'Brush And Shutter': Early Photography In China At The Getty Center In Los Angeles

A sepia-tone image of a street in Opium War-era Peking looks dusty and motionless like an Old West boomtown after a shootout. Guangzhou, not yet a global center for manufacturing, still appears courtly. Seeing one of the images in the Getty Center's "Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China," you have no doubt that life was more mundane for the people in the frame, but at the same time it's hard to believe we would have anything in common with them. The show, which closes May 1, draws from the Museum's large collection of Felice Beato photographs, supplemented by numerous Chinese artists who had just gained access to cameras. Many of the images are by now unknown photographers, which, despite their clear historical value, makes them seem even less real.

'Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, through May 1

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Felice Beato (British, ca. 1834-1907), photograph Charles Wirgman (British, 1832-1891), hand-coloring (attributed) House in Canton Guangzhou, April 1860 The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (2003.R.22)

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Felice Beato (British, ca. 1834-1907), photograph
Charles Wirgman (British, 1832-1891), hand-coloring (attributed)
House in Canton
Guangzhou, April 1860
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (2003.R.22)

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Comments

[Joshy X]

08:43 PM on 04/18/2011

MARCO!

[Billy Jack]

09:29 AM on 04/18/2011

The British, with their empirialistic drive, have decimated countless cultures

[Joshy X]

08:44 PM on 04/18/2011

whatever can empirialistic mean

[Pandoras Folly]

08:50 AM on 04/18/2011

Gotta respect the Chinese. Only Origin civilization still ticking: Anchient Egyptians gone, Mojin-Daro are dust, Sumeria see ya, and the New World Empires are no more. Only the Chinese kept going.

[LeeFisher]

11:33 AM on 04/18/2011

I think Chinese civilization today is quite different from 5000 years ago just like the new world empires you mentioned. The people from the new world empires did not disappear. The descendant generations of every society gradually change until you cannot recognize that civilization as the one from hundreds/thousands of years earlier. Many of the oldest cities in the world are in China, but the culture and regional borderlines for that matter have varied over time. In fact I just read in an article that Urban Chinese populations are reaching their highest levels ever in ratio with rural populations. The percentage of the population living in cities as apposed to the countryside in thirty years may be as high as 60% according to some projections. That is different from the entire history and prehistory of Chinese civilization. I guess my point is that, I don't know what you mean by Origin Civilization.

[Pandoras Folly]

01:12 PM on 04/18/2011

many different criteria have been mentioned for what "civilization means" , origin meaning the first: farming, massive civil projects, continousish language and culture, urban centers, specialization of work, and most importantly record keeping for future generations to reference. These basic elements form the fundamental backbone of civilization. The Chinese are the ones with greates level of contemporary continuity of all of the early civilizations and the ones still hanging on.

No one speaks ancient egyptian or worships marduk, heck we almost forgot about mojin daro entirely. True vestiges of the Fertile crescent cities were held all the way up untill current day, but not like in china. The New World empires ceased to exist once the Spanish took them over and enslaved them. While their languages kept on their cities died, trade networks fell apart. Heck the incans forgot how to read their knot writing, Knot writing fascinating and original look it up absolutly incredible stuff.

[allperils]

02:56 PM on 04/18/2011

You need to learn more about Civilizations before making such a comment Sir.

If you time warped a Chinese citizen from 1500 to present, and asked him to point out where Beijing was on the map, he could probably do so with some precision. Actually, the capital back then was Nanjing.

That person would speak the same language, read the same characters, and probably cook up the same food as what most Chinese eat today (minus the KFC).

Yes, the Greeks also have an intact civilization, but they're about to go bust, one could hardly call that a "great" civilization.'

Like it or not, the Chinese have done something many civilizations failed to do.

[NoMercy]

05:54 AM on 04/18/2011

These photos are from the same era that many of the Chinese who settled on the west coast of North America came from. In the various "Chinatowns" of San Francisco and Vancouver (I don't know Seattle, does it have one?), you find a lot of the old traditions going back to imperial times.

