The traditional view of Western influences on Chinese painting has been that the first influences derived from Chinese artists' observation of the work of European artists in China in the eighteenth century. These influences have not been regarded as being of much significance and, in fact, were usually just dismissed as the aberrations of a few painters who placed themselves outside the long Chinese tradition. James Cahill and others have proposed, however, that earlier influences of a more substantial kind are to be found in the work of landscape painters of the late Ming and early Ch'ing periods. An examination of Cahill's claims shows how the European influence was integrated into the work of certain painters and eventually passed on to others who followed them. These influences do not include outright changes in subject matter or blatant alterations in style. Instead they involve the assimilation of techniques and approaches from Western art that were integrated into the Chinese tradition.
The Ming Dynasty, which had run from 1368 to 1644, collapsed in the face of peasant uprisings and the invasion of Manchurian forces from the north. The new Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912) quickly assimilated Chinese ways but many of the artists associated with the Ming chose internal exile or seclusion rather than cooperate with the new rulers. One group of painters known as the "Survivors" or "Individualists" flourished and their careers bridged the two dynasties. The work of these painters, and part of their rejection of the Manchus, "involved official culture and ideology: it was aimed against academic trends and conservatism in art" (Hejzlar 19). The late Ming period had been dominated by the painter and theoretician Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636). Tung's work and ideas had the effect of "orienting the painting of his time toward a formal academicism, in which everything was worked out in terms of formulas and rules" (Cheng 20).
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