Portrait of the Kangxi Emperor in Informal Dress Holding a Brush, Kangxi period (1662—1722), by anonymous court artists. Hanging scroll, ink and colour on silk. The Palace Museum, Beijing.
The Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662–1722)
The young Emperor – on the throne since the age of seven and effectively in control from the age of fifteen – went about the task of shaping the future of his immense territory by acquiring a clear understanding of every subject that mattered. He found teachers wherever he discovered a high standard of expertise. His multi-ethnic empire confronted him with a wide spectrum of cultures and brought him in touch with many different philosophies and beliefs. Confucianism, Shamanism, Buddhism and Daoism were patronised to accommodate Han Chinese, Manchus, Mongols and Tibetans; Islam was tolerated as Central Asian Turkic peoples were incorporated into the empire; and the propagation of Catholicism was permitted as long as the Church did not challenge the Emperor’s status and his subjects’ Confucian traditions. A strong personality, the Kangxi Emperor has been described as determined, principled, frugal, tolerant, conciliatory, practical, open-minded and eager to learn. While tradition-bound Confucianism remained the ideological foundation of the state, its confrontation with other cultural concepts overcame the stagnation of the previous Ming dynasty. Building on tradition, but breaking with conventions that hampered progress, the Kangxi Emperor was able to rule successfully and release his empire’s immense creative potential. Without losing touch with his Manchu heritage, the Kangxi Emperor became a model emperor of China, even while opening it up to Western ideas.
As a visible sign of adherence to his Manchu heritage and as a deliberate symbol of restraint, in contrast to the opulent fashions of the late Ming period (1368—1644), the Kangxi Emperor continued to wear Manchu garments. Seen from a Manchu angle, the Chinese bureaucracy, dominated by scholars — much though it was admired — must have had the air of a bookish, ivory-tower élite, to which the Manchu ‘outdoor’ way of life provided a healthy counterbalance. The Emperor put great emphasis on practical skills such as riding, archery, shooting, hunting and travelling with tents, and participated in these activities, both as purely physical exercises and in actual battle. Physical strength and energy were considered assets that aided mental vigour and endurance. The Kangxi Emperor’s six inspection tours to southern China sent impressive signals throughout the empire of his vitality, personal commitment and imperial splendour, and at the same time made him familiar with regions with a different geology, climate, culture and history.
Although aesthetic delights seem to have touched him less, he was keenly interested in intellectual and technical challenges. His inquisitive mind might have derived more pleasure from witnessing the creative process than from possessing the finished masterpiece. One of the Kangxi Emperor’s greatest contributions to the arts was the establishment of additional imperial workshops in the Forbidden City itself. He also initiated or sponsored a large number of literary compilations, linguistic and lexicographic studies and other intellectual projects. This not only raised the standard of scholarship, but also occupied unemployed officials, and won the Manchu dynasty confidence and support among the Han élite.
The Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings of Ancient and Modern Times (Gujin tushu jicheng), one of the world’s largest book projects, originated as a private undertaking, but was adopted as a state enterprise at the Kangxi court. Completed just before the Emperor’s death, this vast encyclopedia was published in the following reign in 5,020 volumes comprising some 800,000 pages. The Complete Tang Poetry (Quan Tang shi), an anthology of nearly 50,000 poems by over 2,200 writers, commissioned by the Kangxi Emperor, was completed in just two years and published in 1707, with a preface by the Emperor.
The Kangxi Emperor was a passionate calligrapher and numerous examples of his work have survived. The importance he placed on this art is reflected in the portrait for which he posed at a young age, again in Manchu dress, pointedly wielding his writing brush. In the last twenty years of his life at every full moon and every new moon he copied out extracts from the Heart Sutra, filling a total of 420 albums.
This feature is abridged from essays by Gerald Holzwarth and Regina Krahl. The essays appear in the catalogue which accompanies the show.
