The Magnificence of the Qing – European Art on the Jesuit Mission in China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26481/marble.2014.v6.226Abstract
Cross-cultural encounters between China and the West date back to the first centuries A.D., when merchants, missionaries and travelers from numerous nations undertook the journey via the Eurasian land route known as the Silk Road. However, the most productive interaction that would profoundly and permanently affect both China and Europe was stimulated by the members of a religious order founded in 1534, namely the Society of Jesus. In the following years the highly intellectual Jesuits would slowly but steadily work their way into the vast realm of Chinese life with the help of an insistent albeit accommodative propagation introducing first and foremost Catholicism, Western sciences like mathematics, astronomy and medicine, philosophy, culture as well as the arts. This policy of accommodation was introduced by the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano (1539- 1606) - responsible father in command of the China mission - and cunningly implemented by celebrated Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552-1610). Rather little attention has been paid to the subject of the arts, regarding their development and changes throughout the time of the Jesuit China missions. Remarkably, even Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743), French Jesuit, geologist and sinologist, who is nowadays seen as the greatest author of the age on China and composer of Description de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise – which includes detailed information on the geography, culture, history, and politics of China, Chinese Central Asia, Tibet and Korea - did only briefly mention the arts in this context (Volume III, p. 1510). Even though his work is the largest and most comprehensive work on China produced by a Jesuit, he was among the Sinologists who never visited China himself. Interestingly, well-known figures such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hume and Goldsmith relied on and referred to Du Halde as their principle source of knowledge (Mackerras, 1989). We can therefore view his work as a fundamental element of how China was represented in the West – very positive, charming and slightly propagandistic.
References
Bailey, G.A. (2001). Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America. 1542-1773. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Boda, Y. (1988). Castiglione at the Qing Court. An Important Artistic Contribution. Orientations 19(11), 44-51.
Demattè, P. & Reed, M. (2008). China on Paper: European and Chinese Works from the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Los Angelos: Getty Research Institute.
Dourado, E. (2001). The Golden Exile. Extracted from: http://www.mam.gov.mo/shows/ exile/english/preface_e.htm
Du Halde, J.B. (1736-1737). Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres de ces pays. (4 volumes). La Haye: Henri Scheurleer.
Hearn, M.K. (2000). The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The Courtiers, Officials and Professional Artists. In: Heilbrunn Timeline Time Line of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/qing_4/hd_qing_4.htm)
Hearn, M.K. (2005). The Grandeur of Art during the Qing. Extracted from: http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/html/art/
Kobayashi, H. & O’Malley, J.W. (2006). Suzhou Prints and Western Perspective: The Painting Techniques of Jesuit Artists at the Qing Court, and Dissemination of the Contemporary Court Style of Painting to the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Chinese Society through Woodblock Prints. In J.W. O’Malley (Ed.). The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540 – 1773 (pp. 262-286). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Ledderose, L. (1991). Chinese Influence on European Art, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century. In T.H.C. Lee (Ed.). China and Europe, Images and Influences in the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Hong Kong: the Chinese University Press.
Liu, Y. (2008). The Intricacies of Accommodation: The Proselytizing Strategy of Matteo Ricci. Journal of World History 19(4), 465-487.
Mungello, D. (2009). The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500 – 1800 (3rd ed.). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Musillo, M. (2008). Reconciling Two Careers: the Jesuit Memoir of Giuseppe Castiglione Lay Brother and Qing Imperial Painter. Eighteenth Century Studies 42(1), 45-59.
O’Malley, J.W. (Ed.) (2006). The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540 – 1773. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Standaert, N. (2010). Mateo Ricci. Shaped by the Chinese’. Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of the British Jesuits, 21 May 2010, 1-8. Retrieved from http://www.thinkingfaith.org/ articles/2010052_1.htm.
Thompson, C. (2011). Travel Writing. London - New York: Routledge.
Treutlein, T.E. (1941). Jesuit Missions in China during the last Years of K’ang Hsi. Pacific Historical Review 10(4), 435-446.
