlarged market was made possible by the

medium of newspaper advertising itself. Advertising was not the new phenomenon; what was new was the leap in the scale of advertising, which attained a national reach with the in troduction of the daily newspaper classifieds, a point made by the juxtaposition in the Shenbao masthead of advertising rates and a list of the many cities in which the paper was sold. Potential advertisers must have anticipated the substantial number of potential customers they could access in what was the only Chinese-language newspaper that enjoyed a national circulation through the 1880s.70

Art advertisements directed to this new audience needed to be able to transcend barriers of distance and firsthand

knowledge in order to persuade buyers to purchase some

thing they could not visually sample. This was especially true for lesser-known artists who did not enjoy the reputation of a

Ren Bonian. Yet in their advertisements, few of them high lighted the product at hand, choosing instead to delineate an

image and a persona that would be decipherable to the audience across this divide. Several artists, such as Chen

Yunsheng and Meiyin shanren, represent themselves as lite

rati, calling on the cultural prestige and authority associated with that particular role while simultaneously downplaying, even disguising, their other, very real, identity as producers and purveyors. Other artists elected to establish themselves in the eyes of future clients by identifying themselves as celeb

rities, recognized everywhere and thus everywhere in de mand. The indiscriminate invocation of the terms "famous master" and "famous scholar" are striking in these advertise

ments, particularly on the part of clearly obscure artists, who?rather transparendy?conjured up a vision of success

and desirability in the hopes of winning over potential buy ers. In all these cases, the decision to highlight the artist's rather than the artwork's qualities effectively presents the

paintings and calligraphies for sale not as concrete commod ities but as vessels filled with the rich rewards and associations of their producer's cultural capital.

The force of the particular persona of the celebrity artist is

apparent in the figure of Ren Bonian. For the audience and the art world, Ren personified the ideal of the famous artist.

He is a curiously ubiquitous presence in the art world as

portrayed through the classifieds. Readers repeatedly en counter his name in the many ads for Dianshizhai products and even in ads for other artists (for example, in a testimonial for Shen Pinqiu); his activities and appearances in other




sections of Shenbao served to cement and affirm his status. For his part, Ren's acute awareness of the importance for the

artist in generating a public image is evident in his many

images of the artist. The uncommon self-depiction he made for Dianshizhai huabao, aimed at that popular pictorial's large audience, is a knowing acknowledgment of his identity as a

public and contemporary figure. By inserting himself into a

typical Dianshizhai cityscape, he literally entered that jour nal's instructive discourse on city mores and showed the artist as the modern Shanghai urbanit?, on the move and on

display. The artist is also on view to the larger public in the far more conventional persona of the liter?tus in Ren's portrait of Chen Yunsheng for Renzhai huasheng, this time in line with Chen's own vision of the artist as erudite gentleman. Here, Chen is cast as the unworldly scholar, his rumpled aspect indicating his obliviousness to social conventions.

These portrayals of the artist, crafted for a larger audience,

may be contrasted with images of the artist that were in tended for a select audience of other artists. As Bourdieu

notes, an important audience for the artistic producer who is invested in the cultural legitimacy of his or her work must

necessarily be the audience of equals who are also competi tors and who are the ones that define the currency of sym bolic values. Ren Bonian's attentiveness to this personal au

dience of colleagues and rivals is apparent in his 1884 image Three Friends (Fig. 1), whose audience constituted the sitters themselves. The portrait's oscillation between recognition of commercial alliances and claims to purer cultural camarade

rie spodights the artist's own awareness of his position be tween the poles and also seems to suggest a calm balance between the two. However, Ren Bonian's internal conflict

over the twin demands of cultural authenticity and commer

cial practices became increasingly apparent with time. Dur

ing the later 1880s, his move away from the subjects and styles that had made his name to literati models and subjects points to a search for artistic legitimacy. He expressed dissatisfaction with his marketplace success to the closed circle of his inti

mates, most overtly in his 1886 adoption of a new sobriquet: "Huanu," or "Painting Slave." This unusual new identity was

formally commemorated by the seal he requested bearing the name from his friend Wu Changshuo (Fig. 13); Wu carved the seal and also composed the brief poem carved into the side of the seal, which begins:

Mr. Bonian's paintings achieve the extraordinary; Those seeking his paintings hound his heels. Without a moment of spare time, He calls himself "Painting Slave."

