Mastering techniques

The Hong Kong Museum of Art's new exhibition, Artistic Inclusion of the East and West: Apprentice to Master, provides a fascinating insight into the transmission of technical influences from Western to Chinese artists, providing salient examples of how Western art techniques were used by Chinese export artists.

The exhibition features 51 Chinese export paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries and works by Western artists, many of whom had travelled to China or settled in the vicinity.

Chinese export painting became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries when Western merchants had gained access to Guangzhou, or Canton, as it was known at the time. These paintings were created for clients in the West by Chinese artists.

Many of the paintings on display are by anonymous artists who produced portraits or landscapes after studying Western prints and who, to varying degrees, adapted these techniques into their own works and styles. The paintings are a mix of oil paintings, gouaches, watercolours, sketches and prints, most of which have been chosen from the Museum's Historical Pictures collection.

They include works by several major foreign artists including Britons George Chinnery and uncle and nephew Thomas and William Daniell, French artist Auguste Borget, and Macau-born artist Marciano Baptista.

The export artists include well-known artists Spoilum, a Chinese artist who worked in oils and who produced many portraits for Western clients, Tingqua, who specialised in gouaches and watercolours, and Lamqua, the renowned rival to George Chinnery.

The exhibition includes paired paintings comprised of Western works and paintings using the same or similar techniques that were created by Chinese artists.