chinoiserie

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chinoiserie

chinoiserie (shēnwäzrēˈ), 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 rococo. 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).

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Chinoiserie

A Western style of architecture and decoration, utilizing Chinese design elements.
Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

chinoiserie

A Western European and English architectural and decorative fashion employing Chinese ornamentation and structural elements, particularly in 18th cent. Rococo design.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

chinoiserie

1. a style of decorative or fine art based on imitations of Chinese motifs
2. an object or objects in this style
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
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Slowly away, Chinoiseries found her stride late in the race and with two subsequent winners in behind, the form looks relatively decent.
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Virginia Woolf was undoubtedly one of the favourite targets at these theatricals, as a letter from Vanessa Bell to her husband suggests: "then came Angelica with a most ambitious entertainment a la Ruth Draper [...] several rather good hits at Virginia were got in." (19) Woolf's quirks were also lampooned in "The Conspirators"; "Chinoiseries or Grizzle's Successor"; the manuscript in Vanessa Bell's hand, probably, though untitled, "A Quiet Morning in Whistler Studios"; and "A Hundred Years Hence." David Garnett recalls how Julian Bell's plays in particular were "largely aimed at making fun of Virginia" (Garnett 3: 63).
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At one time or another Wesley adapts nearly all of them to his own ends: the fetes galantes and pastorales, the seasonal allegories and Arcadian landscapes, the Ovidian metamorphoses, historical anecdotes, and sporting scenes, the orientales, chinoiseries, odalisques, and divertissements (i.e., sexy picture s).
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Genette for his generous assistance in compiling what he has called these "chinoiseries paratextuelles."
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The facade and Edwardian interior have changed little; including the single manually operated elevator, the television sets that are hidden inside wooden cabinets, and of course, the hotel's famous lobby with it's lovely, dark oak columns and trim, wing chairs and chinoiseries [sic throughout].
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1) and furniture, as well as writing an essay for the catalogue about 17th-century chinoiseries on silver, and the more sophisticated rococo reflections of Cathay.
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

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