.. .71

In short order, Wu's poem sketches out a vivid image of Ren's avid clientele, shackling the artist with its insatiable requests, an intriguing parallel to the unruly audience that devours Renzhai huasheng to the detriment of its author. In his choice of sobriquets, framed in terms of economic disenfranchise

ment, Ren disavowed his commercial and popular success, and to a select audience of other artists he identified himself as the exhausted thrall of endless audience demands. Here he forgoes the equilibrium attained in Three Friends. Instead, the outraged critic of Shanghai commercialism is the artist

himself, and the sharp, dismissive, even misplaced reversion

13 Wu Changshuo, "Painting slave" seal impression for Ren

Bonian, 1886, location unknown

to fantasized traditional values hints at the bumpy transitions to the modern market system that underlay the smooth patter of the Shenbao classifieds.

Roberta Wue is assistant professor of art hhtory at the University of California, Irvine. She has published on photography, painting, and

advertising in nineteenth-century China; her current book project addresses relationships between artist and audiences in late Qing Shanghai [Department of Art History, 2000 Humanities Gateway, University of California, Irvine, Calif. 92697-2785, [email protected]].

Notes

Many thanks to Miriam Wattles for her encouragement, Jonathan Hay for

pointing me toward Shanghai, Loy Zimmerman for his generous expertise with the image, and to the anonymous Art Bulletin readers and Lory Frankel for their astute comments and suggestions. This essay is dedicated to the

memory of Professor Wu Pei-yi, reading director extraordinaire. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.

1. Ge Yuanxu's 1876 guidebook to Shanghai, Huyou zaji, states that fan

shops sold stationery (specifically, letter papers bearing artists' de

signs), pillar scrolls, painting supplies, and "every kind of fashionable round and folding fan," and that they also "represent those seeking the

painting and calligraphy of contemporary artists." Ge's book listed the most fashionable fan shops in both the foreign concessions and the Chinese city. Some fan shops reportedly provided artists newly arrived in Shanghai with work opportunities and a place to live. See Ge

Yuanxu, Huyou zaji [Miscellaneous Notes on Traveling in Shanghai] (1876; reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989), 19; and

Zheng Wei, "Shanghai shuhua jianshanye chenfu lu (Qing Daoguang zhi I960)" [A Record of the Rise and Fall of Shanghai's Letter Paper and Fan Shops (From the Qing Daoguang Era to I960)], unpublished paper, 1997.

2. The text lists the shop's offerings: "Jiuhua tang letter paper and fan

shop announces that we specialize in famous letter papers from every




province . . . account books, visiting cards, every kind of elegant fan from Suzhou and Hangzhou, [including] palm-leaf [fans] from Guang dong and Manchurian eagle plume fans. We also manufacture a large inventory of clean and purified pigments [including] blue and vermil ion; [and also sell] splashed gold folding screens, kesi [silk tapestries] for gifts to superiors, birthday banners, calligraphy and painting by fa mous masters, brocade mountings, specially prepared Japanese seal

paste, Huzhou brushes, and Anhui ink. All should be in stock. Those who wish to bestow their attention on us please come to the north sec ond road Qiujiang Road] to the south of Shanghai's Ball Field in the central market. . . ." My thanks to Jonathan Hay for pointing out the link between this advertisement and Three Friends.

3. See Alexander Des Forges's discussion of the significance of the figure of the broker in Shanghai literature, Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics

of Cultural Production (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007), 26, 114-18. Ren painted at least one other work for Zhu Jintang; see Ding

Xiyuan, Ren Bonian: Nianpu, lunwen, zhencun, zuopin [Ren Bonian:

Chronology, Theses, Artifacts and Works] (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 1989), 71.

