My Art Canon

By James Wehn

Reports and photographs of the deadly clash between Uighur and Han Chinese have headlined international news the last several days. However, these are not the first images of ethnic conflict to have come out of Xinjiang. During the Qing dynasty,  Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799; reigned 1736-1799) issued an edict on July 13, 1765, commanding that a series of sixteen copperplate prints be made to commemorate his conquest of this region. The engraved prints, made in “the European style” by French artists, highlight pivotal battles and scenes of enemy surrender.

The image shown above is a detail from one of these prints, titled La Grande victoire de Qurnam (The Great Victory at Qurnam). It depicts a battle on February 3, 1759, when General Fude and six hundred Qing soldiers successfully liberated General Zhouhui’s camp, which had been besieged for months by an army of five thousand Muslim men. In this scene the Qing are armed with bows and arrows and wear short, round caps, while the Muslims wear tall hats with wide brims and fight with spears.

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By James Wehn

Wooded hills open to reveal a complex of bright white buildings that stretch across the plains of a broad valley. A domed shrine at the center of the compound stands above the other buildings. Its nobility is reiterated by a mountain rising majestically into the clouds, where upon the plateau, a temple sits between earth and sky, exposed to all the elements of nature.

At 140 x 40 centimeters (58.27 x 15.75 inches), this large ink and wash drawing is an architectural elevation for a Monument destiné aux hommages dus à l’Etre Suprême (Monument intended for tributes due to the Supreme Being) by French neo-classical architect, Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728 – 1799).

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By James Wehn

Moses stands among twelve men armed with swords and a variety of pole arms. Wearing the iconic dress of a biblical prophet, his long robe and red cloak contrasts the fifteenth-century clothes and armor worn by the men around him. The precise meaning of this anonymous drawing in the Thrivent Financial Collection of Religious Art is unclear. The scene is probably intended to illustrate a passage from the book of Exodus in a handwritten German bible. Calligraphy on the verso (back) of the paper is a passage where Moses instructs the Hebrew people to prepare for the last of God’s plagues on Egypt and to flee into the wilderness. However, because the drawing has been removed from it’s original context within a handwritten manuscript, it is impossible to determine whether this scene appeared before or after the verso text. The question remains: what is this scene intended to illustrate?

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