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(, ; loanword from French , from '', "Chinese"; l=China style) is the interpretation and imitation of China and other Sinosphere artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literature, theatre, and music. The aesthetic of chinoiserie has been expressed in different ways depending on the region. It is related to the broader current of Orientalism, which studied Far East cultures from a historical, philological, anthropological, philosophical, and religious point of view. First appearing in the 17th century, this trend was popularized in the 18th century due to the rise in trade with China (during the High Qing era) and the rest of East Asia.
As a style, chinoiserie is related to the Rococo style. Both styles are characterized by exuberant decoration, asymmetry, a focus on materials, and stylized nature and subject matter that focuses on leisure and pleasure. Chinoiserie focuses on subjects that were thought by Europeans to be typical of Chinese culture.
Though usually understood as a European style, chinoiserie was a global phenomenon. Local versions of chinoiserie were developed in India, Japan, Iran, and particularly Latin America. Through the Manila galleon trade, Spanish traders brought large amounts of Chinese porcelain, lacquer, textiles, and spices from Chinese merchants based in Manila to New Spanish markets in Acapulco, Panama, and Lima. Those products then inspired local artists and artisans such as ceramicists making Talavera pottery at Puebla de Los Angeles. (2015). 9780878468126 ISBN 9780878468126
Chinoiserie had some parallel in "occidenterie", which was Western styled goods produced in 18th century China for Chinese consumers. Although this was a notable interest of the Kangxi Emperor and Qianlong Emperor, as shown by the architecture of Xiyang Lou, it was not restricted only to the court. "Occidenterie" artifacts and art were accessible to a wider variety of consumers, as they were domestically produced.
Even though the root of the word 'chinoiserie' is 'Chine' (China), the Europeans of the 17th and 18th centuries did not have a clear conceptualization of how China was in reality. Often terms like 'Orient', 'Far East' or 'China' were all equally used to signify the region of Eastern Asia that had proper Chinese culture as a major representative, but the meaning of the term could change according to different contexts. Sir William Chambers for example, in his oeuvre A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening of 1772, generically addresses China as the 'Orient'. In the financial records of Louis XIV during the 17th and 18th centuries were already registered expressions like 'façon de la Chine', Chinese manner, or 'à la chinoise', made in the Chinese way. In the 19th century the term 'chinoiserie' appeared for the first time in French literature. In the novel L'Interdiction published in 1836, Honoré de Balzac used chinoiserie to refer to the craftworks made in the Chinese style. From this moment on the term gained momentum and started being used more frequently to mean objects produced in the Chinese style but sometimes also to indicate graceful objects of small dimension or of scarce account. In 1878 'chinoiserie' entered formally in the Dictionnaire de l'Académie.
After the spread of Marco Polo's narrations, the knowledge of China held by the Europeans continued to derive essentially from reports made by merchants and diplomatic envoys. Dating from the latter half of the 17th century a relevant role in this exchange of information was then taken up by the Jesuits, whose continual gathering of missionary intelligence and language transcription gave the European public a new deeper insight of the Chinese empire and its culture.張省卿 (Sheng-Ching Chang)，《東方啓蒙西方 – 十八世紀德國沃里兹（Wörlitz）自然風景園林之中國元素(Dongfang qimeng Xifang- shiba shiji Deguo Wolizi (Wörlitz) ziran fengjing yuanlin zhi Zhongguo yuansu) 》 (The East enlightening the West – Chinese elements in the 18th century landscape gardens of Wörlitz in Germany), 台北 (Taipei)：輔仁大學出版社(Furendaxue chubanshe; Fu Jen University Bookstore), 2015, pp. 42–44.
While Europeans frequently held inaccurate ideas about East Asia, this did not necessarily preclude their fascination and respect. In particular, the Chinese who had "exquisitely finished art ... and whose court ceremonial was even more elaborate than that of Versailles" were viewed as highly civilized. According to Voltaire in his Art de la Chine, "The fact remains that four thousand years ago, when we did not know how to read, they the knew everything essentially useful of which we boast today."Voltaire as qtd. in Lovejoy, Arthur. (1948) Essays in the History of Ideas (1948). Johns Hopkins U. Press. 1978 edition: Moreover, Indian philosophy was increasingly admired by philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer, who regarded the Upanishads as the "production of the highest human wisdom" and "the most profitable and elevating reading which ... is possible in the world."
