chinoiserie

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chinoiserie

(shēnwäzrē`), decorative work produced under the influence of Chinese art, applied particularly to the more fanciful and extravagant manifestations. Intimations of Eastern art reached Europe in the Middle Ages in the porcelains brought by returning travelers. Eastern trade was maintained during the intervening centuries, and the East India trading companies of the 17th and 18th cent. imported Chinese lacquers and porcelains. Dutch ceramics quickly showed the influence of Chinese blue-and-white porcelains. In the middle of the 18th cent. the enthusiasm for Chinese objects affected practically every decorative art applied to interiors, furniture, tapestries, and bibelots and supplied artisans with fanciful motifs of scenery, human figures, pagodas, intricate lattices, and exotic birds and flowers. In France the Louis XV style gave especial opportunities to chinoiserie, as it blended well with the established rococorococo
, style in architecture, especially in interiors and the decorative arts, which originated in France and was widely used in Europe in the 18th cent. The term may be derived from the French words rocaille and coquille
..... Click the link for more information. . Whole rooms, such as those at Chantilly, were painted with compositions in chinoiserie, and Watteau and other artists brought consummate craftsmanship to the style. Thomas Chippendale, the chief exponent in England, produced a unique and decorative type of furniture. The craze early reached the American colonies. Chinese objects, particularly fine wallpapers, played an important role in the adornment of rooms, and especially in Philadelphia the style had a pronounced effect upon design.

Bibliography

See study by H. Honour (1961).

Chinoiserie

A Western style of architecture and decoration, utilizing Chinese design elements.

chinoiserie

A Western European and English architectural and decorative fashion employing Chinese ornamentation and structural elements, particularly in 18th cent. Rococo design.

chinoiserie

1. a style of decorative or fine art based on imitations of Chinese motifs
2. an object or objects in this style
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References in periodicals archive ?
Slowly away, Chinoiseries found her stride late in the race and with two subsequent winners in behind, the form looks relatively decent.
Chin can call the tune at Pontefract
Stella Beddoe, keeper of decorative art, describes the English pleasure in the inventive, delicate chinoiseries of Jean Pillement as adapted for ceramics.
Chinese Whispers: Chinoiserie in Britain 1650-1930'.
Echoes of the orient: Philippa Glanville visits Brighton for the first exhibition in over 70 years to chart Britain's fascination with Chinese art and design
Dating to around 1760-75, many bear delicate but thickly applied 'high-relief' polychrome enamelled flowers, exotic birds, fruit, chinoiseries and gilt-scrolled borders characteristic of contemporary Chelsea porcelain.
OX skulls and flowers James Giles's glass: although now remembered largely for his decoration on porcelain, the glassware of James Giles was the most luxurious, fashionable and expensive of its time, In the second of two articles, Andy McConnell examines the varied motifs that allow attributions to be made to this accomplished designer
2) It was at this time that chinoiserie made its first appearance in English gardens, with Chinese-style pavilions being constructed at Grove House in Old Windsor, Berkshire; at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire; and at Wroxton Abbey in Oxfordshire.
It may have been designed by William Kent, to whom a number of chinoiserie schemes have been attributed.
9) The Royal Pavilion, the lavish oriental residence created at Brighton by the Prince of Wales, later George IV, between 1802 and 1823 contained the most admired and influential chinoiserie interiors of the day.
18) Prints made after Boucher's own chinoiserie designs, including the Suitte de figures Chinoises, were copied for the painted decoration of the Kina Slott, the Chinese pavilion in the grounds of the royal palace at Drottningholm, near Stockholm, which was built in its present form between 1763 and 1769.
A third possible source is the decoration of the Royal Pavilion, which featured many chinoiserie figures.
The use of Chinese characters to create attractive but meaningless chinoiserie decoration originated in the books on China that were published by the Jesuits in the second half of the 17th century.
Although it was initially resisted, Chambers's chinoiserie vocabulary did eventually also find favour in England.
30) Statuettes of Budai Hoshang lounging against his bag were imported into Europe from the 17th century onwards, and he was adopted as a decorative chinoiserie motif.
Found in translation the Chinese House at Stowe: the Chinese House in the garden at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, is decorated with enchanting paintings inspired by Chinese art. Emile de Bruijn recounts the building's strangely itinerant history, traces the sources of its decoration, and places it in the context of the mania for chinoiserie in Regency England

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