Art and the Merchant Classes

According to the Analects, “Confucius seldom spoke about profit”. Those who discussed revenue before righteous behaviour he classified as villains. This principle had a marked impact on Chinese society, leading to the inferior social status of merchants. It wasn’t until the Song dynasty that positive portrayals of merchants in literature became more common. By the mid-to-late Ming dynasty, interaction between merchants and the educated classes had become normalised, as demonstrated by the two Chinese landscape scrolls displayed here.

As a professional artist rooted in the prosperous city of Suzhou, Qiu Ying’s paintings were targeted at an audience of wealthy merchants. Motifs like misty mountains, lofty pavilions, and solitary hermits, which traditionally appealed to the literati, became popular among the mercantile classes as a means of demonstrating their cultural capital.

This handscroll was commissioned by Wang Tingne (1573-1619), a successful businessman. Wang advertised his wealth and taste through this depiction of the grand beauty of his private garden. The fact that the scroll was executed as a woodblock print suggests that it was intended for mass-production and profit.

Read more information about Chinese paintings in Immersive Visit to a Garden: Visual Logic of the ‘Garden of the Jade Surrounded Hall’.