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Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie refers to an artistic style
which reflects Chinese influence and is characterized
through the use of elaborate decoration and intricate
patterns. Its popularity peaked around the middle of the
18th century.
From the Renaissance to the eighteenth
century Western designers attempted to imitate the technical
sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success.
Direct imitation of Chinese designs began in the late
17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie,
ca 1740 - 1770. Earliest hints of Chinoiserie appear,
in the early 17th century, in the nations with active
East India Companies, Holland and England, then by mid-17th
century, Portugal. 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.
But in the true Chinoiserie décor fairyland, mandarins
lived in fanciful mountainous landscapes with cobweb bridges,
carried flower parasols, lolled in flimsy bamboo pavilions
haunted by dragons and phoenixes, while monkeys swung
from scrolling borders.
Pleasure pavilions in "Chinese taste"
appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo
German 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.
Small pagodas appeared on chimneypieces
and full-sized ones in gardens. Kew has a magnificent
garden pagoda designed by Sir William Chambers. Though
the rise of a more serious approach in Neoclassicism from
the 1770s onward tended to squelch such Oriental folly,
at the height of Regency "Grecian" furnishings,
the Prince Regent came down with a case of Brighton Pavilion,
and Chamberlain's Worcester china manufactory imitated
gaudy "Imari" wares. 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.
Later exoticisms added imaginary Turkish
themes, where a "diwan" became a sofa. (See
Sezincote, Gloucestershire.)
The term is also used in literary criticism to describe
a mannered "Chinese-esqe" style of writing,
such as that employed by Ernest Bramah in his Kai Lung
stories.
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