4. For an overview of Shanghai painting, see Ju-hsi Chou and Claudia Brown, Transcending Turmoil: Painting at the Close of China's Empire, 1796-1911 (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 1992); for visual surveys, see Pan Shenliang, ed., Haishang mingjia huihua [Paintings by Famous

Shanghai Masters] (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1997); and Shan Guolin et al., eds., Haishang minghuajia jingpinji [Masterworks of Shang hai School Painters from the Shanghai Museum] (Hong Kong: Tai Yip, 1991). For an introduction to art patronage in Shanghai, see Kuiyi Shen, "Patronage and the Beginning of a Modern Art World in Late

Qing Shanghai," in Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s-1930s, ed. Jason C. Kuo (Washington, D.C.: New Academia, 2007), 13-27. The term

"Shanghai school" is not applied to artists in Shanghai working in for

eign media, such as oil painting. These artists also advertised in Shen bao, but next to nothing is known about them.

5. For other discussions of the consumption and commercial practices of art in late dynastic China, see Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991); Jonathan Hay, Shitao: Painting and Modernity in

Early Qing China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and

Ginger Cheng-chi Hs?, A Bushel of Pearls: Painting for Sale in Eighteenth Century Yangzhou (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).

6. Chinese-language Western-style newspapers first appeared in the nine teenth century, with many produced by foreign missionaries or mer chants. Native to China were the dibao or news dispatches issued by the court and dating from the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE); dibao sur vived into the late Qing in the form of the jingbao (sometimes called the Peking Gazette), the daily newsletter of court activities, which was

reprinted in the Shenbao. In my research, I have used the forty-volume reprint of Shenbao published in 1965 by Taiwan xuesheng shuju, in

cluding page numbers for clarification. The dates used correspond to the Chinese lunar calendar, with TZ denoting the Tongzhi era (1862 1874) and GX the Guangxu era (1875-1908). There is a large and

growing bibliography on Shenbao: see Xu Zaiping and Xu Ruifang, Qingmo sishi nian Shenbao shiliao [Forty Years of Late Qing Materials on Shenbao] (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1988); and also publications by scholars linked with the University of Heidelberg's Institute of Chinese Studies, including Rudolf Wagner, "The Early Chinese Newspapers and the Chinese Public Sphere," European Journal of East Asian Studies 1 (2001): 1-33; Natascha Vittinghoff, "Readers, Publishers and Officials in the Contest for a Public Voice and the Rise of a Modern Press in Late Qing China (1860-1880)," Toung Pao 87 (2001): 393-455; and Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for Chinai Power, Identity, and Change in

Shanghai's News Media, 1872-1912 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer

sity Asia Center, 2004). On Shenbao's art advertising, see the useful in dex Yen Chuan-ying, ed., Shanghai meishu fengyun, 1872-1949: Shenbao

yishu ziliao tiaomu suoyin [Art in Shanghai, 1872-1949: An Index of Arti cles, Reviews, Advertisements, and News Items Published in Shenbao

Newspaper] (Taipei: Zhongyan yanjiu lishi yuyan yanjiu suo, 2006). 7. According to Rudolf Wagner, Shenbao "carried the only public and seri

ous discussion of many public issues in China"; see Wagner, "The Shen bao in Crisis: The International Environment and the Conflict between Guo Songtao and the Shenbao,'" Late Imperial China 20 (June 1999): 108.

8. On Shenbao's encouragement of reader participation, see Natascha Vit

tinghoff, "Unity vs. Uniformity: Liang Qichao and the Invention of a 'New Journalism' for China," Late Imperial China 23 (June 2002): 113; also see idem, "Readers, Publishers and Officials," 443. An announce ment in Shenbao's inaugural issue stated, among other things, "If there are scholars inclined to letters and romance and poetry, who may wish to favor us with contributions, short or long, such as zhuzhi ci ["bam boo branch poems," informal poems on popular local themes, includ

ing famous sights, customs, and people], long songs and poems and stories, we shall publish them without charge. If anyone has notable addresses or essays which truly relate to the national economy, the peo

pie's livelihood, the cultivation of the land, and irrigation, conservancy, and the like, whether appertaining to the economic duties of the impe rial government or revealing the trials of the toiling common folk, these may be published in the paper." See Roswell S. Britton, The Chi nese Pmodical Press, 1800-1912 (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1933), 66.

