Podcast appearances and mentions of george chinnery

Art critic Laura Gascoigne portrays the connections between British colonial and cultural opportunism, through George Chinnery's 1840s Self-Portrait, of the Artist in Macau. George Chinnery (1774-1852) was no oil painting. Escaping piling debts and parental duties, he pursued lucrative portrait markets in India and on the China coast. The Bengali and Macanese landscapes tucked within his final self-portrait hint at his remarkably transnational tale. But beneath Chinnery's mischievous surface lie the less picturesque realities - of opium, orientalism, and overt exploitation of local populations. As British colonialism offered opportunities to those couldn't make it at home, so too did it often depend on such adventurers and rejects for its very survival. PRESENTER: Laura Gascoigne, art critic and commentator, and member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). ART: Self-Portrait of the Artist in Macau, George Chinnery (c. 1844). IMAGE: ‘George Chinnery'. SOUNDS: Albert Glasser. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

(Retrato de Anders Ljungstedt por George Chinnery)Esta edição foi para o ar na Rádio Macau no dia 11 de Maio de 2017.

(Retrato de George Chinnery)Esta edição foi para o ar na Rádio Macau no dia 23 de Junho de 2016.

(Retrato de Harriet Low por George Chinnery)Esta edição foi para o ar na Rádio Macau no dia 16 de Junho de 2016.

(auto-retrato, 1840)Esta edição foi para o ar na Rádio Macau no dia 2 de Junho de 2016.

The Asia Society inaugurated its new Asian Arts & Ideas series this month with “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues,” a three-day forum that examined the confluence of the world’s two most powerful developing economies. The organizers chose an unusual point of departure for event — not a historical overview, but a conversation between Jonathan Spence, former Sterling Professor of History at Yale, and the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh. Ghosh’s most recent book, “River of Smoke,” centers around the mid-19th century Opium Wars, and in their talk, Ghosh and Spence used the topic as a lens through which to view the early modern histories of India and China. As Ghosh notes, historians tend to segment the past in terms of their own specialties (economics, politics, culture, etc.), but, “What a novelist can do is imagine the totality of the experience.” Bon Mots Jonathan Spence on Amitav Ghosh: "The joy of reading Amitav’s work is the completely new way of reading about things I thought I knew — of asking outrageously simple questions that are so difficult." Amitav Ghosh on India and the opium trade: "India today does not recognize this past." Ghosh on learning Cantonese in preparation for writing “River of Smoke”: "It was so exciting to discover this whole world of Cantonese street slang and Cantonese obscenities, which are so inventive!” Ghosh on old (drug) money: "It’s possible to say that all old money in the major presidency cities in India really goes back to the opium trade. The same is true of Massachusetts, I should add." Hear the complete conversation by clicking on the audio player above. The image of the painting above by George Chinnery was provided courtesy of Asia House, where it is featured in the exhibit: The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery. An English Artist in India and China. The show is open through Jan 21 and its curator is Patrick Conner.