Lughnasa Waxing Artemis Moon
Two very different tours today: Peace Games with small children in globs of 15 or so for 15 minutes and a Matteo Ricci tour for Chinese folks. The first one is about fun, questions, seeking treasure and oh by the way this is art. In the first room I have, a collection of modern Japanese ceramics, not very promising for young kids, I’m going to have them look for something that looks like it came off an airplane and some flowers. Then, if they seem interested, we’ll put together a group story. In the next room there is a very cool piece in which an artist who is under pressure from the law is defended by characters from his prints. I’ll tell the story there. In the ukiyo-e gallery, we’ll be looking at netsuke. The kids will decide which one is most like someone in their life. In the next to last gallery I’ll tell the story of the Minamoto battles on the big screen, we’ll look at the samurai armor and swords. If there’s time, we’ll hunt for animals in the last gallery.
The Matteo Ricci is something completely different. This is an exhibit honoring a Westerner, Ricci, who visited China as a Jesuit, landing in Macao in 1583 and dying in Peking in 1610 while serving as court mathematician to the WanLi emperor. While in Peking, he created a huge map in six large panels, a map of the world, the first to use Western and Chinese cartography. Though Ricci had hundreds of these maps printed only 5 survived to the present day. At least that was what was originally thought. A London rare maps dealer found this map, the one on display at the MIA, in the collection of a private party in Japan. It’s discovery caused one map scholar to name it “the impossible black tulip.” The James Ford Bell Library at the university of Minnesota purchased it for $1,000,000. It will complement their collection which “documents the history and impact of international trade prior to ca. 1800 C.E.”
It represents an interesting historical nexus, reformation and enlightenment era Europe visiting China in the final years of the Ming Dynasty, at a point when the Chinese had turned away from sailing in the age of sail and had begun to deemphasize foreign contacts just as European traders from the Dutch and Britain began to show up alongside the earlier and better established Portuguese and Spanish. They were not alone. It was in the early 1600’s that Japan closed the country to foreign trade and foreign visitors.
The Wanli Emperor, the Emperor of Ten Thousand Calendars, was in the last years of his reign when Ricci finally made it to Peking becoming the first Westerner in the northern capital established by the Yongle Emperor in the 15th century. The Wanli emperor had started his reign well, executing military matters and administrative concerns with some skill. He became disenchanted, however, with the infighting and moral attacks back and forth among Neo-Confucian scholar officials. In response he essentially gave up the running of the country, leaving China with a faction fractured central government compounded by his imperial inaction. The effect was to remove China from the world scene just as European exploration, commercial avarice and technological advancements grafted itself onto Europe’s own imperial ambitions. The result of these two forces moving in opposite directions would change the course of world history, a change only now beginning to right itself from a Chinese perspective.
It was into this volatile mixture that Ricci brought European science, mathematics, art and, of course, religion. Ricci became a literati, a member of the scholar-official class, mastering Chinese and the mores of the governing class. His acceptance in those circles propelled him close to the Imperial court and found him buried in Peking after his death in 1610, an honor accorded to few Westerners. He did not, however, convince many Chinese to become Roman Catholics.
