Admission requirements
Not applicable.
Description
The Visual and Material Culture of Exchange Between China and Europe (c.1500-1800)
The course will explore the circulation of materials, surfaces, and designs between China and Europe during the early modern period, highlighting how these exchanges shaped new ways of displaying, representing, and making. The objects resulting from these cross-cultural interactions embody complex entanglements of knowledge diffusion, appropriations, and aesthetic transfers—many of which remain elusive in written records.
From the sixteenth-century onward, elite interiors, gardens, and fashion increasingly reflected these encounters in unprecedented ways. These exchanges entailed various forms of translation, visible, for instance, in artworks crafted by Chinese artists specifically for the European taste and by Europeans imitating Chinese technologies and reinterpreting designs. Such objects circulated through ‘contact zones’ as Guangzhou, Macao, Beijing, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and London, before traveling further across the globe. They found their way into European merchants’ homes, royal palaces, Jesuit publications, and Chinese imperial collections. By the mid-eighteenth century, many of these objects exemplified the intensification of European colonial ambitions on global scale, leading to the exploitation of people, resources, and the environment, as well as the displacement of animals and plants.
Throughout the course, we will study a variety of visual and material sources, including Chinese blue-and-white porcelains exported to seventeenth-century Netherlands; Guangzhou-designed wallpapers made for European markets; European-made Chinoiserie silks; Suzhou woodblock prints integrating western linear perspective; and clocks crafted in France for the Qianlong court. Through these case studies, we will critically engage with concepts such as ‘export art’, ‘Chinoiserie’ and ‘Occidenterie’, while reflecting to what extent these notions can still be meaningful today and on their intersections—or tensions—with contemporary art historical discourse on ‘global’ and ‘planetary’ perspectives.
Course objectives
Become familiar with current debates on the study of early modern cross-cultural art, with a particular focus on China-Europe exchange
Critically engage with theories and arguments relevant to the study of early modern visual and material culture within the framework of global history
Identify primary and secondary sources relevant to their research tropic
Formulate clear and coherent arguments
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
- Class participation 20%
- Presentation 20%
- Final research paper 60%
Weighing
See above.
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
Resits will be allowed only for the final essay (60% of the course). A re-sit for other course components is not possible
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
The course readings will be published in Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Herta Mohr
Remarks
BA Chinastudies students cannot write their thesis as part of this course.