‘Chinoiserie’ enriches global aesthetics

By CHEN MIRONG / 02-20-2025 / Chinese Social Sciences Today

A Pair of French-made egg-shaped vases, featuring gilt-painted landscapes and figures on a light purple ground, dated 1779. Photo: Liu Yuwei/CSST


At the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London, the United Kingdom, a tall Chinese-style pagoda stands magnificently, offering one of the earliest and finest bird’s eye views of London. A replica of the Porcelain Pagoda at the Great Bao’en Temple in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu Province, the Great Pagoda at Kew was designed and built by renowned British royal architect Sir William Chambers in 1762. This is the only royal Chinese-style pagoda in England. Kew’s iconic pagoda epitomizes the “Chinoiserie” craze in global art circles from the 16th to the 18th centuries, highlighting the dissemination and profound influence of Chinese art overseas, as well as the artistic exchanges between China and the wider world during this period.


Throughout the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization, artists have skillfully blended humanistic, natural, and philosophical elements into their creations, expressing unique perspectives, deep reflections, and shaping a distinctive and captivating Chinese artistic style. As exchanges between China and the world became more frequent, this style gradually spread from China to the West and beyond. This phenomenon also gave rise to the term “Chinoiserie” in the French language, derived from “Chinois” (meaning “Chinese” or “in the Chinese style”) and the suffix “-erie” (denoting a collection or style).


Emergence of Chinoiserie

Chinoiserie can be traced back to the 13th century, when the famed Italian merchant and adventurer Marco Polo returned to Europe after travelling and living in China for 17 years. His Il milione (“The Million”), known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo, introduced Europeans to China, a prosperous yet mysterious country far to the East. 


The term “Chinoiserie” was coined by French philosopher Charles Fourier in 1823 to denote European perceptions of China. In 1836, French writer Honoré de Balzac used the term in his novel L’Interdiction to describe Chinese style decor. In 1878, Chinoiserie was formally included in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (Dictionary of the French Academy) as a feminine noun referring to artifacts, furniture, or other exquisite works either from China or crafted in line with Chinese taste. 


Michael Yonan, a professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), in the United States, told CSST that Chinoiserie is actually a style of Western (mostly European, but also American) decoration and design. “It has its origins in the 1600s but its great moment of popularity was the 1700s and 1800s. During this period, it was highly desirable to decorate one’s home, or own objects, that displayed an imaginary ‘Chinese’ appearance.” 


Yonan noted that Chinoiserie appeared across Europe, from France and Germany to Russia and Sweden. In Britain, it was exemplified by William Chambers’ Chinese garden design at Kew, featuring a towering pagoda. In Germany, nobles favored Chinesisches Kabinett—Chinese-style rooms for reading and leisure.


The origins of Chinoiserie, according to Yonan, are “complex and not easily summarized.” He attributed its development to increased global contact during the Renaissance, primarily through maritime trade. 


This exchange encompassed Christian missionary efforts in East Asia and the trade of goods such as porcelain, silk, and lacquer, Yonan explained. “China had enjoyed economic relations with Europe for millennia—think of the Silk Road, which enabled trade across land routes—but by the 18th century, a growing awareness of China as a distinct culture became clearer to Europeans.”


During this period, China held a unique allure for Western audiences. The influx of Chinese-made goods into European markets introduced Chinese motifs and designs into European artistic expressions. As literacy rates rose across Europe, more books emerged describing Chinese culture, making China “distant yet somehow more familiar” to European readers, explained Yonan.


Katharine Burnett, a professor of Art History at UC Davis, offered a similar perspective in a recent interview with CSST. Centuries of global trade by land and sea, she noted, brought remarkable Chinese goods to Europe—objects that sparked curiosity and desire, even inspiring local imitations. “Although we generally think of Chinoiserie as a phenomenon of the early-modern period,” Burnett observed, “I suspect it actually takes place much, much earlier, as the unfamiliar often appears exotic and desirable.”


Motifs 

Discussing recurring motifs in European Chinoiserie, Yonan noted that these include dragons, valued for their fantastic decorative qualities but stripped of the imperial symbolism they carry in Chinese culture. 


He also noted that Chinese architectural forms, such as pagodas, became common decorative elements in Europe. Stripped of their religious connotations, they were often reimagined as ornamental structures in gardens, like at Kew. Equally prevalent were depictions of Chinese people, characterized by East Asian features and elaborate traditional attire. “One finds examples of this in paintings, engravings, architectural designs, and ceramic objects” that exoticized Chinese clothing, hairstyles, and hats, evoking a distant and foreign world.


Beyond aesthetic novelty, Yonan suggested, such designs reflected deeper cultural projections. Their appeal stemmed not only from their distinctiveness but also from the idealized image of China they conveyed. Europeans often viewed China as an ancient, stable, and prosperous society—qualities they admired and aspired to emulate. “In other words,” he explained, “China was a kind of ideal society, and this made objects with a Chinese look to them, Chinoiserie, especially appealing.” 


China’s image in 18th-century Europe 

Despite premodern Europe’s fascination with China, Yonan noted that 18th-century European views of non-European societies were typically negative. 


During this period, Africa, Asia, and the Americas were generally regarded by Europeans as inferior civilizations, with terms like ‘savages’ or ‘infidels’ commonly used to describe those whose ways of life differed from European norms. “But China was a special case. It was the one society in the world that Europeans could not view as inferior to it. China was too prosperous and successful for this negative perception to work,” Yonan articulated. Rather than being viewed negatively, China was seen as a parallel civilization—distinct from Europe but comparable in sophistication. This perception inspired efforts to merge Chinese philosophy with European scholarship, as intellectuals sought parallels between the two traditions.


Behind this admiration was the idea that successful societies must share certain  elements of cultural heritage—a common sentiment among educated Europeans in this period. “Even today, there is a kind of idealization of China in Western societies, which is the legacy of this historical moment,” Yonan added. 


Missionaries’ role 

The oldest surviving texts from European antiquity, including the Homer’s Epics and the Bible, make no mention of China, a fact Yonan emphasized. Though these texts formed the foundation of Europe’s sense of itself and world history, “when it became apparent not only that China was there, had existed for centuries, but was unknown to ancient writers, this became a problem that European scholars struggled to explain.”


“Western missionaries did much to bring awareness of China to the West, but as an art historian, I also recognize how Chinese objects, brought to Europe by merchants, contributed to disseminating Chinese culture to the West,” he said. 


Yonan pointed to porcelain as a prime example of China’s influence on Europe. Invented in China and traded across Asia for centuries, some pieces reached Europe during the later Middle Ages. “Europe was unable to match the vivid white translucency of porcelain, even though they tried for a long time,” he explained. It wasn’t until 1708 that Meissen successfully recreated the Chinese formula, which was soon after published in a newspaper by a European missionary and spread to anyone who could read. Over time, Porcelain became so closely associated with China that, as Yonan explained, it eventually gave rise to the term “china” for fine dishware: “In some parts of the English-speaking world, you call your nice dishes ‘the china’ or ‘fine china’ to distinguish them from everyday bowls and plates. The good stuff comes from China!”


Today, Chinoiserie remains in vogue worldwide, as global artists and brands continue to draw inspiration from Chinese artistic and cultural elements. With China’s growing national strength and the continued dissemination of its culture, this trend is set to exert an even more extensive and far-reaching influence on global aesthetics, fostering greater artistic exchange and integration between China and the world.


Edited by LIAN ZHIXIAN