Editing Qing dynasty (section)

==Arts and culture==
{{see also|Chinese art#Late imperial China (1368–1912)|Chinese literature#Classical fiction and drama|Classical Chinese poetry#History and development|Qing poetry}}[[File:Pine, Plum and Cranes.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|''Pine, Plum and Cranes'', 1759, by Shen Quan]]
Under the Qing, inherited forms of art flourished and innovations occurred at many levels and in many types. High levels of literacy, a successful publishing industry, prosperous cities, and the Confucian emphasis on cultivation all fed a lively and creative set of cultural fields.

By the end of the 19th century, national artistic and cultural worlds had begun to come to terms with the cosmopolitan culture of the West and Japan. The decision to stay within old forms or welcome Western models was now a conscious choice. Classically trained Confucian scholars such as [[Liang Qichao]] and [[Wang Guowei]] read widely and broke aesthetic and critical ground later cultivated in the [[New Culture Movement]].

===Fine arts===
[[File:Imperial Yellow Peking Glass Vase.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|A [[Daoguang Emperor|Daoguang]] period [[Peking glass]] vase. Colored in "Imperial Yellow", due to its association with the Qing.]]
The Qing emperors were generally adept at poetry and often skilled in painting, and offered their patronage to Confucian culture. The Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors, for instance, embraced Chinese traditions both to control them and to proclaim their own legitimacy. The Kangxi Emperor sponsored the ''[[Peiwen Yunfu]]'', a rhyme dictionary published in 1711, and the ''[[Kangxi Dictionary]]'' published in 1716, which remains to this day an authoritative reference. The Qianlong Emperor sponsored the largest collection of writings in Chinese history, the ''[[Complete Library of the Four Treasuries]]'', completed in 1782. Court painters made new versions of the Song masterpiece, [[Zhang Zeduan]]'s ''[[Along the River During the Qingming Festival]]'', whose depiction of a prosperous and happy realm demonstrated the beneficence of the emperor. The emperors undertook tours of the south and commissioned monumental scrolls to depict the grandeur of the occasion.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Recording the Grandeur of the Qing |url=http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/start.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121220222345/http://learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/start.html |archive-date=20 December 2012 |access-date=2020-05-17 |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia University}} [[Chinese painting]]</ref> Imperial patronage also encouraged the industrial production of [[Chinese ceramics|ceramics]] and [[Chinese export porcelain]]. [[Peking glass]]ware became popular after European glass making processes were introduced by Jesuits to Beijing.<ref>Boda, Yang. ''Study of glass wares from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).'' 1983.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Nilsson |first=Jan-Erik |title=Chinese Porcelain Glossary: Glass, Chinese (Peking Glass) |url=http://gotheborg.com/glossary/glass.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214071202/https://gotheborg.com/glossary/glass.shtml |archive-date=14 February 2022 |access-date=2017-06-07 |website=gotheborg.com}}</ref> During this period the European trend to imitate Chinese artistic traditions, known as [[chinoiserie]] also gained great popularity in Europe due to the rise in trade with China and the broader current of [[Orientalism]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beevers |first=David |title=Chinese Whispers: Chinoiserie in Britain, 1650–1930 |publisher=Royal Pavilion & Museums |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-948723-71-1 |location=Brighton |pages=19}}</ref>

[[File:Landscape by Wang Gai 1694.tiff|thumb|upright=0.8|Landscape by Wang Gai, 1694]]
Yet the most impressive aesthetic works were done among the scholars and urban elite. [[Chinese calligraphy|Calligraphy]] and painting<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ch'ing Dynasty – The Art of Asia – Chinese Dynasty Guide |url=http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/history/dynasty-ching.cfm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120927030515/http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/history/dynasty-ching.cfm |archive-date=27 September 2012 |access-date=13 September 2012 |website=www.artsmia.org}}</ref> remained a central interest to both court painters and scholar-officials who considered the [[four arts]] part of their cultural identity and social standing.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Qing Dynasty, Painting |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/qing_1/hd_qing_1.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120920210706/http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/qing_1/hd_qing_1.htm |archive-date=20 September 2012 |access-date=13 September 2012 |website=The Met |date=October 2003 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref> The painting of the [[Chinese art#Early Qing painting|early years of the dynasty]] included such painters as the orthodox [[Four Wangs]] and the individualists [[Bada Shanren]] and [[Shitao]]. Court painting of the dynasty was also greatly influenced by some Western artists.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://fuqiumeng.com/viewing-room/31-transcultural-dialogues-the-journey-of-east-asian-art/|title = Transcultural Dialogues: The Journey of East Asian Art to The West|publisher = Fu Qiumeng|access-date = 2024-11-25}}</ref> The 19th century saw such innovations as the [[Shanghai School]] and the Lingnan School,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Home |url=http://www.lingnanart.com/home.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120708052240/http://www.lingnanart.com/home.htm |archive-date=8 July 2012 |website=The Lingnan School of Painting}}</ref> which used the technical skills of tradition to set the stage for modern painting.

