B.A.Hons. Fine Art Painting Thesis

Landscape Painting in China and Italy
during the late 13th Century

Marco Polo is known in the East and the West as the first European to write his exciting adventures of China. His experiences are described in a book called ‘The Travels of Marco Polo, A Venetian in the Thirteenth century’ the text is a description, of remarkable places and things, in the Eastern parts of the world. His journey in 1271 to China happened at a time of great change for the people in China and Italy.

I will use his travels as a backdrop to consider how the changes were affecting artistic production at the time, for the artists back in Italy, and those in China. During this time the Mongolians were ruling China and it was called the Yuan Dynasty. The artists that I shall focus on all lived in or around Soochow a city known as the Venice of the East. These artists were known as The Four Great Masters of the Yuan Dynasty. They are Huan Kung-Wang, Wang Meng, Wu Chen, and Ni Tsan together they wrote the Wen-Jen system of landscape painting that instructs the artist to work on his own inner journey of self expression.

I will also focus on Marco Polo’s Renaissance Italy and two of the most famous Italian artists of his time. I will begin with Ambrogio Lorenzetti known as the first westerner to paint a landscape painting. He was commissioned in 1337 by the government of Sienna, the Great Council of the Republic of Sienna. The work is called Allegory of the Good and Bad government and its Effects on the City and the Countryside.

Allegory of the Good and Bad government and its Effects on the City and the Countryside.By Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1337

Allegory of the Good and Bad government and its Effects on the City and the Countryside.By Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1337

My second artist Giotto di Bondone is considered to be the first artist to bring landscape backgrounds and emotion to the stories in his frescoes. He received many commissions to paint for the Catholic Church. I will focus my attention on his frescoes of the life of St Francis of Assisi.

This was a time of great political and economic change in both countries, and by discussing the art works of these artists the different ways of responding to the Social and political pressures will be examined and the findings shown.

In the East and the West a new spiritual awakening was also being experienced by the artists as paintings of nature and landscapes were executed for the first time in Italy and in a fresh new way in China.

My interest in this subject stems from having been a silk haute couturier and silk trader in the Venice of the East Soochow from 1974 until 1990. The embroidery that I commissioned in Soochow was also based on landscapes.

Landscape embroidery

Venice of the East and the West

Marco Polo was born into a very wealthy Italian family in Venice in 1254 at a time when the political power and prestige of Venice was greatly increasing. When Marco Polo was three years old his father and uncles sold the family’s assets in Constantinople, invested in jewels and set off for China on the silk route.

They met the Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan 1 214-1 294 in Peking who was extremely interested in western politics and the church. His mother Sorghaghtani Beki was a Christian who had taught him sound administration. He was willing to try Christianity as a means of holding together his vast empire. He asked many questions on the teachings of Jesus. He wanted their opinion on which branch of Christianity united the people and achieved the most good. The Kublai Khan sent them back to Italy requesting that the Pope send one hundred priests to China. But years of Crusades, and scheming cardinals had left the Catholic church short of good men. The Pope sent three.

On his father’s return to Venice, Marco Polo was told that in a few months {it would be three years} they would be leaving to return to China. He was now fourteen and one of the rich young men of the town, Marco Polo describes the young men in Venice In his own words;

“who paraded through the city like peacocks with tight fitting hose, stripped silk doublets embroidered in real gold thread, with fancifully decorated belts, slashed sleeves tied at points by ribbons with puffs of white linen, and red jewelled caps pulled low over one ear, and long hair tied in a ribbon” 1.

As Marco Polo walked around Venice he would observe the marvels of the hard working artisans. These artists were not known by name and given no social privileges. Even the designer of the breathtakingly beautiful mosaics of St Marks Basilica is not known.

“There were busy workshops everywhere. There were potteries and studios producing exquisite porcelain There were leather factories, iron founders and boatyards silk weavers jewelers and goldsmiths. The mosaicists were skilfully piecing fragments together of coloured marble, held together by paste made of lime and powered brick.” 2

This was a blossoming economy trading with Europe and the East and fast becoming politically powerful. Marco Polo’s ability for social anthropology would later be capitalized on by the Kublai Khan who would employ Marco Polo to travel China to observe and report on the trade, and on the political activities of his Chinese subjects.

Venice was considered the most beautiful and ostentatious town in Italy with her canals lined with palaces of exquisite marble decoration, with the Palaces filled with art works and treasures of every kind. The rich started to collect the most impressive paintings in their palaces and churches; and decorate their walls and themselves in the most beautiful and rare imported gold embroidered silk textiles.