[osofar]

04:10 AM on 04/18/2011

I really like the old photos of China. So much of the old has been destroyed making modern China look western, with sterile buildings...instead of buildings with real character (that have been mostly destroyed).

[Amalek]

07:44 AM on 04/18/2011

I live in Beijing.  Within two minutes I could take you to something that looks identical to the first photo.

[allperils]

02:58 PM on 04/18/2011

I visited Beijing in 2009, every street corner has an old building, with volumes of history behind those walls.

You obviously have never saw an OLD city.

[LeeFisher]

02:10 AM on 04/18/2011

Chinese classical music at this time:

http://www.rhapsody.com/album/ancient-classics-of-qing-dynasty-1644-1911-ad-ping-sha-luo-yan-qing-gong-yuan-1644-1911-nian?artistId=art.11359280

Chinese folk music no date specified:

http://www.rhapsody.com/album/folkways-and-customs-of-the-chinese?artistId=11359280

[LeeFisher]

02:14 AM on 04/18/2011

Of course the folk music in the recording is being played out of context with classical instruments, but if you can find recordings of Chinese folk music from the past I would love to hear it.

[LeeFisher]

02:24 AM on 04/18/2011

Folk music is a hard thing to capture.

[loki]

11:16 PM on 04/17/2011

they should have photos and museums set up for the Chinese slaves who helped build this country and were treated like cattle in this country. Its because the Chinese people are proud and strong that they dont speak out like other known slaves have, so the powers that be continue to ignore and step on them. Hopefully someday there will be a Chinese History month, A Chinese organization with the clout of the NAACP, and more benefits similar to those of other past slaves in America.

[John Melgar]

11:34 PM on 04/17/2011

they were not slaves they came on their own free will. dont blow things out of perspective

[AcaciaJules]

12:42 AM on 04/18/2011

Umm, you do know that China was ruled over by a different race, right? Manchurian. They are different from the main population of Chinese, and ruled over China, and were its elite class for centuries. Everyone else was kept down, and worked for them.

Take East Asian history and learn something. Ignorance is sad.

[supermoon2011]

07:35 AM on 04/18/2011

But it's alright to treat them like slaves?

[MMRDO]

12:18 AM on 04/18/2011

Life was hard for all the immigrants.

[SueEll]

09:37 AM on 04/18/2011

Life is still hard for immigrants.

[moogaloog]

10:06 PM on 04/17/2011

why does the twitter link say "The first time the West saw China" ?? that's completely inaccurate.

[NoMercy]

05:56 AM on 04/18/2011

It puzzled me too. I take it to mean the first time the West "saw" China, as in a photograph, and in the West, as opposed to hearing stories brought back, like Marco Polo and earlier travelers.

[Amalek]

07:48 AM on 04/18/2011

First time a western photographer saw China perhaps.

[tucsoncindy]

09:16 PM on 04/17/2011

Love the old Photos. My great grandfather and mother were married in China
in the early 1900's. Don't know what happened to the old pictures we had.

[HanMeiRen]

10:15 PM on 04/17/2011

I wish the American public have a better understanding of China and how the Chinese people still remember the goodness of the Americans for the past compassion and help to a poor and desperate people even though the CCP propaganda rarely mentions that part of the history.

While the other 7 nations happily took home the loot bags of the Boxer compensation, in early 1900s, the Americans put aside significant portion of the money to build schools and hospitals in China, and to educate Chinese in the United States itself. The Chinese pupils educated in the US became the elites of then modern China and they, collectively, have had a profound impact on the Chinese society that lasted to this very day.

Do you know that the current president of China graduated from a school built by the Americans with the Boxer fund?

[innerpuppie]

10:23 PM on 04/17/2011

And - look what's happening now - they want to bury us.

[Ravenlea]

10:30 PM on 04/17/2011

It really is a shame that in a world where open communication is so possible, so little takes place on all sides that isn't propaganda. Thanks for sharing this. I didn't know the information about the Boxer compensation. It's nice to hear it.

[katooom]

08:55 PM on 04/17/2011

reckon we can get the Chinese to come over and build our railroads again? - maybe the high speed railroads this time.

