Chinoiserie
by Dawn Jacobson
List Price:
Our Price: $19.89
You Save: $15.11 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Dawn JacobsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-03-30
ISBN: 0714838365
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Book Reviews of Chinoiserie
Book Review: West Meets East
Summary: 5 Stars
The Far East has inspired Western fashion, interior design and film in recent years: think cropped jeans embellished with embroidered silk, sleeveless Mandarin collar tops, Ralph Lauren's bold mix of red and pink silk bedding, or the profusion of Asian-focused films including Seven Years in Tibet. But this trend is nothing new. Eastern imagery has appeared in Western design for centuries, never really going out of style, and peaking in popularity at various points in history. Ever since the fourteenth century when Europeans first read The Travels of Marco Polo, Westerners have romanticized China and its neighbors, and Western decorative arts have been especially affected by Eastern style. In her book Chinoiserie, Dawn Jacobson explains the phenomenon in great detail. Her focus is on furniture, accessories, interiors and architecture and she highlights the Chinoiserie craze in creations ranging from Chippendale furniture to Delftware to Grauman's Chinese Theater. The illustrations are exquisite and plentiful. Jacobson's text is scholarly-this is an art history text as well as a coffee table book-and the chapters are well organized.
Summary of Chinoiserie
The late-'90s fascination with China in the political and business realms is reflected in fashion as well, and Chinoiserie explores a mix of 14th- to 20th-century decorative styles based on European fantasies of "Cathay." Emphatically not historically correct, chinoiserie is a style that grew out of a m+?lange of travelers' tales, exaggerations, odd lots from India to Japan, and the European imagination of the exotic. This book is peopled with characters ranging from Marco Polo to Madame de Pompadour to P.T. Barnum. Profuse illustrations conjure the visions of Watteau and Boucher, pot painters in Delft and Minton, garden and kiosk designers from England to Poland, and creators of 1920s movie palaces--the style's final incarnation. Tracing the history of commerce as well as the image, chapters cover the time when intercontinental travel and trade were difficult if not impossible, the flowering of French rococo chinoiserie and its spread across 18th-century Europe. It also looks at the jardin anglo-chinois, the descendants of originally aristocratic styles in middle-class English and American homes, and finally the withering of the fantastic Cathay as more reliable information and objects arrived in the West from China in the 19th and 20th centuries. Should you be curious about the intricately carved dragon on a theater ceiling or wallpaper peopled with "monkeys dressed as Chinamen," this smartly designed book written with verve, a love of the subject, and an insider's point of view provides a jumping-off point for further study and includes a list of places to visit. --Alex LawrenceThe late-'90s fascination with China in the political and business realms is reflected in fashion as well, and Chinoiserie explores a mix of 14th- to 20th-century decorative styles based on European fantasies of "Cathay." Emphatically not historically correct, chinoiserie is a style that grew out of a m?lange of travelers' tales, exaggerations, odd lots from India to Japan, and the European imagination of the exotic. This book is peopled with characters ranging from Marco Polo to Madame de Pompadour to P.T. Barnum. Profuse illustrations conjure the visions of Watteau and Boucher, pot painters in Delft and Minton, garden and kiosk designers from England to Poland, and creators of 1920s movie palaces--the style's final incarnation. Tracing the history of commerce as well as the image, chapters cover the time when intercontinental travel and trade were difficult if not impossible, the flowering of French rococo chinoiserie and its spread across 18th-century Europe. It also looks at the jardin anglo-chinois, the descendants of originally aristocratic styles in middle-class English and American homes, and finally the withering of the fantastic Cathay as more reliable information and objects arrived in the West from China in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Should you be curious about the intricately carved dragon on a theater ceiling or wallpaper peopled with "monkeys dressed as Chinamen," this smartly designed book written with verve, a love of the subject, and an insider's point of view provides a jumping-off point for further study and includes a list of places to visit. --Alex Lawrence
General Books
- Professional & Technical > Architecture > Interior Design
- Arts & Photography > History & Criticism > Regional > Asian
- Graphic Design
- Decorative Arts
- Furniture Design
- General
- Instructional & How-To > General
- History > World > Medieval
- Asia > China > General
- Home & Garden > Crafts & Hobbies > Woodworking > Furniture & Carpentry
- Interior Design > General
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Murals & Painted Decoration for Pros
Encyclopedia of Ornament, theby Albert Racinet
Jensen; Published: 1997-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $87.20
Ukiyo-E: 250 Years of Japanese Artby Roni Neuer, Susugu Yoshida
Smithmark Publishers; Published: 1991-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
Albert Mooreby Robyn Asleson
Phaidon Press; Published: 2000-05-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $63.72
John William Godward: The Eclipse of Classicismby Vern G. Swanson
Antique Collectors' Club; Published: 1998-03; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Color and Light: Luminous Atmospheres for Painted Roomsby Donald Kaufman, Taffy Dahl, Christine Pittel
Clarkson Potter; Published: 1999-04-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $43.94
Price in other shops:
Color: Natural Palettes for Painted Roomsby Donald Kaufman, Taffy Dahl
Clarkson Potter; Published: 1992-03-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.00
Price in other shops:
Handbook of Ornamentby Franz Sales Meyer
Dover Publications; Published: 1957-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.20
Price in other shops:
The Royal Pavilion at Brightonby John Dinkel
Tourism, Museums and Entertainments Committee of the Brighton Borough Council; Published: 1982; Unknown Binding; Book
Best price: $9.99
Chinoiserieby Dawn Jacobson
Phaidon Press; Published: 1999-03-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.59
Price in other shops:
The Painted House: Over 100 Original Designs for Mural and Trompe L'Oeil Decorationby Graham Rust
Bulfinch; Published: 1997-09-01; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiorsby Armelle Baron
Flammarion; Published: 2007-09-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $47.23
Price in other shops:
Elle Decor So Chic: Glamorous Lives, Stylish Spaces (Elle Decor)by Margaret Russell, Editors of Elle Decor
Filipacchi; Published: 2007-10-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.40
Price in other shops:
Revisiting the Painted House : More Than 100 New Designs for Mural and Trompe L'Oeil Decorationby Graham Rust
Amazon Remainders Account; Published: 2005-10-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.06
Price in other shops:
Decorating Master Classby Ellie Cullman, Tracey Winn Pruzan
Abrams; Published: 2008-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.19
Price in other shops:
Charlotte Moss: A Flair for Livingby Charlotte Moss
Assouline; Published: 2008-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $40.95
Price in other shops:
Bunny Williams' Point of View: Three Decades of Decorating Elegant and Comfortable Housesby Bunny Williams
Stewart, Tabori and Chang; Published: 2007-10-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $23.99
Price in other shops:
Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, Peopleby Hamish Bowles
Knopf; Published: 2007-10-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $43.55
Price in other shops:
Tony Duquetteby Wendy Goodman, Hutton Wilkinson
Abrams Books; Published: 2007-12-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $47.17
Price in other shops:
Landscape Wallcoverings (Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution)by Joanne K. Warner
Scala Publishers; Published: 2006-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Chinoiseriesby Bernd H. Dams, Andrew Zega
Rizzoli; Published: 2008-04-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $36.18
Price in other shops: