Art in Theory. Группа авторов
are known by comparison, and where the originals are concealed from proper inspection, let us see how much these travellers have improved the taste of this nation, by their perigrinations: in architecture, Inigo Jones, and Sir Christopher Wren have been excellent, the first equal perhaps to any man amongst the whole list of these artists; and perhaps at that time the four greatest men in the world in point of genius were natives of and resided in this island, Verulam, Shakespeare, Hervey, and Jones … It was then, genius seems to have been most prevalent in this isle, from which time it has declined, and that taste which was its companion, is lost entirely. […]
The simple and sublime have lost all influence almost every where, all is Chinese or Gothic; every chair in an apartment, the frames of glasses, and tables, must be Chinese: the walls covered with Chinese paper filled with figures which resemble nothing of God’s creation, and which a prudent nation would prohibit for the sake of pregnant women.
In one chamber, all the pagods and distorted animals of the east are piled up, and called the beautiful decorations of a chimney‐piece; on the sides of the room, lions made of porcelain, grinning and misshapen, are placed on brackets of the Chinese taste, in arbors of flowers made in the same ware, and leaves of brass painted green, lying like lovers in shades of old Arcadia.
Nay, so excessive is the love of Chinese architecture become, that at present the fox‐hunters would be sorry to break a leg in pursuing their sport over a gate that was not made in the eastern taste of little bits of wood standing in all directions; the connoisseurs of the table delicacies can distinguish between the taste of an ox, which eats his hay from a Chinese crib, a hog that is inclosed in a stye of that kind, or a fowl fattened in a coop the fabric of which is in that design, and find great difference in the flavour. […]
To my unpolite ears, the airs which are sung at present have no longer the imitation of any thing which would express passion or sentiment, and the whole merit lyes in the Gothic and Chinese closes and cantabiles, frithered into niceties and divisions, which, like minute carvings, are the certain characteristics of a little taste, that delight more in difficulties than truth … The Chinese taste is so very prevalent in this city at present, that even pantomime has obliged harlequin to seek shelter in an entertainment, where the scenes and characters are all in the taste of that nation.
IIA7 Oliver Goldsmith (c.1728–74) from The Citizen of the World
Born into an Irish Protestant family, Oliver Goldsmith went on to become a key participant in literary London life in the late eighteenth century, being invited by no less a figure than Samuel Johnson to participate in ‘The Club’, the coterie of artists and writers around Johnson himself which included Reynolds, Burke, Boswell and later Garrick and Gibbon. His course, however, was anything but smooth. Having failed to establish himself in a conventional career, he went off on a sort of pastiche Grand Tour, where he supported himself by busking and giving occasional English lessons. Having arrived in London in 1756, he considered India, but failed in that enterprise as well. What he could do was write, ending up as a Grub Street hack while trying to establish a literary reputation. A popular genre at the time, largely French in origin, was that of letters home written by an imaginary foreigner, the primary example being Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (cf. IIA4). Over a hundred of Goldsmith’s ‘Chinese Letters’ satirizing various aspects of English life and culture were published in instalments in the Public Ledger between January 1760 and August 1761. Their success led to them being republished in book form as The Citizen of the World in May 1762. In Letter XIV, Goldsmith doubles the satire by turning to the fashion for chinoiserie itself: poking fun at the cognoscenti who know – or think they know – more about China than a ‘real’ Chinese. His protagonist, Lien Chi Altangi, is writing to his friend Fum Hoam, ‘First President of the Ceremonial Academy of Pekin’. The extracts are taken from The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith M. B., vol. 2, edited by James Prior, London: John Murray, 1837, pp. 51–4.
XIV The reception of the chinese from a lady of distinction.
I was some days ago agreeably surprised by a message from a lady of distinction, who sent me word, that she most passionately desired the pleasure of my acquaintance; and, with the utmost impatience, expected an interview. I will not deny, my dear Fum Hoam, but that vanity was raised at such an invitation … My imagination painted her in all the bloom of youth and beauty. I fancied her attended by the loves and graces; and I set out with the most pleasing expectations of seeing the conquest I had made.
When I was introduced into her apartment, my expectations were quickly at an end; I perceived a little shrivelled figure indolently reclined on a sofa, who nodded by way of approbation at my approach. This, as I was afterwards informed, was the lady herself, a woman equally distinguished for rank, politeness, taste, and understanding. As I was dressed after the fashion of Europe, she had taken me for an Englishman, and consequently saluted me in her ordinary manner; but when the footman informed her grace that I was the gentleman from China, she instantly lifted herself from the couch, while her eyes sparkled with unusual vivacity. ‘Bless me! can this be the gentleman that was born so far from home? What an unusual share of somethingness in his whole appearance! Lord, how I am charmed with the outlandish cut of his face! how bewitching the exotic breadth of his forehead! I would give the world to see him in his own country dress. […] Pray speak a little Chinese: I have learned some of the language myself. Lord! have you nothing pretty from China about you; something that one does not know what to do with? I have got twenty things from China that are of no use in the world. Look at those jars, they are of the right pea‐green; these are the furniture.’ ‘Dear madam,’ said I, ‘these, though they may appear fine in your eyes, are but paltry to a Chinese; but, as they are useful utensils, it is proper they should have a place in every apartment.’ – ‘Useful! Sir, replied the lady; sure you mistake, they are of no use in the world.’ – ‘What! are they not filled with an infusion of tea as in China?’ replied I. – ‘Quite empty and useless, upon my honour, Sir.’ ‘Then they are the most cumbrous and clumsy furniture in the world, as nothing is truly elegant but what unites use with beauty.’ ‘I protest,’ says the lady, ‘I shall begin to suspect thee of being an actual barbarian. I suppose you hold my two beautiful pagods in contempt.’ ‘What!’ cried I, ‘has Fohi spread his gross superstitions here also? Pagods of all kinds are my aversion.’ ‘A Chinese, a traveller, and want taste! it surprises me. Pray, Sir, examine the beauties of that Chinese temple which you see at the end of the garden. Is there any thing in China more beautiful?’ ‘Where I stand, I see nothing, madam, at the end of the garden, that may not as well be called an Egyptian pyramid as a Chinese temple; for that little building in view is as like the one as t’other.’ ‘What! Sir, is not that a Chinese temple? you must surely be mistaken. Mr Freeze, who designed it, calls it one, and nobody disputes his pretensions to taste.’ I now found it vain to contradict the lady in any thing she thought fit to advance; so was resolved rather to act the disciple than the instructor. She took me through several rooms all furnished, as she told me, in the Chinese manner; sprawling dragons, squatting pagods, and clumsy mandarines, were stuck upon every shelf: in turning round, one must have used caution not to demolish a part of the precarious furniture.
In a house like this, thought I, one must live continually upon the watch; the inhabitant must resemble a knight in an enchanted castle, who expects to meet an adventure at every turning. ‘But, madam,’ said I, ‘do not accidents ever happen to all this finery?’ ‘Man, Sir,’ replied the lady, ‘is born to misfortunes, and it is but fit I should have a share. Three weeks ago, a careless servant snapped off the head of a favourite mandarine: I had scarce done grieving for that, when a monkey broke a beautiful jar; this I took the more to heart, as the injury was done me by a friend. However, I survived the calamity; when yesterday, crash went half‐a‐dozen dragons upon the marble hearth‐stone; and yet I live … I could not but smile at a woman who makes her own misfortunes, and then deplores the miseries of her situation. Wherefore, tired of acting with dissimulation, and willing to indulge my meditations in solitude, I took leave.
IIA8 Sir William Chambers (1723–96) from A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening