Title & Author:

Ideas of Chinese gardens : Western accounts, 1300-1860 / edited by Bianca Maria Rinaldi.

Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2016]

Description:

viii, 376 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Series:

Penn studies in landscape architecture

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Marco Polo (c. 1254-1324) : From the Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the kingdoms and marvels of the East -- Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) : from Nicholas Trigault, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas -- Álvaro Semedo (1585/86-1658) : from the History of that great and renowned monarchy of China -- Johannes Nieuhof (1618-72) : from An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Great Tartar Cham, emperor of China -- Jean-François le Comte (1655-1728) : from "Letter VI, to the Duchess of Bouillon : of the economy and magnificence of the Chineses" -- Jean-François Gerbillon (1654-1707) : from "Extract of a letter from F. Gerbillon, at Peking 1705, giving an account of a country house of the emperor of China" -- Matteo Ripa (1682-1746) : from Storia della fondazione della Congregazione e del Collegio de' Cinesi -- Jean-Denis Attiret (1702-68) : A particular account of the emperor of China's garden near Pekin -- William Chambers (1723-96) : "Of the art of laying out gardens among the Chinese" -- Jean Joseph Marie Amiot (1718-93) : from "A description of the solemnities observed at Pe-king on the emperor's mother entering on the sixitieth year of her age" -- John Bell (1691-1763) : from Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to diverse parts of Asia -- Michel Benoist (1715-74) : from "Lettre du Père Benoist à monsieur Papillon d'Auteroche : A Péking, le 16 novembre 1767" -- François Bourgeois (1723-92) : from "Lettre d'un missionnaire a M. l'Abbé G. [Gallois] contenant une relation de son voyage de Canton à Pé-king, le 15 Septembre 1768" ; from "Description d'une maison de plaisance de l'Empereur, à Yang-tchéou, par M. Bourgois, selon sa lettre de novembre 1786" -- Carl Gustav Ekeberg (1716-84) : from "A short account of the Chinese husbandry" -- Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727-80) : from "Le jardin de Sée-Ma-Kouang: Pöeme."
Jean Joseph Marie Amiot (1718-93), or Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727-80) (attributed) : from "Remarques sur un ecrit de M. P**, initulé : recherches sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois" -- Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727-80) : "Essai sur les jardins des plaisance des Chinois" -- Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727-80) : from "Observations sur les plantes, les fleurs et les arbres de Chine" -- George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801) : from An authentic account of an embassy from the king of Great Britain to the emperor of China -- André Everard van Braam Houckgeest (1739-1801) : from An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India Company, to the court of the emperor of China, in the years 1794 and 1795 -- John Barrow (1764-1848) : from Travels in China -- George Macartney (1764-1806) : from Some account of the public life, and a selection from the unpublished writings, of the Earl of Macartney -- Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes (1759-1845) : from Voyages à Péking, Manille et l'Île de France, faits dans l'intervalle des anneés 1784 à 1801 -- Félix Renouard de Sainte-Croix (1767-1840) : from Voyage commercial et politique aux Indes Orientales, aux Iles Philippines, à la Chine -- Peter Dobell (1772-1852) : from Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia, with a narrative of a residence in China -- James Main (c. 1765-1846) : from "Reminiscences of a voyage to and from China in the years 1792-3-4 -- John Francis Davis (1795-1890) : from The Chinese : a general description of the empire of China and its inhabitants -- Robert Fortune (1813-80) : from Three years' wanderings in the northern provinces of China -- Osmond Tiffany Jr. (1823-95) : from The Canton Chinese; or, the American's sojourn in the celestial empire -- Henry Charles Sirr (1807-72) : from China and the Chinese -- Robert Fortune (1813-80) : from A residence among the Chinese -- Charles Taylor (1819-97) : from Five years in China
Robert Swinhoe (1836-77) : from Narrative of the north China campaign of 1860 -- Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833-1913) : from A narrative of the war with China in 1860 -- Appendix. William Chambers (1723-96) : A dissertation on oriental gardening.

Summary:

"Europeans may be said to have first encountered the Chinese garden in Marco Polo's narrative of his travels through the Mongol Empire and his years at the court of Kublai Khan. His account of a man-made lake abundant with fish, a verdant green hill lush with trees, raised walkways, and a plethora of beasts and birds took root in the European imagination as the description of a kind of Eden. Beginning in the sixteenth century, permanent interaction between Europe and China took form, and Jesuit missionaries and travelers recorded in letters and memoirs their admiration of Chinese gardens for their seeming naturalness. In the eighteenth century, European taste for chinoiserie reached its height, and informed observers of the Far East discovered that sophisticated and codified design principles lay behind the apparent simplicity of the Chinese garden. The widespread appreciation of the eighteenth century gave way to rejection in the nineteenth, a result of tensions over practical concerns such as trade imbalances and symbolized by the destruction of the imperial park of Yuanming yuan by a joint Anglo-French military expedition. In Ideas of Chinese Gardens, Bianca Maria Rinaldi has gathered an unparalleled collection of westerners' accounts, many freshly translated and all expertly annotated, as well as images that would have accompanied the texts as they circulated in Europe. Representing a great diversity of materials and literary genres, Rinaldi's book includes more than thirty-five sources that span centuries, countries, languages, occupational biases, and political aims. By providing unmediated firsthand accounts of the testimony of these travelers and expatriates, Rinaldi illustrates how the Chinese garden was progressively lifted out of the realm of fantasy into something that could be compared with, and have an impact on, European traditions."--Publisher's description.

ISBN:

9780812247633 (hbk. ; acid-free paper)
0812247639 (hbk. ; acid-free paper)
9780812292084
0812292081

Subject:

Europa
Gardens, Chinese China History Sources.
Gardens China History Sources.
Landscape architecture China History Sources.
Aesthetics, Oriental.
Voyages and travels History.
Travelers' writings History.
Jardins chinois Chine Histoire Sources.
Jardins Chine Histoire Sources.
Architecture du paysage Chine Histoire Sources.
Esthétique orientale.
Voyages Histoire.
Écrits de voyageurs Histoire.
20.41 Asian art: general.
74.21 geography of Asia.
Gardens.
Gardens, Chinese.
Landscape architecture.
Travel.
Travelers' writings.
Voyages and travels.
Chinesischer Garten
Europäer
Gartenkunst
Rezeption
Landschaftsarchitektur
Reisebericht
Reisebild
Garten
Travelers' writings, European China.
China Description and travel Sources.
Chine Descriptions et voyages Sources.
China.
Westeuropa
Chine.
1300-1860

Form/genre:

History.
Sources.

Added entries:

Rinaldi, Bianca Maria, editor.
Penn studies in landscape architecture.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 299346
Call No.: BIB 245443
Status: Available