Читать книгу Art in Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 112

The embassy to China, headed by Earl Macartney in 1793, was the first full‐scale attempt by the British government to establish a modern trading relationship with China. Falling somewhere between the earlier Cook voyages and the later French expedition to Egypt (cf. IIB4 and IIIA4), the embassy combined proto‐imperialist military and trading aspects with Enlightenment knowledge‐gathering projects. Although the embassy failed in its main aim of initiating a new trading and diplomatic relationship, it nonetheless did result in considerable new knowledge of both the nature and culture of China. The published account of the embassy was written by Macartney’s deputy, George Staunton. From the point of view of the present anthology, its interest is twofold. On the one hand there are descriptions of Chinese gardens. These confirm the status of gardening in China as a significant art form and Chinese gardening’s distinctive preoccupations, while tempering some of the more fanciful accounts by previous European enthusiasts (cf. IC15, IIA8). On the other hand, there is a much more critical account of Chinese painting. Going on from the stance formulated in the previous century (cf. IC14), the Chinese are taken to task for their lack of knowledge of the human figure, and of perspective. Yet the account of Chinese art, jointly composed by Staunton and the embassy’s comptroller, John Barrow, does embrace two points which elevate it above the norm. Firstly, it gives a rudimentary account (seemingly without understanding it) of the fact that Chinese art was operating with a conceptually based, object‐oriented representational system, rather than a European perception‐based, spectator‐oriented system. Secondly, it offers a unique contemporary discussion of the conflicting currents informing the art of the Jesuit missionary Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), whose work represents the high point of attempts to reconcile the divergent European and Chinese approaches before the transformation wrought by the modern movement. Our extracts are taken from An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, printed by W. Bulmer & Co. for G. Nicoll, Bookseller to His Majesty, London 1797, vol. 2, Chapter 3, pp. 224–6, 229–31, 240–5 and 306–10.

On the day of the Embassador’s presentation to the Emperor … the Embassador and the gentlemen of the Embassy went before day light, as was announced to be proper, to the garden of the palace of Zhe‐hol. In the middle of the garden was a spacious and magnificent tent, supported by gilded, or painted and varnished pillars … Within the tent was placed a throne … It was not merely for the convenience of a great space to contain the concourse of persons meeting on this occasion, that a tent was preferred to a large apartment in the palace. The Tartar dynasty, in conforming in most instances to the customs of a much more numerous and more civilized, tho vanquished nation, retained still a predilection for its own ancient manners, in which occasionally, and on Tartar ground, it took a pleasure in indulging. […]

Soon after day‐light the sound of several instruments, and the confused voices of men at a distance, announced the Emperor’s approach. He soon appeared from behind a high and perpendicular mountain, skirted with trees, as if from a sacred grove, preceded by a number of persons busied in proclaiming aloud his virtues and power. He was seated in a sort of open chair, or triumphal car, borne by sixteen men; and was accompanied and followed by guards, officers of the household, high flag and umbrella bearers, and music … He was clad in plain dark silk, with a velvet bonnet … on the front of it was placed a large pearl, which was the only jewel or ornament he appeared to have about him. […]

His Excellency was habited in a richly embroidered suit of velvet, adorned with a diamond badge and star of the Order of the Bath. Over the suit he wore a long mantle of the same order, sufficiently ample to cover the limbs of the wearer. An attention to Chinese ideas and manners, rendered the choice of dress of some importance, and accounts for this mention of it. The particular regard, in every instance, paid by that nation to exterior appearances, affects even the system of their apparel, which is calculated to inspire gravity and reserve. For this purpose, they use forms the most distant from those which discover the naked figure. Indeed, among the most savage people, few or none are found to whom an interior sentiment … does not suggest the propriety of covering some portion of the human frame. This sentiment, to which is given the name of decency, as pointing out what is becoming to do, increases generally with the progress of civilization and refinement; and is carried no where perhaps so far as among the Chinese, who hide, for the most part, in their loose and flowing robes, the bulk and form of their limbs. In this respect, there is scarcely any difference between the dresses of the two sexes. Even the imitation by art of the human figure, either naked or covered only with such vestments as follow and display the contour of the body, is offensive to Chinese delicacy; a delicacy which has retarded the progress of painting and sculpture, as far at least as relates to such subjects, in that country. […]

The next object of civility immediately from the Emperor, was an invitation to his Excellency and his suite to see the gardens or pleasure grounds of Zhe‐hol. […] They rode through a verdant valley in which several trees, particularly willows of an uncommonly large girth, were interspersed, and between which the grass was suffered to attain its most luxuriant height, with little interruption from cattle or the mower. Arriving at the shores of an extensive lake of an irregular form, they sailed upon it till the yachts in which they had embarked, were interrupted by a bridge thrown over the lake in the narrowest part … The surface of the water was partly covered with lien‐wha, or species of lily … The party stopped at a number of small palaces near the water’s edge, there being no one very considerable edifice. There were other buildings erected on the pinnacles of the highest hills, and some buried in the dark recesses of the deepest vallies. They differed in construction and ornament from each other, almost every one having something in the plan of it, analogous to the situation and surrounding objects; but within each was generally a public hall, having in the midst a throne and a few side rooms: the whole furnished with works of art from Europe, and rare or curious productions of nature found in Tartary … The best works of art by natives of the country were carvings in wood descriptive of natural objects grouped together with taste, and executed with truth and delicacy. Some of the walls were covered with paintings, representing the pleasures of the chase in Tartary. In these the Emperor is always seen at full gallop, shooting wild beasts with arrows. These paintings cannot stand the test of European criticism. The trees, the birds, some parts of the landscape, and even the animals, were drawn with accuracy; but they failed in the human figure, with which the spectator being better acquainted, can more easily perceive where the imitation of it is defective. The proportions, the perspective were not preserved; and the Chinese, tho they succeed in a correct and sometimes lively delineation of individual objects, cannot properly be said, in the present state of their arts, to be equal to the design and composition of a picture. […]

