“Mine Eyes and Taste are grown a little Chinese”: Jean-Denis Attiret, S. J., Recognizes the Eqial Value of European and Chinese Art
- Format:
- Conference Paper
- Year:
- 2018
- Event Date:
- May 4
- Event Institution:
- Columbia University
- Conference Title:
- From Rome to Beijing: Sacred Spaces in Dialogue: A Symposium on the History of Art, Science, and Religion in Jesuit China.
- Conference Location:
- New York, NY
- Language:
- Abstract:
An irascible Frenchman who hated toufou and whose mouth was tortured by learning Chinese, arrived in Beijing on 13 June 1739. All the more remarkable that in his famous letter of 1743 on the design of Chinese gardens, this Jesuit painter, Brother Jean-Denis Attiret, granted for the first time in history that Chinese and European gardens and architecture were of equal beauty, founded on different principles, each coherent in its own right. “I must own to you,” he wrote, “without pretending to decide which of the two ought to have the preference, that the manner of building in this country pleases me very much. Since my residence in China, my eyes and taste are grown a little Chinese.” This positive view broke radically with the principled rejection of Chinese art that had ruled European judgment for more than a century. My paper reconstructs the conditions that made this change possible.
- Conference URL: