Chinoiserie
by Dawn Jacobson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dawn JacobsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-03-30
ISBN: 0714838365
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Book Reviews of Chinoiserie
Book Review: Superb
Summary: 5 Stars
"Thus it has happened...we must all seek the barbarous gaudy gout of the Chinese; and the fat-headed Pagods and shaking Mandarins bear the prize from the greatest works of antiquity; and Apollo and Venus must give way to a fat idol with a sconce on hits head"
-- Mrs Montagu, 1749
Jacobson's book is a loving, wise, readable, and historically-grounded survey of a big topic -- Chinoiserie in Western design. All the elements of decor are covered with attention paid to architecture, landscaping, and painting. The book begins with International Gothic and ends in the 20th century; most of it is devoted to the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
Another handsome and well-designed art book from Phaidon: a hefty trade paperback with dustcover, 240 pp on heavy stock, 3.25 pounds, something like 325 illustrations (about 60% of them in color.) Glossary, "Places to Visit," "Further Reading," Index.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Grandeurs and Treasures: The Origins of Chinoiserie
From Chinese Art to Chinoiserie: China Comes to Europe
The Pleasure of Life: Rococo Chinoiserie in France
The Spread of the Style: Chinoiserie in Europe in the 18th Century
No Small Spice in Madness: Rococo Chinoiserie in English Interiors
Chinoiserie in the Landscape: The Jardin Anglo-Chinois in the 18th Century
Through the Looking-Glass: 19th Century Chinoiserie and the Spread to the New World
The 20th Century: Chinoserie's Last Hurrah
Summary of Chinoiserie
It was in the 17th century that myths of exotic "Cathay" began to be replaced by more definite knowledge of things Chinese, through the activities of English and Dutch traders. In the 18th century, however, the taste for designs and architecture based on ideas of Chinese design - "Chinoiserie" - became highly fashionable in the French court, and in its many imitators throughout Europe. Ever since, Chinoiserie has been a factor in the decorative arts and interiors throughout Europe and America. This book celebrates the flowering of the style, and, through over 200 images, shows its development through the 19th and into the 20th century. Packed with colour, the book creates a visual source for all those involved with interiors, collecting, architecture and design.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 mélange 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
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