This dissertation studies the influence of 1600-1750 Chinese art and its popularity on contemporaneous European art, and examines the development of Chinoiserie, a style born from the fusion of eastern and western art. In particular, this study re-eva...
This dissertation studies the influence of 1600-1750 Chinese art and its popularity on contemporaneous European art, and examines the development of Chinoiserie, a style born from the fusion of eastern and western art. In particular, this study re-evaluates the place of Chinoiserie within the history of East-West Interactions in Art literature, which had previously been defined vaguely as part of Chinese "style" art due to its ties to Indian, Japanese, and European art, despite its origins as the attempt to directly reproduce Chinese art.
Despite the similarity with Japonisme in terms of the artistic interaction between the East and the West, Chinoiserie did not received recognition as a legitimate artistic movement. While considered to be exquisite, and pretty decorative art at best, critics sometimes considered its aesthetics grotesque and vulgar. Although some 21th century scholars, such as David Porter and Stacey Slobodda, demonstrate cultural and economical significances through socio-cultural contexts, Chinoiserie still remains categorized in the flippant decorative arts?those arts that did not deliver any transformation in European fine art as an active, generative force.
However, in contrast to such ideas, Chinoiserie and the so called “China craze” were not just a passing fad in 17th-18th century European society, nor was its influence on European art insignificant. Particularly, Chinese ceramics and lacquering techniques, which were absent before they were imported into European society, significantly affected and altered European art and life. Furthermore, the exotic icons and new artistic tastes from China helped bring about French Rococo art, and contributed to the formation of Anglo-Chinese gardens in England.
In fact, the emergence of Chinoiserie cannot be attributed solely to commercial trade between China and Europe in the 16th Century. The roots of Chinoiserie can rather be found in western admiration of the east, China in particular, which goes back to as early as ancient Rome; since the very beginning of their encounter, the tantalizing contact between Europe and China especially amplified the European’s curiosity and their emblems of great civilization, such as religion, thought, arts inevitably accompanied by a special aura. Moreover, philosophical exchanges that began with Jesuit missions in China between the 16th and 17th centuries fueled such admiration and amicability, ultimately opening the course for cultural and artistic influence. The popularity of Chinese style art at the time (17th-18th Century) was based on such history. The increase in European demand for such art and the relative shortage of supply resulted in European artists replicating Chinese artistic products in the 17th Century. Blended with European art, especially Rococo style, this ultimately culminated in the birth of Chinoiserie.
However, it is true that the popularity of Chinese art and Chinoiserie in Europe was concentrated mainly in decorative arts, while Chinese influence on the fine arts was relatively limited. This was largely due to the lawless perspective and shading technique used in Chinese paintings, coupled with a lack of understanding by Europeans of the self-expressive ( 寫意 ) aspects of Chinese literati paintings and landscape paintings. Examples from Watteau and Boucher--whose application of Chinese art was limited to strangely-shaped rocks and Chinese paintings that employed western techniques, respectively, illustrate their fear of following completely different artistic standards. Even assuming that they found Chinese art perhaps interesting and inspiring, it was still difficult for them to welcome and incorporate new and exotic aesthetics.
Despite the similarity with Japonisme in terms of the cultural interaction between the West and the Far East, however, Chinoiserie did not receive recognition as a legitimate artistic movement. This paper intends to shed new light on Chinoiserie, which has been appreciated no more than as a decorative art form in the literature of Art History. Future research on Chinoiserie will further our understanding of not only the influence of Chinese art on European art, but also more broadly the meaning of the 17th-18th Century period within the history of East-West artistic interactions.