Espite Europe's Long-Lasting Acquaintance with Chinese Material
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Kultura IZABELA KOPANIA — Historia SKILLFUL IMITATORS AND EXCELLENT CRAFTSMEN. EUROPEAN OPINIONS — Globalizacja Nr ON CHINESE ART AND THE IMAGE OF CHINA IN EUROPE FROM THE 17 TO THE 19 C. 22 espite Europe’s long-lasting acquaintance with Chinese material culture the category D of Chinese art is rather a late invention dating back roughly to the last quarter of the 19th century. It is noteworthy that the term “art” did not enter the Chinese language itself before the end of 19th century (Clunas, 2017, 26). The first survey of Chinese art, L’art chinoise by Maurice Paléologue (1859–1944), a French diplomat and historian, was published only in 1887. Its British counterpart, Chinese Art by Stephen Wootton Bushell (1844–1908), an amateur Orientalist and physician to the British Legation in Beijing, come out in print in 1904. Both books, covered roughly the same ground: bronzes, sculpture, architecture, painting, carvings, ceramics, lacquer, enamels, glass and textiles. They offered insight into what was termed “Chinese art” at the turn of the 20th century and represented the first attempts at addressing an unrecognized field of art by classifying its objects in terms of material, chronology and use. However, European reflections on Chinese art did not originate in the late 19th century. In his famous Description of the World, Marco Polo mentioned pictures on the walls of imperial palac- es representing “dragons and birds and horsemen and various breeds of beasts and scenes of battle” as well as “portraits of all the kings who ruled over this province in former times” (Sullivan, 1989, 41). Yet, it was not until the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century that the European public received information on Chinese painting, architecture, sculpture and — what we would today call — decorative arts. No matter how scant this information was, it consti- tuted the very foundation of European knowledge on Chinese art encoded in set of aesthetic judgements and evaluative statements that reverberated in travel, encyclopedic and theoretical writings, well into the 19th century. This paper explores statements made about Chinese art by Europeans spanning the 17 through 19 centuries. Fragments cited below constitute only a small part of both short and more The research for this paper was carried out as a part of the National Science Center project “Historiography of Chinese Art in Europe, 1600-1950”, project no 2015/17/D/HS2/01289. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Eliza- beth Kosakowska who brought my article to a proper level of language accuracy. All the mistakes and misinterpreta- tions are my own. 93 … detailed opinions related to Chinese art that can be found in extensive depositories containing European descriptions of China. My sources are first and foremost letters and accounts sent to craftsmen Europe by Jesuit missionaries residing in Beijing, commentaries from British, Dutch and Russian diplomatic and trade embassies to the imperial court, and encyclopedic compendia produced in excellent Europe by prolific compilers who never crossed the borders of the Old Continent. Large vol- umes devoted to the Middle Kingdom, cyclopedias of universal knowledge touching upon a broad array of subjects from geography, history, government and military issues to flora, fauna, customs, ceremonies and religions of the Chinese provided early modern Europeans with an Skillful imitators and , image of a faraway empire mostly associated with exotic luxury goods and wares of daily con- sumption such as tea and silk textiles. Remarks on government, trade and monetary system were interlaced with lists of ruling dynasties and fascinating notes on ginseng roots and tea plants that Izabela Izabela Kopania European readers were particularly hungry for. Information sent by missionaries, often reliable and detailed, at the same time, influenced by prejudice and the needs of Jesuit propaganda, trick- led into philosophical, historical end economic deliberations of enlightened thinkers as well as into popular consciousness, where it started to live the life of its own. Reproduced, distorted and misinterpreted they gained the status of stereotypes that contributed to a wide-spread and rather homogenous image of China. The Middle Kingdom was perceived in the early modern Europe thus as an ancient and high- ly sophisticated empire, undisturbed by wars and revolutions, and ruled by an enlightened emper- or enjoying unlimited privileges. It was stressed that the emperor’s rule was far from tyranny for he was considered “the father of his people”. French philosophes, to mention only Voltaire, praised the ways in which the Chinese state was organized and the officials (mandarins) recruited and