The Life of Christ by Chinese Artists: Paperback: 1944: Chinese Religious Art

Published by The Society for the Propagation of The Gospel, London, 1944. Paperback, 53 pages. Black & white images throughout.

CONDITION
Overall acceptable condition - see photos. Signs of wear/staining to paperback cover. Foxing to end papers. No names or writing. All images present and crisp & clear throughout.

WAR in China has made it impossible to find out many details about this series of pictures. They are a small selection from a very large number of photographs sent from Peking. The originals are believed to be in churches throughout China or in private possession. All are paintings on silk, carried out in the delicate colours and with the fineness of touch so characteristic of Chinese art.

They are the work of different artists, as can be seen from the varying signatures. The characters at the side of the picture give its subject and the artists's name in a square below. An Eastern artist rarely uses his own name on his work, therefore the signatures here tell little or nothing of the painters' identity.

It is said that a non-Christian who undertook a commission to paint a series of pictures of Gospel incidents was converted by his study of Christ's life. It has not been possible to verify the details or even to discover to which pictures the story refers, but there seems little doubt of its truth. Certainly the pictures are painted with rare delicacy and instinctive reverence.

Nearly every picture includes a tree, very often the bamboo so characteristic of China, and those which have no tree are noticeably more Western in design. Probably these artists are pupils of monks from the West. The richness of detail in many of the pictures will repay close study, especially these opposite pages 8, 19, 32, and 48.

Christ is generally shown in the surroundings of well-to-do Chinese life, for many artists would feel it is irreverant to picture the Lord in poverty. So the House at Bethany and the Upper Room of the Last Supper are richly furnished.

There is no picture of the Ascension, and the search for one has so far been unsuccessful.

It is hoped that other books of Our Lord's Parables and Miracles and incidents from the Acts of the Apostles will be published later, and that in them it will be possible to include the many details of the artists and their work which are lacking here.