chinoiserie

Silks, porcelain, and lacquer from China, which were very much admired in Europe from the time they were first imported in the late Middle Ages, and consequently much imitated. From the work of the 17th-c japanners and the productions of the early European porcelain makers, which directly copied Oriental art, a separate Western style evolved, using Chinese and Japanese motifs in an original manner in a completely Western decorative context. It reached its height in the 18th-c (with Louis XIV's court celebrating the first day of the century Chinese-style), and was used throughout the decorative arts, as well as in such fields as book illustration, furniture, architecture, the theatre, and gardening. Tea-drinking, imported in 1658, became universal within a century. Chinoiserie was the artistic manifestation of Le Rêve chinois (‘The Chinese dream’), a broader phenomenon which embraced philosophical, religious, legal, and social issues, attracting many thinkers of the age.

Chinoiserie refers to a European artistic style which reflects Chinese influence and is characterized through the use of fanciful imagery of an imaginary China, asymmetry and whimsical contrasts of scale, the use of lacquerlike materials and decoration.

From the Renaissance to the 18th century Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success. Direct imitation of Chinese designs in faience began in the late 17th century, was carried into European porcelain production, most naturally in tea wares, and peaked in the wave of rococo Chinoiserie (ca.

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 mid-17th century, in Portugal as well. Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine blue-and-white Ming decoration from the early 17th century, and early ceramic wares at Meissen and other centers of true porcelain naturally imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and tea wares.

Pleasure pavilions in "Chinese taste" appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German and Russian palaces, and in tile panels at Aranjuez near Madrid. Thomas Chippendale's mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753 - 70, but sober homages to early Xing scholars' furnishings were also naturalized, as the tang evolved into a mid-Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Not every adaptation of Chinese design principles falls within mainstream "chinoiserie." Chinoiserie media included "japanned" ware imitations of lacquer and painted tin (tôle) ware that imitated japanning, early painted wallpapers in sheets, and ceramic figurines and table ornaments. Upscale houses, like the Casa Loma, sometimes feature an entire guest room decorated in the chinoiserie style, complete with Chinese-styled bed, phoenix-themed wallpaper, and china. Number 10 Ox novels and Stephen Marley in his Chia Black Dragon series (it should however be noted that Marley rejects the chinoiserie label in favour of his own term "Chinese Gothic").