[HanMeiRen]

09:22 PM on 04/17/2011

Sure. You can still do it.

You will get it built for a fraction of the price. But you would have people cursing the lowly Chinese for taking their job away.

[allperils]

03:08 PM on 04/18/2011

Nah, Americans would rather build more Tomahawks fire them, and the teachers together.

[mike72]

09:59 PM on 04/17/2011

Back then, the Chinese were devastated by civil wars and Opium. You can get them so cheap and make them work in the worst condition.

Now, with the industrialization and the land grabbing, there are still hundreds of millions of Chinese living in the worst condition out there. You can still get them so cheap and make them work in the worst condition.

Not much changed.

[supermoon2011]

07:47 AM on 04/18/2011

Have you read the Forbes magazine on the new billionaires from China? Guess so.. you didn't.

[Cougar31]

08:54 PM on 04/17/2011

How eerily similar to pictures of Gaza today!

[mike72]

08:48 PM on 04/17/2011

Last time I visited Great Britain, and I was watching those people walking on the streets. And I can not help but realize that their great grand parents were out around the world spreading the worest virus that were ever known to humans, be it Pol*.io to Native Americans, fever to Indians or Opiums to Chinese.

And in between, total genecides spread across the South East pacific islands.

For such a sin at such magnitude, if there is really a G**OD, he must be one lousy Brits.

[HanMeiRen]

09:13 PM on 04/17/2011

Funny I was thinking something along the similar lines when I walked on the streets of London last time. I was mostly thinking about the cruel imperial colonization and forcefully feeding opium to the Chinese.

[BillKen]

10:15 PM on 04/17/2011

Gotta watch for the 'old white men' and their grandiose ideas. Semper Fi

[deluk]

04:24 AM on 04/18/2011

and where did you visit GB from, the USA, the greatest piece of stolen land on Earth?...incidentally during the whole spread of the British empire I doubt whether Britain managed to dispose of as many innocents as the USA did in south east Asia in the 1960's.

hypocrisy the ultimate American vice.

[mattsm84]

07:05 AM on 04/18/2011

So more innocent people we killed by Americans during the Vietnamese Civil War than were killed by the British Empire during the entirety of its existence, directly or indirectly? Is this one of those statements that isn't supposed to be true, or are you just lashing out because you don't like people saying bad things about your country. If its the later, than you can rest assured that most of those thing that he mentions were either done by accident, most of the people involved had no idea what germs were for instance, or by corporate proxies like the British East India Company. A young William Gladstone and Lord Palmerston found the Opium trade and wars to be incredibly revile. That said you should both be aware that the Chinese hold all westerners equally accountable, although in my opium anybody who spends a ton of time feeling guilty over the opium trade probably ought to get a hobby or a girl friend or boy friend.

[mike72]

08:44 PM on 04/17/2011

In less than 30 years, Opium has reduced China from the richest nation on earth into the poorest.

Thank you very much, F>>****** Brits.

[HanMeiRen]

06:15 AM on 04/18/2011

Apply that lesson to the US today.

Lock up the drug dealers! If it is individual then there is prison; and if it is a nation, destroy it if persuasion does not work.

[shirleyfeeney]

07:38 PM on 04/17/2011

Poorly written copy or not, the exhibit seems interesting. I'd go see it. And take my kids.

[PrairieGayCompanion]

04:24 PM on 04/17/2011

This could well have been sub-titled "How Chinese Stereotypes Began". I have seen far better photographic history of China. There were museums in Hong Kong when I was there that had great historical photos. The photo of the "coolies" was clearly a posed photograph in front of backdrop. Having not seen the entire collection, perhaps these are photos selected by the author of this piece and are not truly representative of the exhibit. Let's hope so.

[Collin Hawkins]

07:37 PM on 04/17/2011

That picture was taken by a Chinese. History and art are history and art, modern concerns for political correctness shouldn't whitewash the show (in fact, it adds a layer of interest). These photos are better than the ones on display at the museums in HK.