Art and architecture during the Qing Dynasty
(18th – early 20th centuries):
Building multilateralism
Originality, theoretical breakthroughs,
contributions, practical values
Apart from the implementation of emerging technologies (webpage, auto-cad reconstructions of architectural and artistic evidence), the project is based in an innovative interpretative perspective. Traditional Art History has focused on how the early modern period created connections between different regions of the world. Thanks to these emerging market, Asian and American kingdoms had knowledge of the European avant-garde, which they would aim to imitate. From this perspective, the analytical pattern is the level of (mis)understanding of such foreign artists from the originals. When the focus is on Europe, the perspective is how varied were the collections, and not how much Western artists imitated foreign art. Trying to reshape these interpretations, this project is based on multilateralism, a perspective which is close to other proposals successfully used for general eighteenth century history in colonial America. From this point of view, it will compare Chinese court patronage with patronage in Europe and if it will demonstrate of relevance with other case-studies. The questions won´t be how the connection was made, or who imitates who, but comparing the different ways of addressing globalization in the visual discourse. It shall identify similar problems, i.e. the visual representation of otherness, the changing role of religion, the visual discourse on the emperor, etc., and compare the answers given by different traditions. This approach aims to explain every artistic phenomenon from its own tradition, underlining a plural story.
Top scholars and universities worldwide have provided a vast array of guides, research techniques and tools, and the publication of sources and of secondary essays on sources kept in China and beyond (see the collections at the Princeton or Berkeley). In particular, Chinese scholars lead the challenge of architectural digitalisation and virtual reconstruction of their built heritage. Still, much has to be done to transfer this information to historical analysis. Moreover, scholars and academics are still not using in full all possibilities offered by 21st technology. If this project is granted, the methodology will provide an innovative basis for scientific and teaching activities. Due recognition will be given to MPI as a worldwide top leading institution on the topic. Dr. Osswald lectures History and Culture of Macau to students in Macau and history of the Portuguese in Asia to Portuguese students. She is a research fellow of Macau Ricci Institute, and a member of the leading researchers’ network on the contacts between Portugal and Macau and China coordinated by Prof. Carmen Amado Mendes, president of the Scientific and Cultural Center of Macau in Lisbon. Dr. Luengo supervises students from Asia, Europe and America with research subjects of relevance for 18th century Chinese architecture and its connection with other Asian and American parallel phenomenon from a non-Eurocentric perspective. The Macau Polytechnic Institute will centralise the experience and the innovation of this collaboration. This project proposes a deep theoretical breakthrough, changing the usual Eurocentric interpretation of cosmopolitanism. From this project, a new perspective on multilateralism is provided. Such a perspective will be useful also to address other non-Western architectural and artistic heritage, such as the Persian, the Ottoman, the African or the American heritage. It will explore the transference and application of its output but also of its methodologies and work and technical outputs (see the reconstructions) to teaching activity broadly as concerns history, translation into old Chinese/ English and also to experts and general public.
Availabilities and unavailabilities of research resources
This proposal is based on the previous experience of the researchers. The PR and the CI have a consolidated knowledge of the most important sources’ collections at traditional archives and libraries for Western scholars, such as the ARSI (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu) in Rome, the MEP (Mission Étrangères de Paris) in Paris, the AFIO (Archivo Franciscano Iberoriental) in Madrid, and also of secondary archives in such cities such as Seville or Lisbon.
Moreover, in 2018, the Principal Investigator(PI) has also prepared a research project on Macau art thanks to a research grant from Macau Ricci Institute. In 2021, she acted as consultant on religious art and architecture in Macau to the Audio – Visual Association CUT 拍板視覺藝術團, Macao, China. In June 2019 she acted as a referee to the Journal Orientis Aura: Macau Perspectives in Religious Studies. Her published output includes the following papers dealing with Macau and China art: “On Jesuit architecture in Asia: Goa, Japan and Macau (1642-1639)”, Giornata di Studi su Ferdinando Moggi (1684-1761), Architetto e Gesuita Fiorentino in Cina, ed. Francesco Vossilla, Florence, Editore Pontecoboli, 2018: 125-147; “On Jesuit Baroque Art: Goa, Macau and Peking”, in Barroco de ambos mundos: Miradas desde Puebla, ed. Ignacio Arellano y Robin Rice, New York, Instituto de Estudios Auriseculares (IDEA), 2019: 183-199, and “Jesuit Painting in China between 1582 and 1644: a case study of cultural and spiritual exchange”, The Macau Ricci Journal – Visual Media and Moral Education 6 (2020): 29-40. Doi: 10.1163/22141332-00103005; and “Jesuítas de língua alemã e a Coroa Portuguesa na Índia, no Brasil e na China: um contributo transcultural na Época Moderna (sécs. XVI-XVIII)”, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutsch-portugiesischen Beziehungen Para uma História das relações luso-alemãs, Transkontinentale Kontakte und kultureller Austausch (15.–19. Jahrhundert) Contactos transcontinentais e intercâmbio cultural (séculos XV–XIX), eds. Yvonne Hendrich, Thomas Horst und Jürgen Pohle, Bristol, Peter Lang (2022). In December 2018 she delivered a paper in French on the Ruins of S. Paul in Macau within an international conference on Heritage co-organized by UNESCO, in Paris, France. In April 2021 she delivered the paper “Jesuit Art in Macau”, at Macau Ricci Forum / St. Joseph University, Macau, China .
The Co-Investigator (CI) is the author of the book Building Qing Enlightenments Global architecture for eighteenth century Beijing. Liverpool: Oxford Series for the Enlightenment-Liverpool University Press, 2020. Within his extensive published output, the papers “Buildings of paper. A collection of European engravings for the Chinese emperor in 1713”, accepted for publication at the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians; “Yuanming Yuan en el siglo XVIII: Arte entre la diplomacia y la filosofía; entre Europa y Pekín”. Araucaria. 2016; LUENGO, Pedro and LUENGO, Francisco Javier, “Fotogrametría y análisis lumínico Interacciones en el estudio de la arquitectura barroca”. Artnodes. Journal on art, science and technology, 22(2), 2019, pp. 62-71 “Architecture in eighteenth-century East and Southeast Asia Chinese quarters”. Journal of Urban History. 2020, are of special relevance for this research project application.
Its results will create a milestone in the discipline of global arts with a focus on China. Moreover, it intends to explore collaborations among experts on art history and old Chinese linguistics. It will moreover put together the last contributions of digital access to information with the traditional questions from the Humanities. Nevertheless, there is a low risk on its success. To control failures, a contingency plan is proposed.