Qianlong Emperor occupation art collector
Cultural achievements
The Qianlong Emperor, like his predecessors, took his cultural role seriously. First, he worked to preserve the Manchu heritage, which he saw as the basis of the moral character of the Manchus and thus of the dynasty's power. He ordered the compilation of Manchu language genealogies, histories, and ritual handbooks and in 1747 secretly ordered the compilation of the Shamanic Code, published later in the Siku Quanshu. He further solidified the dynasty's cultural and religious claims in Central Asia by ordering a replica of the Tibetan Potala Palace, the Putuo Zongcheng Temple, to be built on the grounds of the imperial summer palace in Chengde. In order to present himself to Tibetans and Mongols in Buddhist rather than in Confucian terms, he commissioned a thangka, or sacred painting, depicting him as Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. He was also a poet and essayist. His collected writings, which he published in a tenfold series between 1749 and 1800, contain more than 40,000 poems and 1,300 prose texts, which if he had composed them all would make him one of the most prolific writers of all time.The Qianlong Emperor was a major patron and important "preserver and restorer" of Confucian culture. He had an insatiable appetite for collecting, and acquired much of China's "great private collections" by any means necessary, and "reintegrated their treasures into the imperial collection." He formed a team of cultural advisers to help locate collections of merchant families who needed to sell or whose heirs had lost interest. He sometimes pressured or forced wealthy officials to surrender precious objects by offering to excuse shortcomings in their performance if they made a certain "gift". On several occasions he claimed that a painting could be secure from theft or fire only if it was taken into the Forbidden City.The Emperor's massive art collection became an intimate part of his life; he took landscape paintings with him on his travels to compare them with the actual landscapes, or to hang them in special rooms in palaces where he lodged, in order to inscribe them on every visit there. "He also regularly added poetic inscriptions to the paintings of the imperial collection, following the example of the emperors of the Song dynasty and the literati painters of the Ming dynasty. They were a mark of distinction for the work, and a visible sign of his rightful role as emperor. Most particular to the Qianlong Emperor is another type of inscription, revealing a unique practice of dealing with works of art that he seems to have developed for himself. On certain fixed occasions over a long period he contemplated a number of paintings or works of calligraphy which possessed special meaning for him, inscribing each regularly with mostly private notes on the circumstances of enjoying them, using them almost as a diary." In particular, the Qianlong Emperor housed within the Hall of Three Rarities (Sanxitang), a small chamber within the Hall of Mental Cultivation, three calligraphy works: "Timely Clearing After Snowfall" by Wang Xizhi, from the Jin dynasty, "Mid-Autumn" by his son Wang Xianzhi, and "Letter to Boyuan" by Wang Xun.Most of the several thousand jade items in the imperial collection date from his reign. The Emperor was also particularly interested in collecting ancient bronzes, bronze mirrors and seals," in addition to pottery, [ceramics and applied arts such as enameling, metal work and lacquer work, which flourished during his reign; a substantial part of his collection is in the Percival David Foundation in London. The Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum also have collections of art from the Qianlong era.
One of his grandest projects was to assemble a team of scholars to assemble, edit, and print the largest collection ever made of Chinese philosophy, history, and literature. Known as the Four Treasuries Project (or Siku Quanshu), it was published in 36,000 volumes, containing about 3,450 complete works and employing as many as 15,000 copyists. It preserved numerous books, but was also intended as a way to ferret out and suppress political opponents, requiring the "careful examination of private libraries to assemble a list of around eleven thousand works from the past, of which about a third were chosen for publication. The works not included were either summarised or—in a good many cases—scheduled for destruction."
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