9. Ellen Johnston Laing provides a brief history of pictorial advertising in China and notes our limited understanding of that history due to the lack of surviving examples; she also reproduces the earliest known ad vertisement from China, a Song dynasty (960-1279) printed wrapper for acupuncture needles. Laing, Selling Happiness: Calendar Posters and Visual Culture in Early-Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004), 11-20.

10. Walter Henry Medhurst, Curiosities of Street Literature in China (Shang hai: Shanghai Evening Courier, 1871), 14, reprinted in Medhurst, The

Foreigner in Far Cathay (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1873). For more on Shanghai advertising, see Jonathan Hay, "Notes on Chinese

Photography and Advertising," in Kuo, Visual Culture in Shanghai, 95 119. Shenbao ads also used language and visual conventions adopted from traditional shop signs; see Mittler, A Newspaper for China? 6.

11. When the paper began publication in 1872, rates were as follows: for ads fifty characters and under, the cost was 250 wen for the first day and 150 wen for the second; for longer ads, each additional ten charac ters was an extra 50 wen (the paper itself cost 8 wen). If the advertise

ment ran longer than a week, prices were reduced by half. See Shenbao, 6/14/TZ11 [July 19, 1872]: 537. Prices are difficult to convert; late

Qing China lacked a unified currency system, with even foreign coins such as Mexican dollars (valued for their high silver content) in circu lation. Yuan is often translated as "dollar," with a mao or jiao roughly equaling one-tenth its value, and wen and fen (or "cash" in period En

glish) usually translated as "cent." For some perspective on value, Christopher Reed quotes one source stating that a bowl of noodles in the late 1870s cost 8 cash; Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print

Capitalism, 1876-1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), 322 n. 54.

12. The many sights and pleasures of Shanghai's streets frequently consti tuted a topic of discussion, particularly in the numerous guidebooks published at this time. See Ge Yuanxu, Huyou zaji; Wang Tao, Yingruan zazhi [Miscellaneous Notes on Shanghai] (1875; reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989); and Huang Shiquan, Songnan men

gying lu [Record of Dream Images from Songnan] (Shanghai, 1883; reprint, Shanghai: Shangha guji chubanshe, 1989); as well as W. Mac Farlane, Sketches in the Foreign Settlements and Native City of Shanghai (Shanghai: Shanghai Mercury, 1881); and Bruno R. A. Navarra, The

Celestial "Boulevards " of Shanghai, or Foochow Road by Day and Night

(Shanghai: Shanghai Mercury, 1885). 13. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and

Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1991). 14. Ren Bonian's name appeared in Shenbao's literary pages as early as

1873, in a poem celebrating Shanghai's most prominent painters and

calligraphers (Shenbao, 12/13/TZ11 [January 30, 1874]: 1747). He was also frequently mentioned in guidebooks, including Ge Yuanxu's 1876

listing of Shanghai's most famous artists in Huyou zaji, 19.

15. Shenbao, 1/30/GX5 [February 20, 1879]: 16622; and 6/18/GX4 [July 17, 1878]: 15172. See also Roberta Wue, "The Profits of Philanthropy:

Relief Aid, Shenbao, and the Art World in Later Nineteenth-Century Shanghai," Late Imperial China 25 (June 2004): 187-211.

16. The term dianshizhai is a play on the aphorism dianshi chengjin, or "to touch stone and produce gold," originally referring to improving a

phrase in a literary composition but here playing on the profitable po tential of stone-based lithography. See Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai, 323 n. 67.

17. Lithography was reportedly brought to Shanghai by the Jesuit mission in the Shanghai suburbs of Xujiahui; Major is said to have hired away the Jesuits' master lithographer in order to found Dianshizhai. For

more on Dianshizhai as a publishing house, see Reed, Gutenberg in

Shanghai, 80-83, 104-16; see also Rudolf Wagner, "Joining the Global

Imaginaire, the Shanghai Illustrated Newspaper, Dianshizhai huabao," in

Joining the Global Public: Word, Image and City in Early Chinese Newspapers, 1870-1910 (New York: State University of New York Press, 2007), 105 73.