supervised. The French thinkers zealously repeated Jesuit accounts of tough examinations, that served as the only passage to secure success and gain entry to the mandarin milieu and imperial court. The idea of merit, virtue and Confucian ethos of state officials appealed to enlightened philosophes, who ferociously criticized the idea of “birth” as a basis for class distinctions in Eu- rope. (Davis, 1983; Demel, 1991; Clarke, 1998). An idealized image of the Chinese empire that was often cited as “a model for Europe” co- existed with a contradictory and rather unfavorable image of the Chinese people (Demel, 1992; Porter, 2000). The inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom were perceived as sophisticated people, surpassing all Asian nations in their civilization and achievements in sciences, and in some areas of knowledge and inventions even outperforming Europeans. At the same time, the Chinese were characterized as effeminate and grotesque figures, greedy liars, dexterous copyists devoid 94 Kultura of the creative genius and desire to improve their arts and crafts, and as a proud nation pos- sessing some wisdom but lacking in astronomy, geometry and philosophy. — Judged against the artistic traditions of Greco-Roman antiquity and Italian Renaissance, Chi- Historia nese art was relegated to an inferior position. I would argue it was not only perceptions of Euro- — pean commentators but also the prevalent images of China and the Chinese that shaped Europe- Globalizacja Nr an perception of Chinese art. The antiquity of Chinese civilization, the alleged inclination of the Chinese to copy mechanically, their lack of creativity, servile respect of traditions leading to cultural and technological backwardness, and greed stemming from their mercantile mentality 22 determined the value of Chinese art. In my discussion of statements on Chinese art made by Europeans, I will focus on porcelain, painting and architecture. These three branches of art were granted different positions in the European system of arts. Painting was held in the highest respect, architecture was seen on the threshold of fine and mechanical arts, and porcelain was considered as a form of decorative arts and was paid more attention to because of the quality of material rather than aesthetic con- siderations. I have discussed elsewhere how China and the Chinese were stereotyped in early modern Eu- rope (Kopania, 2012a; Kopania 2012b). The present reading is inspired by Craig Clunas’ remarks on how the Hegelian “dynamic West/static East” division determined the way Chinese painting was interpreted by prominent European and American art historians and critics in the 20 century (Clunas, 1999, 133-137; Clunas, 2017, 21-23). East/West dichotomy built into art history dates back to early modern encounters between Europe and China. Perceptions on China and the Chi- nese were entrenched and lived on unchanged for centuries. My intent is to demonstrate how these hard-wired stereotypes influenced European thinking and writing on Chinese art. CHINA AND THE IMAGINATION OF EARLY-MODERN EUROPEAN: TEXTS, IMAGES AND THE IDEA OF CHINESE ART In descriptions of the Celestial Empire remarks on art by no means dominate. Objects of painting, sculpture, ivory carvings as well as gardens, porcelain and lacquer are but one of multitude aspects constituting the image of the largest empire of Asia. The accounts of ornaments, floral and figural motives adorning objects or even plans and structural elements constituting temples and palaces seems so scant that their ability to appeal to the imagination is highly disputable. The on-the-spot observers, Jesuits as well embassy members traveling in China, provided the European public with information and descriptions of Chinese architecture. The most often mentioned sites — the Great Wall, the Great Canal, and the Porcelain Pagoda in 95 … Nanjing — were treated both as marvels of the world and great technological achievements. The imperial palace bewildered visitors with its splendid decorations and the luxurious materials craftsmen employed — marbles, porcelain, gildings, lacquer — that appealed to missionaries’ and traveler’s imagination and taste. Lengthy essays devoted to porcelain, lacquer (called japan or vernis de Chine) excellent and gardens, based on Jesuit letters, circulated in eighteenth century publications. Those written on chinaware and lacquer concerned themselves with technological rather than aesthetic issues. Their authors provided recipes for both china clay and lacquer and discussed the ways in which porcelain dishes and lacquer decorations were produced. It was only the account of imperial gar- Skillful imitators and , dens of Yuanmingyuan north from Beijing, written by a French missionary Jean-Denis Attiret, that made its way into European aesthetics and theoretical discussions