Soochow in China is also known as the Venice of the East. It is situated South East of Peking, in the Chiang-nan region which is not only considered to be the most scenic and climatically comfortable , but is also economically in the richest part of China. It is a town of waterways, trade and commerce. One of her main crafts is silk weaving and embroidery, and the Imperial Court textiles were designed and made here. Trade with the west has a long history, and these best quality silks, often embellished with real gold embroidery, were chosen for export.

Soochow had the most beautiful walled gardens of all China. A little known fact is that outside the town, up in the mountains are landscapes of breathtaking scenery. Soochow has a long history of being the home of the most famous politician artists, who were also philosophers, poets and writers, the wealthy educated elite, the aristocrats of China. Soochow under the Yuan Dynasty of the Mongolian Gengis Khan, had undergone vast changes the wealthy had become poor and the poor starving or dead, the town taxed and raped of her valuables, and her gardens in ruins. This was the state in which Marco Polo found Soochow on his visit there. His chief point of interest was the rhubarb, which was then, and still is, one of the main sources of trade in West Kansu.

The situation of the painters in these two cultures at the time of Marco Polo’s journey.

When Marco Polo arrived in China the most violent conqueror in all history, the millions-murdering Gengis Khan had died. It was he who had banned the Chinese politician-artists from court life, and sent them back to Soochow. His grandson the Kublai Khan was now ruling China, all the infrastructures of good government were in decline and he invited the politician-artists to return to court.

They had been through a period of humbling, a time of poverty, physical hardship and philosophical training, few chose to return to a life of political power. They were experiencing a new external and inner spiritual freedom that resulted in the rules and regulations of painting undergoing vast changes.

“Understanding the achievements of the Yuan masters then is as crucial to the study of later Chinese painting as is understanding the Renaissance to the study of painting.”3

It was also a period of intense cultural creativity in the arts and a new door had been opened for the uneducated or amateur artist. Only the wealthy elite had painted before: they had believed it was an activity which was only valuable as a form of aristocratic self-cultivation. Their paintings were kept as national treasures and viewing of the scrolls was only for the aristocrats. Landscape Painting, nature and images of nature were now given greater importance in the late Yuan Dynasty. The Four Great Masters who led this change took refuge in and around Soochow. This time of less than 40 years 1 31 4-1 354, was one of new individualism and innovation. They were hermits high in the mountains where they communed with nature, using this crisis time to think write and paint a time of self development.

The situation of artists in Italy was very different from the Chinese artists. In Italy they had always been considered as the simple craftsmen of the lower classes working in guilds, without special merit and little attention was paid to the person’s name or any creative work the individual may have achieved.

The changing economic times of state and catholic church wealth, and new political powerful parties, brought the opportunity to impress and control the people.

Patronage by the church and state became the new way and a new door opened for the Italian artists. As few people could read, the art works were intended to educate and politically control them. The new door was open for talented artists, they could become influential and wealthy and the artists name could become famous in Italy.

The western artist was however not free to paint his own choice of subject. That would be dictated by the patron and if at any time he did not please his patron he could fall out of favour and possibly lose his reputation and therefore his ability to win commissions and earn his income.

China The Four Great Masters of the Yuan.

Returning to China the Four Great Masters they were recognized as men of courage and humility. They were friends who loved a debate and discussion over a glass of wine. Although on different spiritual paths they practiced the art of communicating on a philosophical level composing and adding their own insightful writings in poem form to the sides of their scroll paintings which were worked on silk, and fine hand made paper and painted with freshly ground black red and turquoise inks.

Huan Kung-Wang

Huan Kung-Wang (1269-1354) is known as the Impressionist artist, He painted evocations of the landscape with calm sensitive strokes. He was a scholar poet philosopher artist and musician. He was born 30 miles northeast of Soochow in Ch’ang-shu, at seven he was considered a child prodigy and was adopted, he passed easily the difficult Imperial examinations. Then he started his career with the Government in Soochow. While investigating irregularities in tax collection, he was implicated in a fraud case and imprisoned. Upon his release he became a professional diviner, wearing Taoist clothes, inferring his government career was now over.