18. This interest may explain his founding of the first Chinese newspaper to be written in vernacular Chinese, Minbao, or The People's Newspaper,

whose target audience was the uneducated, specifically women, work ers, and children. His expansion into pictorial publishing may have also been rooted in a desire to reach this untapped market. See Vit

tinghoff, "Readers, Publishers and Officials," 450 n. 178.

19. Rudolf G. Wagner, "Shenbaoguan zaoqi de shuji chuban (1872-1875)" [The Early Publishing Activities of the Shenbao Publishing House], in

Wan Mingyu wan Qing: Lishi chuancheng yu wenhua chuangxin [The Late

Ming and the Late Qing: Historical Dynamics and Cultural Innova




tions], ed. Chen Pingyuan et al. (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002), 169-78.

20. An 1889 advertisement for one of Dianshizhai's retail outlets, located on the intersection of Nanjing and Xizang Roads, lists for sale "litho

graphed classics, histories, philosophical works and compilations; Chi nese and foreign maps; western language books; as well as rubbings, painting manuals, pillar scrolls and album leaves by famous men"; trans. Reed Gutenberg in Shanghai, 104-8.

21. Ibid., 157-58.

22. On the history of the Shanghai huapu, see Jonathan Hay, "Painters and

Publishing in Late Nineteenth-Century Shanghai," in "Art at the Close of China's Empire," ed. Chou Ju-hsi, special issue, Phoebus 8 (1998): 134-88.

23. It was not unusual for artists to distinguish their print designs from their painted oeuvre; obvious and important precedents for Ren Bon ian include Ren Xiong (1823-1857) and Chen Hongshou (1598 1652). For more on Shanghai art's urban iconography, see Jonathan

Hay, "Painting and the Built Environment in Late-Nineteenth-Century Shanghai," in Chinese Art: Modern Expressions, ed. Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 79 85.

24. Shenbao, 12/21/GX4 [January 13, 1879]: 16409. Another ad on the same page offers New Year's couplets for sale, printed in gold on cin nabar paper, sold for one jiao a pair and available from Shenbao's cash ier's office.

25. Shenbao, 4/30/GX5 [June 19, 1879]: 17079. "Screen scrolls" or "scroll sets," a popular Shanghai format, consisted of sets of four, eight, or even twelve scrolls, which when hung together formed large, almost mural-size works. "Reception hall paintings" refer to the large paintings that were the focal point of the formal sitting room used to receive

guests.

26. Shenbao, 6/7/GX5 [July 25, 1879]: 17135.

27. Shenbao, 10/28/GX7 [December 19, 1881]: 21461; and 11/28/GX7 [January 17, 1882]: 21693.

28. Shenbao, 6/7/GX5 [July 25, 1879]: 17135. For other examples of ads

listing prints for sale, see Shenbao, 9/1/GX5 [November 4, 1879]: 17951; and 6/27/GX6 [June 26, 1880]: 19135.

29. Shenbao 7/13/GX7 [September 6, 1881]: 20871. During the Qing dy nasty, one chi equaled approximately 14 inches, or 35.5 centimeters. This measure was subject to variation over time and place. See Wang Guanying's useful appendix on historical measures, in Hanyu da cidian

[Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary], ed. Luo Zhufeng, 13 vols.

(Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe, 1986-93), vol. 13, 3-7.

30. The production of printed facsimiles of paintings for earlier periods is not documented, though they must exist. Ren Xiong, probably a rela tive of Ren Bonian, also produced painting designs in woodblock form that were printed and mounted in scroll format. See James Soong and

Jung Ying Tsao, Chinese Paintings by the Four Jens: Four Late Nineteenth

Century Masters (San Francisco: Far East Fine Arts, 1977), 14.

31. Dianshizhai was not the only press to produce lithograp

selling the artist: advertising, art, and audience in nineteenth-century shanghai

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