Chinese art form refuses to be snuffed out

Although powdered tobacco and the cumbersome boxes that first held it originated in the West, snuff bottles are a uniquely Chinese innovation.

And despite attempts to snuff out their presence over the centuries, the ornate works of art and symbols of one's place in society refuse to go away, lingering like wisps of smoke on a Manchu reading room ceiling - despite snuff being a smoke-free phenomenon. "In the early 1800s, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), snuff bottles were used primarily by royalty and the upper classes.

But they soon became widespread due to cheaper prices, and a growing desire to display conspicuous consumption in a quest for upward social mobility," said Wang Ziyong, a master craftsman at the Hengshui Museum of Inside Painting Art in Hebei province. As a nonsmoker, and certainly no expert in snuff history - or films - I had to ask Wang what "inside painting" entailed.

Having applied paint to the outside of split-level ranches, and painted a few stucco ceilings while "inside" these homes in my youth, I was a bit surprised by Wang's artistic explanation (though some of my stucco 3-D creations resembled Hitchcock profiles if you squinted). He led me to a display room in Beijing in May at a snuff bottle seminar and showed me young apprentices painting landscape scenes with tiny brushes - on the insides of glass snuff bottles! - whose openings were no larger than those on toothpaste tubes. "A dedicated user of snuff will remove and replace his bottle numerous times each day. Having artwork painted on the outside would soon be worn away by constant rubbing," Wang explained over tea. Snuff bottles became popular trade and status items during the Qing Dynasty, especially on the windy steppes of North China, where successfully striking a match while on horseback in the wind was an exercise in futility.

The rapid rise of snuff use came a time when the phrase "Smoking Kills" had a more literal meaning.

China launched an anti-smoking movement in 1639, when the last Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) emperor, Chongzhen, banned tobacco, with the death penalty awaiting those daring to light up. Russia's Czar Michael was more forgiving, outlawing tobacco four years later, with violators merely having their noses removed.

This made stuffing snuff in one's nostrils a much less risky undertaking than smoking in places like China.

Besides keeping one off the gallows, users also lauded purported medicinal benefits including curing common colds, headaches and stomach disorders.

Therefore, snuff was carried about by Chinese in small bottles that fitted neatly in pockets and kept out moisture - unlike the bulky European boxes with foreign royalty and cherubic figures painted on the exteriors.

Who knows what the busy-body babooshkas of Imperial China thought as youth clogged city streets with noses stuck in snuff bottles? Perhaps the idle old ladies felt kids were disengaged from life, not living in the moment?

This echoes complaints today about passers-by doing just that - passing by and nothing else - as their noses are also stuck in new status symbols, aka cellphones.

But listening to the passion of the snuff seminar attendees, aficionados and speakers, it was hard not to have a newfound respect for this healthier way of enjoying a nicotine buzz. And Wang said that the importance of snuff bottles in China's history is immense, and that most collectors these days were not necessarily users - but amateur documenters of the nation's social history as well.

"Finely crafted snuff bottles are an undeniable chapter in China's history, and people want to retain it," he said.

Contact the writer at andrew@chinadaily.com.cn