Want to know what Nanjing was like over 100 years ago? The earliest photographic memorandums of the city are currently providing Nanjingers with insight into the nature of their city during latter half of 19th century.
134 antique photos by Scottish photographer John Thomson are now on display at the Jiangning Imperial Silk Manufacturing Museum; the Scotsman was a pioneer in many ways as he not only laid the early foundations for photojournalism but was also the first photographer in the world to travel to the Far East. During the 19th century there was increased economic and cultural exchange between China and Europe, after the defeat in the Opium War forced China to open up to foreigners under the Treaty of Nanking, ceding Hong Kong to Britain and installing Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai as treaty ports. With a rising number of Europeans taking the plunge into China, interest back home of what the Far East was like grew exponentially and so Thomson’s pictures became very popular upon his return to Britain in 1872. The Nanjing photos were taken that same year during his three-month travel along the Yangtze River, and are the earliest photographic evidence of the Southern capital.
Thomson spent ten years travelling the Far East, including Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia; after a brief one-year return to the UK, he could not fight the desire to continue his exploration of the Eastern hemisphere and so he settled in 1868 in Hong Kong, marking the beginning of a four-year long exploration of China. His travels were tough and laborious, even endangering his life by exposing him to many dangerous diseases; he had previously contracted jungle fever in Cambodia and only the presence of his translator, the British consular official to Bangkok, saved him from certain death at the time.
Furthermore, Thomson had to drag his photography apparatus with him everywhere he went; what he would have given for a smartphone or digital camera we can only imagine; as it stands at the time he needed to transport a bulky wooden camera, a number of large, fragile glass plates, and even potentially explosive chemicals while on his travels through raw countryside and underdeveloped cities. In addition, in order to develop the images Thomson needed a tent that could be turned into a mobile dark room. This was clearly a challenging feat and one that only a truly determined person such as Thomson could complete.
His collected works from the Middle Kingdom were re-published in 2010 by River Books under the title “China Through the Lens of John Thomson, 1868 – 1872”. In the meantime, the original precious photos have found their permanent home in the Wellcome Library in London; currently, they are on an international tour, having reached Nanjing on 1st July and remaining here until 20th August. The exhibition contains four old photos of Nanjing specifically, showing the Jinling Manufacturing Bureau, the Ming tombs, and the construction of a temple.
At the opening of the exhibition on 1st July museum curator Li Bo gave an introduction to the Nanjing pictures and their background explaining the scenes Thomson captured. The Jinling Manufacturing Bureau image shows Thomson and two workers, who are debugging machine guns. The scene was meant to represent the Westernization and modernization of Chinese society at the time, the lack of which was the reason for the defeat during the Opium Wars in the eyes of the Qing government. Hence, the 19th century saw a Chinese race towards modernization and technological advancement. The Ming Tombs with a history of 600 years were one of Nanjing’s main tourist attractions even 142 years. Compared to today, the tombs of the past were surrounded by more vegetation and no cars; yet they have not lost any of their attraction throughout the last two centuries.
As the first visual recordings of Nanjing, Johnson’s pictures provide today’s residents with an unprecedented insight into their forefathers’ lives, making the trip to the museum truly worthwile. Not only that; through his 134 photos we get to walk along the river of history, taking us back to the China of old, finally returning home to past Nanjing.