Chinoiserie was not universally popular. Some critics saw the style as "a retreat from reason and taste and a descent into a morally ambiguous world based on hedonism, sensation and values perceived to be feminine." It was viewed as lacking the logic and reason upon which Antique art had been founded. Architect and author Robert Morris claimed that it "consisted of mere whims and chimera, without rules or order, it requires no fertility of genius to put into execution." Those with a more archaeological view of the East, considered the chinoiserie style, with its distortions and whimsical approach, to be a mockery of the actual Chinese art and architecture. Finally, still others believed that an interest in chinoiserie indicated a pervading "cultural confusion" in European society.
As British–Chinese relations stabilized towards the end of the 19th century, there was a revival of interest in chinoiserie. Prince Albert, for example, reallocated many chinoiserie works from George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton to the more accessible Buckingham Palace. Chinoiserie served to remind Britain of its former colonial glory that was rapidly fading with the modern era.
Earliest hints of chinoiserie appear in the early 17th century, in the arts of the nations with active East India Companies, Holland and England, then by the mid-17th century, in Portugal as well. Tin-glazed pottery (see delftware) made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine blue-and-white Ming Dynasty decoration from the early 17th century. After a book by Johan Nieuhof was published the 150 pictures encouraged chinoiserie, and became especially popular in the 18th century. Early ceramic wares in Meissen porcelain and other factories naturally imitated Chinese designs, though the shapes for "useful wares", table and tea wares, typically remained Western, often based on shapes in silver. Decorative wares such as vases followed Chinese shapes.
William Alexander (1767–1816), a British painter, illustrator and engraver who travelled to the East Asia and China in the 18th century, was directly influenced by the culture and landscape he saw in the East. He presented an idealized, romanticized depiction of Chinese culture, but he was influenced by "pre-established visual signs." While the chinoiserie landscapes that Alexander depicted accurately reflected the landscape of China, "paradoxically, it is this imitation and repetition of the iconic signs of China that negate the very possibility of authenticity, and render them into stereotypes." The depiction of China and East Asia in European and American painting was dependent on the understanding of the East by Western preconceptions, rather than representations of Eastern culture as it actually was.
In the 17th and 18th centuries Europeans began to manufacture furniture that imitated Chinese lacquer furniture. It was frequently decorated with ebony and ivory or Chinese motifs such as pagodas. Thomas Chippendale helped to popularize the production of chinoiserie furniture with the publication of his design book The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director: Being a large Collection of the Most Elegant and Useful Designs of Household Furniture, In the Most Fashionable Taste. His designs provided a guide for intricate chinoiserie furniture and its decoration. His chairs and cabinets were often decorated with scenes of colorful birds, flowers, or images of exotic imaginary places. The compositions of this decoration were often asymmetrical.
The increased use of wallpaper in European homes in the 18th century also reflects the general fascination with chinoiserie motifs. With the rise of the villa and a growing taste for sunlit interiors, the popularity of wallpaper grew. The demand for wallpaper created by Chinese artists began first with European aristocrats between 1740 and 1790. The luxurious wallpaper available to them would have been unique, handmade, and expensive. Later wallpaper with chinoiserie motifs became accessible to the middle class when it could be printed and thus produced in a range of grades and prices.
The patterns on chinoiserie wallpaper are similar to the pagodas, floral designs, and exotic imaginary scenes found on chinoiserie furniture and porcelain. Like chinoiserie furniture and other decorative art forms, chinoiserie wallpaper was typically placed in bedrooms, closets, and other private rooms of a house. The patterns on wallpaper were expected to complement the decorative objects and furniture in a room, creating a complementary backdrop.
These gardens often contain various fragrant plants, flowers and trees, decorative rocks, ponds or lake with fish, and twisting pathways. They are frequently enclosed by a wall. Architectural features placed in these gardens often include pagodas, ceremonial halls used for celebrations or holidays, pavilions with flowers and seasonal elements.Zhou, Ruru (2015). "Chinese Gardens". China Highlights.