In 1334 In Soochow he opened a Hall of Three Doctrines incorporating Taoism in its original philosophical form and some elements of Confucianism, and Ch’an Buddhism. The main study was of Hsing-Ming which is man’s inborn qualities and his destiny. Taoism in the Six Dynasties time had stimulated the idea of landscape painting and the idea of communing with nature.

In Huang Kung-wang’s last years he lived in the Fu-ch’un mountains west of Hangchow, where he did two of his most celebrated works at the age of seventy-two.The Stone Cliff at the pond of Heaven it was painted near Soochow on Mount Hua. ‘Dwelling in the  ‘Fu-ch’un ‘Mountains,  it was painted on a long hand scroll. It is one of the most influential landscape paintings in all of China’s history.

Huan Kung-Wang wrote the thirty six ‘Secrets of Landscape Paintings’ here is number thirteen.

‘Carry around a sketching brush in a leather bag, then when you see in some scenic place a tree that is strange and unique, you can copy it’s appearance then as a record. It will have an extraordinary sense of growing life. Climb a tall building and gaze at the spirit resonance of the vast firmament. Look at the clouds they have the appearance of mountaintops! When the ancients speak of Heaven opening forth pictures, this is what they mean’.4

Wang Meng

Wang Meng was known for his imaginary and prophetic art work. He was born in 1308 and died in prison in 1385. He was the grandson of Chao Meng-fu, the leading artist of the earlier Yuan days.

Wang Meng’s poetry was passionate and spontaneous his writings extremely critical of the laws and rules of bad government he was brilliantly able to express his philosophy in his own style of painting and poetry.

Impressed by his skill Hung-Wu, who became the Ming Emperor in 1368, invited Wang Meng to go to his retreat hideaway in Huang-hao-shan and this is the mountain often seen in his paintings. In 1360, at the age of 52, Wang Meng came down to live in Soochow rejoining the literary and artistic crowd. Having lived with the future Emperor, he was aware of his violent and controlling personality he realised that if he was made Emperor he could bring a bloody purge; which happened when most of the notable literati of Soochow were accused of being traitors and were put to death in 1385.

Wang Meng’s paintings understandably show feelings of resentment and anger. In 1366 at a great gathering of notable literati of Soochow he painted for his host ‘Dwelling in the Ch’ing-pien Mountains.  We see the tiny hermit figure meditating at the bottom of the dark over whelming rocky mountain creating a heavy brooding prophetic sense of tragedy. These are his instructions on nature painting explaining how to express ones feelings.

“THEREFORE WHEN IT COMES FROM HAPPINESS & JOY THE BRANCHES ARE CLEAR-CUT & SLENDER & THE FLOWERS POISED & CHARMING; WHEN IT COMES FROM WORRY & SORRY, THE BRANCHES ARE SPARE & BARE & THE FLOWERS HAGGARD & CHILLED. WHEN IT COMES FROM RESENTMENT & ANGER, THE BRANCHES ARE ANTIQUE & ECCENTRIC THE FLOWERS, WILD & VIGOROUS”.
WHEN FEELINGS ARE DEPLETED MOUNTAINS LACK COLOUR: 5

Wu Chen

Wu Chen (1280-1 354 ) the third great master was considered to be a Naturalistic artist. He loved living in the mountains, a natural hermit in the same way as the Italian St Francis of Assisi, his simple easy style focused on a more naturalistic records of topography and of man, animals, birds, and fish in nature, with small touches of humour in his paintings and writings.

Wu Chen’s painting of  Two junipers dated 1328 show trees full of survival strength with twists of growth that have been challenged by the stormy windy weather. I believe they express Wu Chen’s own response to the physical and mental storms of life. How he has allowed life to sculpt him, but not to stop his growth by accepting whatever challenge heaven had thrown at him.

In his painting ‘Fisherman he shows a man who is very aware of the time and his place in the landscape but who makes an informed decision to change direction. The tree bends over the water as if trying to capture and keep him, as he uses all his strength to return home. It is accompanied by this poem entitled Fisherman’s Song.

TO THE WEST OF THE VILLAGE OF RED LEAVES,
THE LAST LIGHT OF THE DAY IS LINGERING.
BY THE SAND BANK OF THE GOLDEN REEDS,
THE FAINT VESTIGE OF THE MOON JUST APPEARS.
SO LIGHT-HEARTEDLY PULL THE OAR, AND LET’S RETURN;
HANG UP THE FISHING ROD, AND FISH NO MORE.

