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Summary:

Scope and content: "Eighteenth-century consumers in Britain, living in an increasingly globalised world, were infatuated with exotic Chinese and Chinese-styled goods, art, and decorative objects. However, they were also often troubled by the alien aesthetic sensibility these goods embodied. This ambivalence figures centrally in the period's experience of China and of contact with foreign countries and cultures more generally. David Porter analyses the processes by which Chinese aesthetic ideas were assimilated within English culture. Through case studies of individual figures, including William Hogarth and Horace Walpole, and broader reflections on cross-cultural interaction, Porter's readings develop new interpretations of eighteenth-century ideas of luxury, consumption, gender, taste and aesthetic nationalism. Illustrated with many examples of Chinese and Chinese-inspired objects and art, this is a major contribution to eighteenth-century cultural history and to the history of contact and exchange between China and the West"--Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Monstrous beauty
• pt. 1. China and the aesthetics of exoticism
• Eighteenth-century fashion and the aesthetics of the Chinese taste
• Cross-cultural aesthetics in William Chambers' Chinese garden
• pt. 2. What do women want?
• Gendered utopias in transcultural context
• William Hogarth and the gendering of Chinese exoticism
• pt. 3. Of rocks, gardens, and goldfish
• The socio-aesthetics of the Chinese scholar's stone
• Horace Walpole and the Gothic repudiation of Chinoiserie
• pt. 4. China and the invention of Englishness
• Chinaware and the evolution of a modern domestic ideal
• Thomas Percy's sinology and the origins of English romanticism.

Author/Creator:

Porter, David, 1965-

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

The Chinese taste in eighteenth-century England [by Porter, D.]

Subjects:

England — Relations — China

China — Relations — England

China — Foreign public opinion, English

Aesthetics, Chinese — England — History — 18th century

Popular culture — England — History — 18th century

Consumption (Economics) — Social aspects — England — History — 18th century

Intercultural communication — England — History — 18th century

Ambivalence — Social aspects — England — History — 18th century

England — Social life and customs — 18th century

England — Intellectual life — 18th century

1700-1799

Aesthetics, Chinese

Popular culture

Consumption (Economics) — Social aspects

Consumption (Economics)

Intercultural communication

Ambivalence — Social aspects

Ambivalence

Manners and customs

Intellectual life

Relations

England

China

Genres:

History

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Physical Description:

x, 230 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Call Numbers:

DA485 .P674 2010

ISBNs:

9780521192996 (hardback)
0521192994 (hardback)

Library of Congress Control Numbers:

2010033028

OCLC Numbers:

651077840