Intercultural Spaces in Eighteenth-century Beijing

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Throughout the eighteenth century, Beijing was a veritable emporium of things novel and foreign and a key agent in the complex contemporary networks of global exchange. Recent scholarship has reconstructed the cross-cultural trajectory of particular classes of objects or bodies of knowledge and the meanings they gained in the intercultural environment of the Qing. Privileging the study of individual works, however, has sometimes downplayed the impact of interculturalism on the spaces designed to accommodate them, whether physical or pictorial. This panel brings together five essays investigating ways the spaces of the court, the capital, and the empire were shaped by the introduction of new technologies and pictorial conventions. Stephen Whiteman considers early experiments with geometrical perspective at the Kangxi court and the interconnections between pictorial practice and scientific knowledge. Focusing on three illusionistic paintings in Beijing churches, Lianming Wang reconstructs the early career of Giuseppe Castiglione and the reception of Baroque quadratura among court painters and foreign visitors. The interaction between southern artists and bannermen occupies Michele Matteini’s essay on the depictions of the Beijing residence of a Mongol nobleman. Michael Chang’s study of Qianlong’s Southern Tour scrolls focuses on the tension between the pictorial conventions of court artists, now greatly impacted by imported techniques, and the spectacle of the court on tour. Lastly, Meimei Rado discusses the role of Western costumes in visual and theatrical representations of the time. Together, the papers offer new perspectives on spaces of intercultural encounter in the High Qing.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Stephen Whiteman, The University of Sydney

Chair

• Michele Matteini, New York University

Individual Presentations

• Pozzo’s Legacy: Giuseppe Castiglione and His Contributions to Sacred Spaces in Beijing - Lianming Wang, Heidelberg University

• Painting vs. Practice: The Spectacles of the Qianlong Emperor’s Southern Tours, 1751-1784 - Michael G Chang, George Mason University

• Fashishan’s ‘Shikan’: A Beijing Mansion in Eighteenth-century Beijing - Michele Matteini, New York University