This chapter considers comparison made hitherto between Western and Chinese art. Mieke Bal has argued that comparison becomes a ground for relative judgement; it establishes hierarchies and distracts from looking. The chapter considers attitudes to Chinese art before and after the Second World War. Chinese art was part of the syllabus before and after that war, and was excluded thereafter. It was relegated to the marginal place of the exotic arts. Mieke Bal has argued that comparison should not be an instrument of judgement, but a source of differentiation.
