Author: Minghu, Bu

Annotation: Focusing on porcelains from the Xuantong reign (1909–1911) formerly held in the Qing imperial collection and now in the Shandong Museum, this paper examines how late-Qing court art articulated cultural meanings amid an age of transition. From the perspective of ritual aesthetics, it analyzes continuities and innovations in glaze, ornament, and form at the imperial kilns, revealing a historical shift in court craftsmanship from ritual symbolism toward aesthetic expression. As a key emblem of Chinese civilization, porcelain both embodies the persistence of Confucian ritual order and reflects the late period’s awakening of individuality and cultural self-reflection. Once transferred from the Palace Museum to public display in Shandong, these objects underwent a semantic transformation: from “instruments of imperial authority” to “cultural heritage,” bearing witness to the endurance and renewal of ritual culture in modern contexts. Framed through the lens of “art as language,” the study highlights the contemporary communicative value of classical Chinese aesthetics and offers fresh implications for building “cultural consensus” in the humanities and arts between China and Uzbekistan.

Keywords: Xuantong porcelains; ritual culture; art communication; Sino-Uzbek cultural exchange

Pages in journal: 550 - 562