Landscapes such as London's Kew Gardens show distinct Chinese influence in architecture. The monumental 163-foot Great Pagoda in the centre of the gardens, designed and built by William Chambers, exhibits strong English architectural elements, resulting in a product of combined cultures (Bald, 290). A replica of it was built in Munich's Englischer Garten, while the Chinese Garden of Oranienbaum includes another pagoda and also a Chinese teahouse. Though the rise of a more serious approach in Neoclassicism from the 1770s onward tended to replace Oriental inspired designs, at the height of Regency "Grecian" furnishings, the Prince Regent came down with a case of Brighton Pavilion, and Chamberlain's Royal Worcester manufactory imitated "Imari porcelain" wares. While classical styles reigned in the parade rooms, upscale houses, from Badminton House (where the "Chinese Bedroom" was furnished by William and John Linnell, ca 1754) and Nostell Priory to Casa Loma in Toronto, sometimes featured an entire guest room decorated in the chinoiserie style, complete with Chinese-styled bed, fenghuang-themed wallpaper, and porcelain. Later exoticism added imaginary Turkish themes, where a "diwan" became a couch.
In the 18th century and throughout the 19th century, chinoiserie fashion was especially celebrated in France, and the origin of most Chinese-inspired fashion was French during this period. Chinoiserie had also inspired designers such as Mariano Fortuny, the Callot Soeurs, and Jean Paquin.
In the early 20th century, European and fashion designers would use China and other countries outside of the Eurocentric-fashion world to seek inspiration; Vogue magazine also acknowledged that China had contributed to the aesthetic inspiration to global fashion. Chinese motifs grew popular in European fashion during this period. China and the Chinese people also supplied the materials and aesthetics to American fashion. Original Chinese fashion also influenced various designs and styles of Negligee.
There was also a fashion trend for day-wear jackets and coats to be cut in styles which would suggest various Chinese items as was published the Ladies' Home Journal in June 1913, where the garments displayed showed influences of the Qing dynasty Qizhuang (especially the bufu), the jiaoling ruqun, Qizhuang, mamianqun, yunjian, yaoqun (short waist-skirt), piling (collar), as well as traditional Chinese embroideries, and traditional Chinese Lào zi, pankou, Mandarin collar, etc.
According to the Ladies' Home Journal of June 1913, volume 30, issue 6:
In the early 20th century French composers responded to the West's then utopian, nostalgic view of Chinese landscape and culture in pieces such as Estampes (Claude Debussy).Locke, Ralph. Musical Exoticism (2009) There followed three major 20th century examples of musical chinoiserie: Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (1908), Igor Stravinsky's The Nightingale (1914), and Giacomo Puccini's Turandot (1926).Scott, Derek B. 'The Twentieth Century: Orientalism and Musical Style', in Musical Quarterly No. 8212 (1998), pp. 309-35
Other notable pieces include Tchaikovsky's 'Chinese Dance' (from Act Two of The Nutcracker 1892), Maurice Ravel's 'Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes' (from Ma mère l'Oye, 1910), the Chinese Symphony (1914) by Bernard van Dieren, and the light music orchestral fantasy In a Chinese Temple Garden by Albert Ketelbey (1923). In Britain, many 20th century song composers set English translations of Chinese poetry (by orientalists such as Launcelot Cranmer-Byng, Herbert Giles, Edward Powys Mathers and Arthur Waley) to music, including Benjamin Britten in his cycle Songs from the Chinese for high voice and guitar (1957).There are other settings of Chinese translations by Granville Bantock, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Bliss, Armstrong Gibbs, Constant Lambert, C.W. Orr, Alan Rawsthorne and Humphrey Searle. More recent operatic examples include A Night at the Chinese Opera (Judith Weir, 1987) and Nixon in China (John Adams, 1987).John Adams has stated: "at no point in this opera did I want to write fake Chinese music". Daines, Matthew. Telling the Truth about Nixon: Parody, Cultural Representation, and Gender Politics in John Adams’s Opera Nixon in China, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis (1995), p. 118
The influence of Chinese and East Asian music has also been evident in popular music, from musical comedy ( The Geisha, 1896, A Chinese Honeymoon, 1899, Chu Chin Chow, 1916), Tin Pan Alley ( Limehouse Nights by George Gershwin, 1920), Broadway musicals and jazz ( The King and I, 1951, Flower Drum Song, 1958, 'Chinoiserie' by Duke Ellington, 1971)Moon, Krystyn R. Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s-1920s (2005) through to modern rock music ( China Girl by David Bowie, 1976 and many more).Chris Eldon Lee (producer). BBC Radio 4 documentary, Chopsticks at Dawn, first broadcast 8 June, 2010 These pieces often incorporate Western cultural shorthand clichés of Chinese musical style, such as the oriental riff, making use of the pentatonic scale, often harmonized with open parallel fourths.NPR>
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