Volume 26, Number 1 · February 8, 1979
Lost China
By Frederic Wakeman
The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers, 1860-1912
preface by L. Carrington Goodrich, commentary by Nigel Cameron
Aperture, 159 pp., $25.00
China in Old Photographs, 1860-1910
by Burton F. Beers
Scribner's, 160 pp., $17.50
The Face of China is the result of an exhibition mounted last spring at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It consists of more than 120 beautifully reproduced photographs with historical commentary and captions. Many of these pictures were taken by photographic pioneers like Felice Beato and John Thomson, who had to cope with daunting technical problems. China in Old Photographs is a less lavishly printed book of 165 photographs from the Museum of the American China Trade in Milton, Massachusetts. It, too, has many photographs by Beato and Thomson, but it adds to these a number of less professional pictures taken by Westerners who visited China after Eastman introduced celluloid film in 1899. Together, the two collections provide a vivid sense of traditional China 'in its dotage' during the days of imperial decline and fall.
Review, 2567 words
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