William Chambers’s “Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils” in Context: An Authoritative Guide to Chinese Visual Culture

• Authors: Albert Kozik

Title variants

PL

Porządkowanie wiedzy o Chinach w nowożytnej Europie. „Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils” Williama Chambersa jako przewodnik po chińskiej kulturze wizualnej

Abstracts

PL

Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils Williama Chambersa (1723–1796) tradycyjnie uznaje się za wzornik przeznaczony dla europejskich architektów i zleceniodawców zainteresowanych tzw. stylem chińskim. W niniejszym artykule podjęto próbę umiejscowienia traktatu Chambersa w szerszym kontekście postępów w dziedzinie nowożytnej (proto)sinologii i ówczesnych strategii radzenia sobie z nadmiarem wiedzy o chińskiej kulturze wizualnej. Niezależnie od oczywistej funkcji wzornika, publikacja Chambersa może być rozumiana jako część zjawiska, które dało początek wielu nowożytnym kompendiom dotyczącym Państwa Środka, takim jak naukowe publikacje jezuitów – dziełom mającym na celu uporządkowanie napływających chaotycznie informacji i przeformułowanie ich tak, by były dostępne szerszemu gronu odbiorców. Opierając sią na pracach takich badaczy jak Ann Blair i Georg Lehner, w pierwszej części artykułu skoncentrowano się na nowożytnych sposobach porządkowania wiedzy sinologicznej i narastającej wówczas potrzebie stworzenia jej naukowej syntezy. W części drugiej problem „przeciążenia informacją” omówiony został w odniesieniu do chińskiej produkcji artystycznej i jej percepcji w Europie. Ostatnia część tekstu jest poświęcona analizie Designs Chambersa jako autorytatywnego kompendium, stworzonego w celu jednoczesnego uporządkowania wiedzy o chińskiej kulturze wizualnej i dowiedzenia nieautentyczności opisów i ilustracji zawartych w innych wydawanych wówczas wzornikach.

EN

Traditionally, William Chambers’s (1723–1796) Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils (1757) have been referred to as a pattern book designed for European architects and patrons interested in the so-called “Chinese style”. This study seeks to locate Chambers’s treatise in a broader context of both the European progress in the field of (proto-)sinology and the early modern strategies of coping with the abundance of knowledge about Chinese visual culture transferred to and disseminated in Europe. Its obvious role as a pattern book notwithstanding, Chambers’s book may be presented as a part of the phenomenon that gave rise to authoritative works of reference such as scholarly Jesuit publications, i.e., compendia aimed at structuring the chaotic influx of information and reformulating it in a universally accessible way. Drawing on the research of scholars such as Ann Blair and Georg Lehner, the first part of the article centres on the problem of structuring sinological knowledge in the early modern period and the need for scholarly syntheses. In section two, the same problem of information overload was identified with regard to Chinese artistic production and its reception in Europe. Finally, the last part offers an analysis of Chambers’s Designs as a normative work of reference conceived to simultaneously standardize knowledge about Chinese visual culture and to falsify the descriptions and illustrations included in other pattern books published at the time.

Keywords

PL

William Chambers; Designs of Chinese Buildings; chinoiseries; zarządzanie informacją; chińska kultura wizualna; architektura chińska; historia architektury

EN

William Chambers; Designs of Chinese Buildings; chinoiseries; information management; Chinese visual culture; Chinese architecture; architectural history

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Biuletyn Historii Sztuki
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 84
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 563-591

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Albert Kozik

• Warszawa, Instytut Historii Sztuki UW

• https://orcid.org/0000000268134393

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Identifiers

DOI

10.36744/bhs.1238

Biblioteka Nauki

15592518