Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco Review

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(More customer reviews)Don't be misled by the choice of the title. The book is not a coffeetable-type photomontage of San Francisco's Chinatown. It is certainly replete with many photographs and illustrations from Chinatown of the 19th century and early 20th century. No doubt to some readers, these will be the main attraction. Revealing in often hazy black and white the details of a vanished and important subculture of the US.
But Lee has integrated the visuals with a narrative that places the images squarely in the context of when they were taken, and of the accuracy of their representations of that culture. He analyses the photographers that took these pictures, and their motives for doing so. Several were not of Chinese ethnicity. But sought to present visuals to explain what was then a very exotic society to an average white American reader.
Aside from the contemporary photos, Lee also explains the art that came out of Chinatown in those years. The artwork shown in the book tends to be quite different from the traditional Chinese calligraphy and landscape themes. Instead, there are traces of influence by the European and American art movements of the day.

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