The gardens were enlivened by the movements, as well as sounds, of different kinds of herbivorous animals, both quadrupeds and birds; but no menagerie of wild beasts was perceived. Some monstrous varieties of gold and silver fishes were seen playing in ponds of pellucid water, upon a bottom studded with pebbles of agate, jasper, and other precious stones. Throughout these grounds, they met no gravel walks; no trees planted in belts, nor collected in clumps. Every thing seemed to be avoided which betrayed a regularity of design. Nothing was observed to be directed, unless for very short distances, by straight lines, or to turn at right angles. Natural objects seemed scattered round by accident, in such a manner as to render their position pleasing; while many of the works of human labour, tho answering every purpose of convenience, were made to appear the produce of rustic hands, without the assistance of a tool. Some of the elegancies and beauties which are described as taking place in Chinese gardens, were not perceived by the present visitors; but the gardens of Yuen‐min‐yuen near Pekin, from whence those descriptions are chiefly taken, are supposed to be more complete than those of Zhe‐hol; and it were presumptuous to assert that what is omitted in the one, has been falsely attributed to the other.

* * *

In the neighbourhood of Pekin, the gardens and pleasure grounds of Yuen‐min‐yuen occupy a considerable tract of ground, of which the circuit was, according to the observation of Mr Barrow, at least twelve miles. That gentleman, who saw more of it than any other person of the Embassy, thought it ‘a delightful place. The grand and agreeable parts of nature were separated, connected and arranged in so judicious a manner as to compose one whole, in which there was no inconsistency or unmeaning jumble of objects; but such an order and proportion as generally prevail in scenes entirely natural. No round or oval, square or oblong lawns, with the grass shorn off close to the roots, were to be found any where in those grounds. The Chinese are particularly expert in magnifying the real dimensions of a piece of land, by a proper disposition of the objects intended to embellish its surface; for this purpose, tall and luxuriant trees of the deepest green were planted in the fore ground, from whence the view was to be taken; whilst those in the distance gradually diminished in size and depth of colouring; and in general the ground was terminated by broken and irregular clumps of trees, whose foliage varied as well by the different species of trees in the group, as by the different times of the year in which they were in vigour; and oftentimes the vegetation was apparently old and stunted, making with difficulty its way through the clefts of rocks, either originally found or designedly collected upon the spot. […]

The only circumstance which militated against the picturesque in the landscape of the Chinese was the formal shape and glaring colouring of their buildings. Their undulating roofs are, however, an exception to the first part of the charge; and their projection throws a softening shadow upon the colonnade which supports it. Some of those high towers, which Europeans call pagodas, are well adapted objects for vistas, and are, accordingly, for the most part, placed on elevated situations.

Notwithstanding the just ideas which the Chinese conceive of ornamental gardening, and the taste with which they dispose of every object to the greatest advantage, they are not only ignorant of the principles of perspective, and of the gradations of light and shade, but are utterly insensible of their effect, as appeared from their own performances with the pencil. When, likewise, several portraits by the best European artists, intended as presents for the Emperor, were exposed to view, the mandarins, observing the variety of tints occasioned by the light and shade, asked whether the originals had the right and left sides of the figure of different colours? They considered the shadow of the nose as a great imperfection in the picture; and some supposed it to have been placed there by accident.

An Italian missionary at the court of Pekin, of the name of Castiglione, who was an excellent painter, received orders from the Emperor to paint for him several pictures; but it was intimated to him at the same time to imitate the Chinese style of painting, and not that of Europe, which was considered as unnatural. Accordingly, in the performances meant to decorate the palace, houses above houses are seen in regular gradation to the top of the picture; figures in the fore and back ground are all of the same size, setting, in fact, nature and the senses at defiance. He also painted a set of characters occupied in the different trades of China. The pencilling and colouring of these were incomparably well executed; but for want of the proper shadows, the whole was without effect. Yet they please the Chinese in preference to any specimen of the arts that could be brought from Europe.’

The Chinese, indeed, seem to consider shade as an accidental circumstance, which ought not to be carried from nature to a picture, from which it takes away a part of the eclat and uniformity of colouring; and as to the representation of objects at different distances, they prefer having them drawn, not as they appear to the eye, gradually diminishing as they recede from it, but of their actual size, as determined by the judgement correcting the errors of sight: errors necessary, however, to the beauty and consistency of landscape. The ill effect of paintings executed in conformity to such notions, must operate as a discouragement to the art … Tho the Chinese fail in grouping figures, and in every part of composition and design, they succeed in drawing individual objects. They are particularly happy in the delineation of natural history; the different subjects appearing not only correct, but with the features and attitudes of nature, and with an exactness so minute, that a Chinese painter sometimes reckons the number of scales upon a fish which he is to represent; the whole with a brilliance of colouring, the more surprising as it is found to be owing to the more patient and careful levigation of the same pigments which are used in Europe. Some European prints have been copied by them, and coloured with an effect which has attracted the admiration of the best judges; and a gentleman eminent for his taste in London has now in his possession a coloured copy made in China of a print from a study of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which he deems not unworthy of being added to his collection of valuable paintings.