Kaikodo Journal XI Spring 1999

In the Company of Spirits

Corresponding to the exhibition held between March 16 and April 17, 1999. 41 Chinese and Japanese paintings; 33 Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese objects (74 color plates). Preface by Howard Rogers. 319 pages.

Includes the essays:
Howard Rogers:
    “In Search of Enlightenment”
James Cahill:
    “The Emperor’s Erotica” (Ching Yuan Chai so-shih II)
Anita Chung:
    “The Life, Art, and Travels of Xugu (1823-1896)”
Arnold Chang:
    “After the Age of Auction: Chinese Painting in New York”

The essays in this volume are arranged in an 
order determined not by importance or even 
intrinsic interest but, to the contrary, on the 
simplistic basis of the relative chronological 
order of the topic. The first essay was occasioned 
by inclusion in this journal of a Yuan dynasty stone image of Sakyamuni (no. 69), 
the unusual iconography of which encouraged a 
more general treatment. The next essay, 
the second in a series we trust will prove as 
long-running as it is popular, presents James 
Cahill’s most recent discoveries in the area of 
urban studio painting, an aspect of later 
Chinese painting that is certain to become a 
standard feature of painting histories yet to come 
but one which was hardly noticed and never 
defined until it attracted the attention of Professor Cahill’s 
analytic and ever-inquiring mind. Entitled “The Emperor’s Erotica,” the essay 
explores the function and meaning of erotic 
albums in the upper reaches of Chinese and Manchu society and to define the important role 
in the creation of these works of art played by 
professional artists from the southern cities 
active in the capital.

This volume includes an important 
painting (no. 30) by the monk-painter Xugu, whose history since its creation in the 17th century can be followed continuously to the present day via the colophons 
on the painting. Dr. Anita Chung, at the time of the publication of this issue a professor at the University 
of Edinburgh and curator of Chinese art at the 
National Museums of Scotland and subsequently curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art,  and a specialist 
on Xugu, provided an especially illuminating essay on this fascinating artist. 
 In the final essay, Arnold Chang, who worked 
at Sotheby’s from 1979 until 1992, reflects on 
the years during which he was instrumental in 
creating both a greatly expanded international 
market for Chinese paintings as well as a 
specialty department at the auction house to 
serve the needs of this new clientele, this essay inspired by the diminishing activity in New York auctions in the area of Chinese painting. Lark 
Mason, at the time of publication head of Chinese Furniture at Sotheby’s 
is a true pioneer in his field being one of very 
few Westerners who have studied their subject 
in China as well as the West and whose 
judgments are respected world-wide. The zitan 
painting table being offered here as catalogue 
number 74 was sufficiently unusual to warrant 
special treatment, and Lark very agreed to write on the subject and did so with 
such facility and length that his comments 
almost constitute another essay.