chinoiserie

Chinoiserie comes from French chinois (Chinese) plus the suffix -erie (in the style of, the practice of). The word appeared in French in the eighteenth century to describe the European fashion for Chinese-inspired decorative arts. The emphasis is on 'inspired.' Chinoiserie was not Chinese art. It was European art imagining what Chinese art looked like, based on secondhand reports, a few imported objects, and a great deal of invention.

The fashion began with genuine imports: Chinese porcelain, lacquerware, silk, and wallpaper reached European markets through the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese in Macau. European consumers wanted more than the supply could provide. So European craftsmen began imitating Chinese styles — or what they imagined Chinese styles to be. Delft potters produced blue-and-white earthenware copying Chinese porcelain. French wallpaper manufacturers printed scenes of Chinese landscapes featuring pagodas, mandarins, dragons, and banana trees in combinations no Chinese artist would recognize.

The peak of chinoiserie was the mid-eighteenth century. Frederick the Great built the Chinese House at Sanssouci in Potsdam (1755-1764), a garden pavilion decorated with gilded Chinese figures. Chippendale designed 'Chinese' furniture in London. François Boucher painted 'Chinese' scenes without ever seeing China. The style was a European conversation about an imagined East, conducted in European media for European audiences. Actual Chinese aesthetics — restraint, negative space, calligraphic precision — were largely absent.

The word chinoiserie is now used by art historians to describe this specific eighteenth-century European phenomenon. It is not a compliment. The word carries an acknowledgment that the style was fantasy, not scholarship — Europe dreaming about China rather than looking at it.