International Association of Orientalist Librarians IAOL
Bulletin No. 44, 2000

While the oldest remaining photographs made in China date back to 1844 [1], it is quite probable that they were not the first ones to be made in the country. Photography was invented in 1839 and the process had spread rapidly over most of the world. In China, though, development before 1900 essentially remained limited to the Treaty Ports[2], a few scattered outposts along the coast and the Yangzi River. There Westerners created settlements in which they were allowed to live and conduct business, and where a Chinese population was in close contact with them. This is how nineteenth century photography thrived in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and, to a lesser degree, Canton, Beijing, Fuzhou and later Tianjin. However, it did not start spreading inland until the end of the century.

Commercial enterprises were started by Western and Chinese photographers alike. There were few amateur Chinese as scholarly traditions did not encourage study and practice of foreign technologies at this point in time. Consequently, Chinese photographers were operating almost exclusively in studios. On the other hand, foreigners were both commercial and amateur photographers. Commercial photographers were not viewed as important artists -- this is a modern concept -- but as small shopkeepers. All studios did portraiture, however until the late 1880s topography and scenes of daily life were mostly a Western field. By then the Chinese, who had forced the outsiders out of the market, started creating their own portfolio while at the same time copying older work.

Fig. 1 Group portrait of women in Fuzhou (some of them non-Han Chinese) ca. 1870 (click on image for a larger version; 270 KB)

Photography had arrived in China already loaded with traditions which were peculiarly its own, and all along the nineteenth century it remained an almost purely Western mode of expression. There were adjustments, however, and the most obvious ones are in portrait, which neither completely followed the Western nor any recognizable Chinese models, but created a model of its own which would last until the advent of the Republic in 1911.

Portraiture is actually the great genre of China photography, as it was in the rest of the world. Both Chinese and Western sitters visited the Treaty Port studios to have their portrait taken. There was one type of portraiture for Western sitters (the same as elsewhere) and another for Chinese ones [3]. A standard format had these sitting or standing next to a table with a handful of standard objects (tea cup, water pipe, vase of flowers or plant), often with a large vase on the floor, and striving to look their best for posterity. Contrary to what has often been stated, they perfectly understood that sitting slightly sideways made a good photo: portraits were displayed in studio windows, everyone was familiar with the type of images produced and would not insist on full frontality. And in fact, photographic portraits rapidly became a status symbol for local people as well as a proof of the now desirable modernity.

Fig. 2 Studio rendition of barber at work in South China, ca. 1870 (click on image for a larger version; 270 KB)

Fig. 3 Street scene in the Shanghai international concession; ca. 1880 (click on image for a larger version; 270 KB)

Some of the reasons for this were technical: while images created on glass plates are usually of outstanding quality, until 1880 processes did not allow photography of movement. They required a long exposure time impossible to obtain in real life. Furthermore, even where spectators were used to foreign ways, they were likely to interfere with the exposure process and ruin shots. This was done also because the scenes belonged to a general trend of descriptive records in which clarity was essential. People had to understand what was going on, and the only way to ensure this was by setting up the scenes for maximum efficiency, with every significant detail being clearly visible. Despite their artificial context however, comparison with later Acandid@ shots show that the early scenes are in general quite faithful to reality and can be used as reference tools.

Among the most popular subjects are small trades at work, such as barbers, hawkers of all kinds, ambulatory restaurants and other food-related subjects, transportation -- from wheelbarrows to sedan chairs and rickshaws or boats --, wedding or funeral processions and a number of other scenes that could be observed in the public space. Contrary to Japan in particular, China photography generally did not represent private scenes or even servants at work. In addition, the scenes, essentially created for the Western market, focused on Chinese life only.

Another important group of images shows landscapes and buildings. Again made for the West, it highlighted its presence and produced countless views of the Bund in Shanghai. However, it also produced many valuable images of Chinese buildings and landscapes. For example, photographs of Beijing focus on Chinese monumental architecture.

Events were recorded only later in the century, when photography of movement had become possible. They were, however, limited in scope until the advent of the portable camera about 1900. From this date on, the notions of discretion and flexibility were added to photography=s earlier qualities of efficiency and exactness.

Fig. 4 Temple fair in North China, ca. 1875 (click on image for a larger version; 270 KB)

However, a major problem with early photographs is that they are either found on fragile paper or still more fragile glass. Preservation issues aside, the still larger problem, especially in the case of materials on China, is constituted in the fact that the photographs in many - if not most cases - come without reliable identification of either place, date or a statement of authorship. Libraries and museums have struggled with the problem for years and most often have been unable to catalog them properly, if at all. Altogether, a corpus of tens of thousands of photographic records of late imperial China still await inventory and study. As a result, still now researchers need to spend an unreasonable amount of time in finding photographs in order to be able to use them for their research. However, awareness of both the size of the problem and of the need for a solution is growing, and we can hope that this very rich material will at long last become easily accessible for researchers of all disciplines of Chinese studies, including through the use of Web-connected databases.

©IAOL / Regine Thiriez