Ni Tsan

Ni Tsan (1301-1374) is the last of the four and the best known. He was recognised as a spiritual artist, with a bland subtle painting style which is easily recognised.

At the age of twenty seven on the sudden death of an older brother he became heir to the family fortune. He built a great library filling it with rare books and paintings. Famous and wealthy scholars came from all over China, they would drink wine and compose poems. He was proud and arrogant and extremely rude to those who he considered did not merit his friendship. He figures in many stories mostly about his obsession for cleanliness. This could be considered an outward sign of inner turmoil of consciousness.

One story tells how Ni spends the night with a famous courtesan Chao Mai-erh but because he passes the whole time in making her bathe over and over, the sun raises without any “dreams of Mount Wu” having occurred and Ni pays her for nothing.

At 40 years of age he started to change his life with the process of freeing himself from his wealth, political and social influence by carefully giving all his property and assets away and by breaking the ties with his debauched life.

Ni Tsan’s style of painting like his life’s assets had become less and less. He now lived by wandering in a boat on rivers, he paints abstracted landscapes with vast empty spaces. Paintings without people or exotic pagodas, or imposing mountains, and the shorelines have become less adorned. His style is clearly shown in ‘Woods and Valleys of  Yu-Shan’ a few bare trees and a hut in an austere landscape where the calm silence is undisturbed by Man.Ni Tsan although now leading a hermit life, continued to visit Soochow to discuss and write with his three friends about the new ways they were thinking and painting. Together they wrote: The Wen-Jen Painting System.

The Wen-Jen Painting System,

Written by The Four Great Masters Huan Kung Wang, Wang Meng, Wu Chen, Ni Tsan

1. Individuality of expression the style mirrors the character of the artist.

2. The inseparable nature of painting and calligraphy as expressed in the written picture and union of extensive inscriptions with picture. 3. Disinterest in the appearances of nature allied to the demand for a written equivalent to the natural form.

4. Suppression of the decorative character of painting and hence a lack of interest in striking compositions.

The main achievement of these Yuan innovators is their concern with freely painting from the heart mind and soul as an expression of where the artist stood in his world. They must convey their own inner truth by painting in a way they had developed to express their own inner eye, the aim was to be free from the art critics and the cultural influences of their time. The four Great Masters paintings were not to be discussed as decorative or historical pieces. These were four men who shaped the pattern of the arts in China. The Wen -Jen painting system of the Yuan literati then and still now forms the theory of Chinese landscape painting.

The Italian Artists

Back In the Italy of Marco Polo’s childhood artists and craftsmen had not been known by name and had no influence or position in society. The greatly improved economy was the catalyst for change. Now we have the sort-after celebrity artist who was patronised by the wealthy Catholic Church, heads of State, and by the newly emerging prosperous powerful political bodies.

Giotto di Bondone

Giotto di Bondone was born around 1266 in a town called Colle he was from a poor rural family of peasant origins, and died age 70 in 1336. One story goes that Cimabue saw him sketching sheep and invited him to his studio, Cimabue became his mentor and gave him the tools and the platform to receive commissions. It is also thought he learned a great deal that from artist Roman Pietro Cavallini. In the Divine Comedy written by the Italian poet Dante he mentions Giotto, in the context of how earthly glory measured against eternity passes more quickly than a blinking eye; the book is about a journey which begins in a dark wood and near the end sees out of the wood, a lady picking flowers with which her whole path is embroidered.

Giotto was the first western artist to open up a new sense of space. His figures were placed in a spatial context for the first time. This was to lead him to receiving a vast amount of Church commissions for painting frescoes all over Italy.

In a sense Giotto was the master of the whole school of painting in Italy. His influence was that he changed the character of the Florentine school of painting and determined it’s direction during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century’.

Fresco is one of the most important techniques of painting. In the thirteenth century this type of painting was done by spreading a layer of plaster called arriccio on the wall. The artist then traced his design with a red ochre colour called spinopia, then over this was spread by his assistant another thin transparent layer called plaster finish, then came the artists colours as it came into contact with the fresh lime and the air, the colour dried and stained the plaster and became inseparable from the wall. Later Giotto developed the process of a life size drawing being made first on paper, tiny holes were then punched on the lines and then the cartoon was pressed against the wall for the carbon powder to be pressed over the holes to leave an outline on the wall. This is the same process I used for my silk embroidery in Soochow. I would draw and paint the designs and my assistant would prick the waxed paper.

