Author: Kate:)

Team 7 – Chinoiserie: Behind the Sheets

Fiona, Azmeera, Peng Cheng and Yu Wei

Wall Text:

Chinoiserie are Chinese products meant for exportation by the local manufacturers. In order, to suit the preferences of foreign buyers, Chinese craftsman added patterns that were not authentic to Chinese products at that time in order to seem more appealing. Due to wave of success in these Chinese export wares in Britain, there were many British craftsmen that imitated the Chinese style to produce “pseudo-Chinese” products, later called this style was coined Chinoiserie. These exports started in the 17^th century and expanded dramatically after two decades into the 18^th century.

During the 18^th century, Baroque and Rococo Styles were also popular, thus it was inevitable that Chinoiserie has both style incorporated. It is uncertain that Chinoiserie had inspired some great Rococo styled furnishings, but the mix of east and west was evident in Chinoiserie products.

Chinoiserie often features extensive gilding and lacquering for furniture, the use of blue and white in the porcelain products. All their products usually are asymmetrical with oriental figures and motifs such as cranes, willows and clouds. John MacKenzie pointed out: ‘Chinoiserie, the construction of an imaginary Orient to satisfy a western vision of human elegance and refinement within a natural and architectural world of extreme delicacy, was as much a product of Chinese craftsmen as of the West’ These products allowed westerners who never entered China develop this idea of fantastic foreign land and fall in love with the imaginary that were crafted.

Even though the exoticism of Chinoiserie was distinct, it was more directed more for the interest of the female population. There were some products that were directly catered for women consumption as it was rumoured that traders often bring Chinoiserie as souvenirs for their wives from the Canton Trade.

However, Chinoiserie was never appreciated by the high society as art but instead viewed as a threat that may lower the standards of arts and culture. This was mostly due to the fact that Chinoiserie often lack depth in meaning and focus on the idea of surface beauty. Furthermore, Chinoiserie was a representation of meaningless vanity, indulgence, and luxury.

Our Gallery, Chinoiserie: Behind the Sheets takes visitors on a trip to unveil the more sophisticated and private side of Chinoiserie which was deemed as low cultured. Even though Chinoiserie was considered frivolous, it had nevertheless empowered woman with distinct set of physical product.

As women had less opportunities to be in contact of the real arts, men used their access of knowledge and appreciation of ancient art to stigmatise women to a low and deviant form of art that anyone, with or without education, can appreciate. In other words, Chinoiserie might be used as a social order to keep the existing powers of elites that controls artistic values. However, the general public had turned a blind eye that Chinoiserie was the stepping stone for the all genders to be in touch with art then soon politics and power of west and east. In a patriarchal society then, women was often seen as devious manipulators that can potentially fling society into disorder, people often forget that ideals and politics has nothing to do with gender in the first place. Thus, Chinoiserie played a huge role to blurring gender roles at that time.

Object label:

Pictures depicting large emblematic male and female figures in garden settings used as wallpaper in the Chinese Dressing Room at Saltram National Trust Inventory No. 872998

Around 1760s

The wallpaper in the Chinese Dressing Room is probably the oldest at Saltram. It is painted on mulberry paper, depicting elegant people in a garden setting. The pictures are printed on paper in black and white and then coloured by hand.

The scheme is made up of multiple copies of two Chinese hand-coloured prints. 20 alternating pairs of prints were mounted on a textile lining. The joins between the prints have been disguised by skillful paper hanger, who cuts off the top margins around certain motifs and the addition of certain cut-out motifs proves their professionalism. The partition was decorated in a slightly different way, with the addition of large figures cut from other prints, and it appears to have been inserted into the room slightly later. Some colours have faded, particularly in the background.

In this picture, we can see that these Chinese wallpaper are not used alone, they are often complemented by ceramic dolls. Both figures in the painting and the dolls are dressed in the Chinese elegant robe and wearing the same kind of hairstyle. The depiction of these elegant figures probably reveals the life of Chinese high social classes, but it could also be a fancy story that made up to satisfy the curious westerners. Women decorated their bedroom and dressing room with these wallpapers and imagine about the far oriental world. Though their imagination maybe totally different from the real China, it was their great pleasure at that time.

