Chinese Behind the Lens
Chinese photographers were once a rarity in 19th- century photographic histories of their own country. Books about the period used to consist almost entirely of prints that British, European and American professionals and amateurs had produced for their home markets. The Chinese stood in front of but not behind the lens.
“Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China,” now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, aims to broaden and correct this all-too-common view. Among its intriguing suggestions is that significantly higher numbers of Chinese people were active in photographing their empire and compatriots than previously thought. Installed within a single room of the Getty Center, this compact presentation (with its even more informative catalog) brings us up to date about what scholars here and abroad have lately learned about the introduction of the camera into one of the world’s oldest civilizations.
Jeffrey W. Cody, senior project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, and Frances Terpak, curator of photographs at the Getty Research Institute, have broken the show into five loose categories—such as “Gateways & Transitions” and “Missions & Temples”—that avoid the typical concentration on wars, revolutions and invasions, of which there were many. Photography by the Chinese in the second half of the 19th century, in the opinion of the organizers, was characterized as much by its continuity with other art traditions as by any disruptive influence.
J. Paul Getty Museum