Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities, by John Evan Hodgson (1831-1895). 1868. Oil on canvas. 27 7/8 x 36 inches (70.8 x 91.5 cm). Collection of the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, accession no. TWCMS : B8123. Image reproduced via Art UK for the purpose of non-commercial research. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1868, no. 453. Hodgson was certainly not the first artist in London to paint women in Oriental costume. Works such as James Whistler's Purple and Rose: La Lange Leizen, of the Six Marks of 1864 or Simeon Solomon's Lady in a Chinese Dress of 1865 featured Caucasian women in Oriental costumes and were exercises in pure Aestheticism unlike Hodgson's more conventional genre painting. This work seems to show Hodgson once again searching for a style to call his own. This work is not unique in showing humour in Hodgson's oeuvre, which is usually of a dry or satirical nature. Humour amongst the St. John's Wood Clique, however, most commonly featured in the work of his friend Henry Stacy Marks. Tom Taylor in The Portfolio pointed out this aspect amongst Hodgson's works: "a group of small-footed Chinese ladies, half amused, half horrified at the production among them by a travelling merchant of a European lady's white satin slipper, showed its humorous side" (18).
When the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy the critic for The Art Journal considered this work part of the current craze for Japonisme and Chinoiserie and praised its colour:
J. E. Hodgson has struck out a subject quite àpropos to the period. The recent rage for Chinese and Japanese Art finds response in this picture of Chinese Ladies (453). Here we are, in the midst of the Celestial Empire, thrown into the presence of its strange inhabitants. The artist has done justice to his subject. The countenance of our comic friends at the antipodes are struck off with a character which just escapes caricature; and the pleasing perplexities presented by blues, purples, reds, yellows, and blacks, as used by these eccentric Orientals, have been solved to the satisfaction of European vision. The picture, as a chromatic problem, is worked out with intelligence. On the whole, the artist has made an advance on his previous position. [108]
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum admired its rich and beautiful colour: "Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities (453), by Mr. J. E. Hodgson, may be examined after the last on account of its differing spirit and richer colour. A 'dealer' is admitted to an interview with certain dames of the 'little-footed' empire, and, to their amusement, produces a high-heeled white satin dancing-shoe, which is only inferior in degree of absurdity to their own instruments of torment. The laughter of the ladies is admirably rendered. Their dresses derive rich and beautiful colour no less from the skill and taste of Mr. Hodgson than from the originals he painted" (702).
The reviewer for The Illustrated London News was obviously an admirer of Hodgson's work while noting its eclecticism:
Mr. Hodgson's works are entitled to an honourable position amid the category of works under consideration. The painter makes advances rapidly in style and in mastery of a rich scale of colouring; his subjects are drawn from curiously diverse sources (as here); they are never trite, and always well imagined. The lately-awakened appreciation among a few discerning artists of Chinese taste in colours probably led to the quaintly-conceived incident of his Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities (453) - one of the "curiosities" being a high-heeled white satin dancing-shoe, which a dealer produces, to the great amusement of his celestial customers, who evidently regard it as a monstrous example of barbarism compared to their own fashionable instruments of crippling torture. [543]
The critic of The Saturday Review made interesting comments for the time about prejudices in various parts of the world based on this picture:
One of the most amusing pictures in the Exhibition, and perhaps, if duly reflected upon, one of the most suggestive, is that by Mr. Hodgson, Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities. The scene is the interior of a well-to-do house in China, where a box of objects very familiar to us, but curiosities to the Chinese, has just arrived from Europe. A man in Chinese costume has opened the box, and is just beginning to display its contents to four ladies, who are looking on with great interest and unaffectedly enjoying the strange sight. He has fished up a European lady's shoe, a white satin dress shoe, which he now holds up by the string in a delicate manner, as an apothecary holds his little glass scales, and simply smiles. No words are needed, the smile expresses everything; it says, quite plainly, "Now is not this enormous shoe in the highest degree barbarous and absurd, and what must be the condition of the poor uncivilized women who wears such things, and whose hideous feet they fit!" The four Chinese ladies all laugh quite heartily; they are fully satisfied that the shoe is ridiculous, that all such shoes are ridiculous, and that the wearers of them must all be ridiculous. In a reflex way the picture, though apparently concerning itself only with a narrow Oriental prejudice, hits other prejudices in other parts of the world… Mr. Hodgson has never painted quite so well. There is a remarkable intelligence of the values of some colours, especially the various reds: the dark screen, too, is made very useful in its place. There is some excellent work in the mat and furniture; and in praising this we have no desire to imply that it is obtrusive, or distracts attention from the faces; we mean that it is not only good absolutely, but relatively. It seems unfortunate that the two sides of the table should have been lighted so precisely alike; it is possible, no doubt, but even supposing it to be quite true, still, if the table had been turned an inch or two, one side would have been darker than the other, and the effect would have been equally true and much more explanatory. [91]
Bibliography
Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities. Art UK. Web. 17 January 2024.
"Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LII (30 May 1868): 543.
"Pictures of the Year." The Saturday Review XXVI (18 July 1868): 90-92.
"Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series VII (1 June 1868): 101-10.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2116 (16 May 1868): 701-02.
Taylor, Tom. "English Painters of the Present Day. XIX - J. E. Hodgson." The Portfolio II (1871): 17-19.
Created 17 January 2024