Furthermore, if we look even closer, we realized the image of the plants on the wallpaper are not the same, they are several kinds of plants, and they are probably not from the same location and may not even grow in same climate. Since the paperhanger does these additions of images of plants, we could guess that the paper hangers had never been to China before, though they are good at deal with these Chinese wallpaper. Their understanding of Chinoiserie style could be only according to the tales from the merchants and traveller at that time and images that being exported to Europe.

This is a valuable experience  that we learn art history  through a process of organizing an artifact exhibition.

At the beginning, we have some difficulties in deciding our topics and objects.  Then we finally decided to study the Chinoiserie

topic. We went through many research materials and we realised that Chinoiserie style was closely tied to female. Therefore,we would like to approach this topic by discussing the relationships between Chinoiserie and Female at 18th Century.

During the preparation of the gallery proposal, we went through many argument about what objects we need to put inside the gallery. At first, we are stunned by the great amount of Chinoiserie subject that available for our research, but we need to narrow down our research and decide on only 4 objects. Since we want to talk about “Chinoiserie and Female”, bedroom would be a great place and scenario for us to start. Because at that time, woman are most likely all housewives, the place they could control would be their bedroom or dressing room. Therefore, by studying their chinoiserie styled bedroom, we could better understand their partiality of Chinoiserie style.

This is our final outcome of the gallery proposal. As you can see we used computer model to simulate the actual gallery.

This is the result after we considered many factors. First of all, I think gallery need to show the artefact in the condition that best represents their function and culture, provide short and precise information for the visitors. Secondly, gallery need to protect the artefact. Thirdly, gallery need to engage the audience through visual, auditory,tactile or sensual stimulators. Fourthly, gallery need to provide souvenirs or something that could be take away by the visitors.

Hence, we decide to use computer model to best represent the real gallery, because we could model everything according to our need, especially the lightings. As you can see from above picture, specific lightings are designed to illuminate the artefacts and walltext.  Besides, as we are doing in computer, we could model the surface according to the real gallery material. For example, the floor are set as wooden floors.

Furthermore, this kind of computer interactive model could be the future form of gallery. Since we may not be able to afford to travel to certain country to visit the museums there, it would be great for people to “visit”the gallery online. Now we could only look at pictures that objects are isolated and against white background, it does not give us the right atmosphere to appreciate the objects. Hence, it would be great that people can visit the museum website and have the opportunity to play with interactive games such as our project. The visitor could look around the online gallery which are modelled exactly the same as the actual physical model. Isn’t that cool?

All in all, through this project, I learned to approach art history in a new way. I know how to narrow down and focus on one problem when we try to understand certain culture. This trained me on selecting information and transfer information into shorter but effective message towards the audience.

Pictures depicting large emblematic male and female figures in garden settings used as wallpaper in the Chinese Dressing Room at Saltram National Trust Inventory No. 872998

Around 1760s

The wallpaper in the Chinese Dressing Room, painted on mulberry paper, is probably the oldest at Saltram, dating from the early eighteenth century, and depicts elegant people in a garden setting. The scheme is made up of multiple copies of two Chinese hand-coloured prints. On the main walls of the room the two prints have been hung in alternating pairs. The pictures are printed on paper and finished by hand in black ink and colour. They were mounted on a textile lining. There are about 20 alternating pairs of prints on the main walls, and more on the partition. The skillful way in which the joins between the prints have been disguised, by cutting off the top margins around certain motifs and by the addition of certain cut-out motifs, suggests the involvement of a professional paper hanger. The partition was decorated in a slightly different way, with the addition of large figures cut from other prints, and it appears to have been inserted into the room slightly later. Some colours have faded, particularly in the backgrounds.

From the exhibition, I can tell that Islamic art could never not be treated separately  from their religion.

I think Islamic artists are also trying to ask question about the history and tradition of Islamic world, at the same time trying to raise awareness of the world and find a new way for Islamic art.

The most direct aesthetic values I learned from Islamic art is the beauty of symmetry and the power of representational symbols.  Islamic art style could be easily identified because they always keep the elements of symmetrical geometry patterns. These patterns often contains the idea of the heaven and gods, and sometimes calligraphy are also blended in. Now I think instead only using art as a form of worship. Artist are also trying to use mixed media to express their feeling towards their religion and represents their inside interaction with their god and religion.