===Traditional learning and literature===
Traditional learning flourished, especially among Ming loyalists such as [[Dai Zhen]] and [[Gu Yanwu]], but scholars in the school of [[Kaozheng|evidential learning]] made innovations in skeptical textual scholarship. Scholar-bureaucrats, including [[Lin Zexu]] and [[Wei Yuan]], developed a school of [[He Changling|practical statecraft]] which rooted bureaucratic reform and restructuring in classical philosophy.

[[File:Jade book-IMG 4433 4434 4435 4436-white.jpg|thumb|Jade book of the [[Qianlong Emperor|Qianlong]] period on display at the [[British Museum]]]]
Philosophy<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Qing Philosophy |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/qing-philosophy/ |access-date=2020-01-18 |last=Ng |first=On-cho |date=2019 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Summer 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200616125638/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/qing-philosophy/ |archive-date=16 June 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Chinese literature|literature]] grew to new heights in the Qing period. [[Qing poetry|Poetry]] continued as a mark of the cultivated gentleman, but women wrote in larger numbers and [[:Category:Qing dynasty poets|poets]] came from all walks of life. The poetry of the Qing dynasty is a lively field of research, being studied (along with the [[Ming poetry|poetry of the Ming dynasty]]) for its association with [[Chinese opera]], developmental trends of [[Classical Chinese poetry]], the transition to a greater role for [[Written vernacular Chinese|vernacular language]], and for poetry by [[Women in ancient and imperial China#Qing dynasty|women]]. The Qing dynasty was a period of literary editing and criticism, and many of the modern popular versions of Classical Chinese poems were transmitted through Qing dynasty anthologies, such as the ''[[Complete Tang Poems]]'' and the ''[[Three Hundred Tang Poems]]''. Although fiction did not have the prestige of poetry, novels flourished. [[Pu Songling]] brought the short story to a new level in his ''[[Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio]]'', published in the mid-18th century, and [[Shen Fu]] demonstrated the charm of the informal memoir in ''[[Six Chapters of a Floating Life]]'', written in the early 19th century but published only in 1877. The art of the novel reached a pinnacle in [[Cao Xueqin]]'s ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]'', but its combination of social commentary and psychological insight were echoed in highly skilled novels such as [[Wu Jingzi]]'s ''[[The Scholars (novel)|The Scholars]]'' (1750) and [[Li Ruzhen]]'s ''[[Flowers in the Mirror]]'' (1827).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ming and Qing Novels |url=http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/assets_news/china/berkshire_mingdynastysample.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617125545/http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/assets_news/china/berkshire_mingdynastysample.pdf |archive-date=17 June 2013 |access-date=13 September 2012 |website=Berkshire Encyclopedia}}</ref>

===Cuisine===
[[History of Chinese cuisine#History|Cuisine]] embodied cultural pride. The gentleman gourmet, such as [[Yuan Mei#Yuan as a gastronome|Yuan Mei]], applied aesthetic standards to the art of cooking, eating, and appreciation of [[Chinese tea culture|tea]] at a time when [[Columbian Exchange|New World crops and products]] entered everyday life. Yuan's ''[[Suiyuan Shidan]]'' expounded culinary aesthetics and theory, along with a range of recipes. The [[Manchu–Han Imperial Feast]] originated at the court. Although this banquet was probably never common, it reflected an appreciation of Manchu culinary customs.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Spence |first=Jonathan |title=Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1977 |editor-last=[[Kwang-chih Chang]] |location=New Haven, CT |pages=260–294 |chapter="Ch'ing"}}<br />Reprinted in {{Cite book |last=Spence |first=Jonathan |title=Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1992 |location=New York}}</ref>