page_title: Qing dynasty
section_title: Arts and culture
hierarchical_section_title: Qing dynasty / Arts and culture
caption_attribution_description: English: A Daoguang (1820s) period Peking glass vase in Imperial Yellow with lotus print.
context_page_description: The Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing or commonly known as China, was the last imperial dynasty of China. It was established in 1636, and ruled China proper from 1644 to 1912. It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The multiethnic Qing empire lasted for almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for modern China. It was the fourth largest empire in world history in terms of territorial size.
  The dynasty was founded by the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria. In the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing "Banners" which were military-social units that included Manchu, Han, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci united Manchu clans and officially proclaimed the Later Jin dynasty in 1616. His son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of the Liaodong Peninsula and declared a new dynasty, the Qing, in 1636. As Ming control disintegrated, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the capital Beijing in 1644. Ming general Wu Sangui refused to serve them, but opened the Shanhai Pass to the Banner Armies led by the regent Prince Dorgon, who defeated the rebels and seized the capital.
context_section_description: 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 nineteenth 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 rather than an unchallenged acceptance of tradition. 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.
caption: A Daoguang period Peking glass vase. The vase is colored in "Imperial Yellow", which was popular due to its association with the Qing imperial dynasty.
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