Also, gender issue are also being questioned in this exhibition. There are two videos from one project that reflecting the issue of Islamic women covering their hair with kershief. This is really an international controversy. I guess outsider dont really have a say about this. because i feel any objections from any outsiders may be seen as hostility towards the religion. So to solve this issue, it probably need someone inside the islamic society to initiate.

What was your favorite object from today’s visit to the Asian Civilizations Museum?

Below was two objects I picked up from the trip photos. I always enjoy go to museum and listen to the introductions by the museum guid. The lady who led this tour is really knowledgeable and humorous. Thanks her for such an interesting and informational tour. 

Museum is amazing. I always like to image the life that the piece of artifact may represents. 

The necklace and textile from one hundred years ago is amazing, not only because its level of aesthetics demonstrated, but also because its level of imagination. Nowadays, many brands and designs like to emphasis on abstract qualities, and japanese minimalistic aesthetics are also being highly valued. I’m not saying that is wrong, I also enjoy the sense of joy brought by “blank”  However, I think we should not abandon the beauty from the complicated and decorative design that bears all the good wishes and hope from that culture. 

  Seurapi (necklace) with nine pendats Ca.1900, Aceh, North Sumatra

Acehnese Jewellery

Aceh is one of the few areas, aside from the northeastern Malay states, in which the faceted granulation technique was used. Old Acehnese gold jewellery resembles ornaments from Kelantan, across the Melaka Straits, in its use of red staining and minute detailing. The innovative feature of gold from Aceh lies in its use of enamel on gold, as in the mesh bracelet on display. This technique was probably acquired through Aceh’s sustained contact with the wider Islamic world of Mughal india and Ottoman Turkey.

Ceremonial hanging depicting a scene from the Ramayana

India, coromandel Coast, late 18th century Cotton (stencilled, mordant-dyed, and painted)

This is a typical representation of the battle between Rama, crown prince of Ayodhya, and Ravana, demon king of Lanka. The main characters are in the centre and surrounded by battle scenes. This textile was made in India for export to Southeast Asia. Such textiles were often treasured as heirlooms in Indonesia, and brought out during ceremonies

If you could have a room of your own, how would you set about decorating it? Chinoiserie? Japonaiserie? 

Actually both Chinoiserie and Japonaiserie are western styles that evolved since 17th century due to the trade between Western word and Eastern world.  I guess in westerners’ eyes that all the chinoiserie  and Japonaiserie interiors including wallpapers and furnitures are reflecting the mysterious oriental world. However, as a true chinese,  I actually perceive a strong sense of western aesthetics from  both style.

First of all, wallpaper  is really a western thing. Traditional Chinese or Japanese interiors do not use wallpaper to decorate their house.  But nowadays, the fashion of using wallpaper has been spread to the eastern world.  I think I would like to have a room that is decorated with Chinoiserie wallpaper.  Instead of using normal illustrative and pure floral pattern, wallpapers that have figures and stories to tell would be more interesting.

However, I still have to say,  use ceramic  vause as the base of a lamp is not very professional.   It is beautiful and creative, but it simply not following the initial attention of the creator of chinese blue and white ceramics.

Chinoiserie style is like a half-blood child of the western world and eastern world. It shows exciting and exotic feel at everywhere. But in the end, in a chinese’s eye, it is still a bit childish to a small extent.

What is a family portrait? What are some famous family portraits? How would you take a family portrait now?

I think family portrait reflects the society.

People would generally put on clothes that they think are formal enough to show their wealth and taste and yet at the same time show their affections towards  their family members.

Taking the famous royal family as an example, instead of keeping distance and maintain the mysterious feel of the royalties, they start to use new media, especially internet, to portrait themselves as  more affectionate towards their people. Therefore, except the formal portrait that they used present to the public, they would also try to show family portrait that represents more relaxed and down to earth life. I guess that is why they include the dog. Also, unlike the second picture, whereas all ladies are wearing a hat and all men are in suits, the first family portrait make you image a normal family life instead of political influence of that family.

Another aspect of family portrait is that it shows the society structures.  All the advertisement that use family portrait as a selling point are very aware of that.

As you can see, family portrait in Singapore normally contains parents and at least two children. However, if this advertisement was from China, it would only contain one child.

Singapore family

China family

Those are simply because Singapore government advocate families to have more children, while China government carried out the famous One-Child Policies since beginning of the 90s.