Harbour of Confluence: Macao Trade Paintings and East–West Exchange

ABSTRACT This paper explores Macao Trade Paintings as a new artistic category within global art history, a new topic under Macaology. It firstly outlines the historical background and research lineage of the emergence of China Trade Paintings. Secondly, it defines its concept and proposes three research hypotheses. Evidence for the research hypotheses is collected through micro and macro case studies. That is, the differences of Macao Trade Paintings regarding China Trade Paintings are analysed through artistic aspects, content, historical, economic, and sociological perspectives, thereby emphasising the uniqueness of Macao Trade Paintings. Comparisons of the paintings reveal how Macao Trade Paintings map out Macao's pictorial image and purpose of creation; and through the analysis of the representative painters and their works, content, style, and taste, it is elaborated that Macao Trade Paintings are a unique artistic and cultural product of the exchange between Chinese and Western cultures, and therefore should not be categorised as China Trade Paintings. These transcultural painted artworks reflect a unique phase of a ‘glocalization’ process.