Giotto was commissioned to paint scenes from St Francis of Assisi’s life. Giotto first studied the life of St Francis, who had chosen a hermit life in a forest in a small shack he made himself from the materials in the forest. Giotto’s admiration for St Francis is shown in the way he choses to paint him as a strong bold hero. Giotto brought life and emotion to the people’s faces he painted, just as St Francis did with his gentle loving and humorous personality.

Giorgio Vasari in 1 511 wrote of Giotto, painters owe to Giotto the same debt they owe to nature, which constantly serves them as a model and whose finest and most beautiful aspects they are striving to reproduce and imitate.

When Giotto painted his backgrounds they were no longer all gold, in the Byzantine style, they were well researched and full of delightful details that explained the story. Giotto had a great ability to respond to his commissions and with his studious nature of thinking things through before he began, he was able to paint so the viewer most of whom were illiterate had an opportunity to understand the spiritual message.

This was a far more approachable treatment of spiritual images than any artist before him. As we can see in Saint Francis Preaching to the birds.

In 1220 on a trip to Venice St Francis had stopped for a break in the countryside just outside the city, as he taught the joy of knowing the love of Jesus the marsh birds sang along with him. His joy and passion for nature was often expressed: when finding an abundant field of flowers, or seeing animals and birds, he would sing and thank God for everything. This was a main part of the St Francis legend his love of all creation, including trees, the earth, and the sky. Giotto’s frescoes of St Francis are amongst the first paintings that include landscape, with their trees, mountains, skies, and clouds.

Giotto is considered to be the greatest of all Italian Gothic painters, because he was the one who made the break with the stiff conventions of the Byzantine style of painting. He chose his own creative path of visionary art building on his past experiences of sketching nature.

He was extremely studious always going for new ideas to nature herself and so he could rightly claim to have had nature rather than any master as his teacher.

In this painting of St. ‘Francis Stigmatization of St Francis is the vision spoken of by St Francis to his faithful assistant brother Massero, when Jesus appeared to him under the guise of a crucified Seraph.The angel impressed the stigmata of the cross on St Francis. The Seraph angel has 6 wings, and Giotto’s fresco is the only one I know to have painted correctly the number of wings on a Seraph angel.

Giotto’s landscape and city backgrounds of his frescoes were a totally new way of Italian realistic expression seen here in ‘Renunciation of Worldly Goods [fig 8.] In this painting When St Francis preached to the Venicians to change their lives to leave behind their most valued possessions, their wealth and political power and to take up humanity and humility for a simple life in nature, few followed.

I believe Giotto’s greatest accomplishments was his ability to create people that expressed emotion in their faces. In this story of ‘Renunciation of Worldly Goods’it is easy to read because of the communication of strong emotions through facial expressions and body language it shows St Francis semi nude in the act of stripping, visually making his point of giving up wealth and political influence, perhaps the first performance artist!

‘Many accounts tell of Giotto’s integrity and love of life and his great sense of wit and humour. His people included nudes the first to be seen in an Italian painting.’

Giotto also shared his great sense of humour with his important patron the King of Naples.

‘When Robert the King of Naples was with him one day enjoying Giotto’s company as he painted, the King said “Giotto, if I Were you I would leave off painting for a while now as it’s too hot.”

He replied “And so would I, If I were you”!!!

Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Ambrogio Lorenzetti was born in 1285 and died with his artist brother Pietro, in Sienna of the Black Death of 1 348 along with most of the artists of Sienna. He was especially influenced by the paintings of Giotto di Bondone.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti created the Allegory of the Good and Bad government and it’s Effects on the City and the Countryside, as the first landscape in European painting his highly complex composition for the promotes the image of the government defining what good and bad government can do.

It is to be seen in the Palazzo Pubblico in Sienna Italy. It was commissioned by the government of Nine, these were the merchants and bankers who governed the city for about seventy years from 1287-1355. This was one of the most happiest times for the Republic of Sienna. A time of affluence, when the whole city was enriched with works of art.

The painting shows this time in a variety of symbolic ways. The very long fresco is in two parts the effects of bad government and the effects of good Government, my focus is on the good government. This second part focuses on a richly dressed man on his horse leaving the city of Sienna. He rides into the freedom of the wide open landscape. He symbolises the good government that has brought freedom from fear of the city’s external attack, and freedom from internal fear as all the city’s criminals have been hung. The tradespeople are working happily, the women dance and sing, and a marriage is taking place, weddings and dancing symbolising peace and love.

In the background detail of the fresco are small figures riding through the peaceful countryside in the landscape, inferring that the bandits have all been hanged by the good government; whereas in the Chinese landscape paintings a small learned figure living peacefully in nature infers that the person is free from political power.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s allegorical fresco painting of Good and Bad Government is a commissioned political manifesto of his day. His keen observation of people’s lives and activities echo Marco Polo’s social anthropological abilities.

Artists challenged and changed.

The thirteenth century was a time of political and economic challenge and change. The response of the aristocratic intellectual artists of China was to accept this humbling time.

To accept the teaching of Confucius when government is bad it is time to head for the hills, and the teaching of Lao Tse to empty themselves spiritually.

Although Gengis Khan had expelled them from the Mongolian Government and his grandson had invited them back, they had made a decision. They would no longer be controlled by the Government of the day to be instructed where to go and what to do.

They had time and freedom to paint as they wished, they now knew because of the difficult times they had experienced that this was above wealth, power and political status. The Four Great Masters accepted this creative hermit lifestyle. As the desires for political power and wealth diminished and as their ability to respond to each other in communication and encouragement grew, a way opened for them to go deeper into their own Journey as artists.

In Italy the challenge and change for the artists was very different.

This was an exciting trading time for the Italians busily importing and exporting, establishing their trading on the silk route with China.

Now was a new time of international economic affluence for the Catholic Church and the governmental political parties who started to recognise the worth of artists and how to capitalise and market the influence of the celebrity personality artist.

Now the way was open for the talented artist to receive commissions from rich patrons and he could become famous and wealthy, but under these conditions he was completely controlled by the Church and state.

Footnotes

1. William Marsden, F .R.S &C. with a map The travels of Marco Polo a Venetian in the Thirteenth century. being a description. by that early traveler. of remarkable places & things.in the Eastern parts of the world. Translated from the Italian, with notes .[ Cox & Baylis London & Printed for the author in 1818.] pg. 237

2. William Marsden, The Travels of Marco Polo 1818 pg 236

3. Sherman E.Lee & Wai-Kam Ho Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368)[ The Cleveland Museum of Art Cleveland 1968] pg 3 4.T’aoTsung-i, Huan Kung-Wang’s Secrets of Landscape Paintings preserved in the miscellany Cho-ken lu, Lpublished in China in 1366] a collection of thirty -two short notes. pg 87

5. James Cahill. Chinese Painting [The world Publishing company London 1960] (including Huan Kung-Wang ‘Secrets of Landscape Paintings) the following relevant to the theory and practice of painting in the Yuan period. page 148.

6. James Cahill Chinese Painting [The world Publishing company London 1960 ]pg 144

7. James Cahill. Hills beyond a River [The World Publishing Company London 1976] pg 114

8. James Cahill. Hills beyond a River [The World Publishing Company London 1976 ]pg 115

9. James Cahill Hills beyond a River( Wen-Jen painting)[ The World Publishing London 1976 ]pg 238 and pg 51

10. Giorgio Vasari Lives of The Artists vol 1. [Penguin Books Ltd London 1987] pg 57

1 2. Bruno Dozzini Giotto The legend of St.Francis in the Assisi Basilica. [Editrice Minerva Italy 1992.]

13. Giorgio Vasari Lives of The Artists vol 1. [Penguin Books Ltd London 1987] pg 61

14. Giorgio Vasari Lives of The Artists vol 1. [Penguin Books Ltd London 1987] pg 68

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Youde Edward and Herbert Franz Schuman Economic Structure of The Yuan Dynasty [pub by Harvard University Press Harvard 1956 ]

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments are due to the curators and administrative staff of the following galleries and museums, art dealers , library’s and web sites. The Palazzo Pubblico and the Civic Museum of Siena; St Marks in Venice Italy; The British Library and The Victoria and Albert Museum, and library and The City and Guilds School of Art, and library. The British Museum; The Courtauld Institute, London; Soochow Institute of Embroidery; China. and The Art Museum, Hong Kong; Friends of the Arts, Hong Kong; Plum Blossoms Gallery, Hong Kong; The Art Museum, Beijing; The Art Museum, Shanghai; The Chinese Art Museum, Taiwan; Royal Ontario Museum of Art, Toronto Canada. Web Gallery of Art. Web museum Paris.