Home > ECF > Vol. 25 > Iss. 1 (2012)
Article Title
Abstract
An emerging cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth century bolstered the search for the foundations of a shared humanity across the boundaries of different cultures, which was one of the central aspects of Enlightenment thought. Similar ideas and principles transformed the traditions of European garden design in the second half of the eighteenth century with William Chambers's writings on Chinese gardens suggesting aesthetic values that both paralleled and rivalled those found in the English gardens of his contemporaries. In 1771, Catherine the Great translated Chambers's Designs of Chinese Buildings (1757) into Russian, which led to the creation of the largest complex of chinoiserie in any eighteenth-century European garden. Taking as my focus the gardens of Tsarskoye Selo, I explore the tensions between cosmopolitanism, exoticism, and imperialism in Russian garden design under Catherine the Great.
Recommended Citation
Milam, Jennifer
(2012)
"Toying with China: Cosmopolitanism and Chinoiserie in Russian Garden Design and Building Projects under Catherine the Great,"
Eighteenth-Century Fiction:
Vol. 25:
Iss.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/ecf/vol25/iss1/6
Contributor's Note
Jennifer Milam is an associate professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Historical Dictionary of Rococo Art (2011) and Fragonard's Playful Paintings: Visual Games in Rococo Art (2006), and co-editor with Melissa Hyde of Women, Art and The Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe (2003). Her current project addresses cosmopolitanism and nationalism in eighteenth-century garden design.
Fig. 1 Cameron Gallery, Tsarskoye Selo
Fig 2 Great Hall.jpg (775 kB)
Fig. 2 View of the Great Hall, Chinese Palace
Fig 3 Muses.jpg (54 kB)
Fig. 3 View of the Muses Lounge, Chinese Palace
Fig 4 Chinese study.jpg (31 kB)
Fig. 4 View of the Chinese Study, Chinese Palace
Fig 5 glass beaded salon.jpg (32 kB)
Fig. 5 View of the Glass Beaded Salon, Chinese Palace
Fig 6 Catherine Great.jpg (904 kB)
Fig. 6 Vladimir Borovikovsky, Catherine the Great in the Gardens of Tsarskoye Selo
Fig_7_PlanofTsarskoyeSelo.jpg (758 kB)
Fig. 7 Plan of Tsarskoye Selo
Fig 8 chinese bridge.jpg (49 kB)
Fig. 8 Chinese Bridge, Tsarskoye Selo
Fig 9 Big kapriz.jpg (656 kB)
Fig. 9 Large Caprice, Tsarskoye Selo
Fig 10 Chinese village and pavillion.jpg (495 kB)
Fig. 10 Creaking Pavilion & The Chinese Village, Tsarskoye Selo
Fig 11 Turkish bathhouse Distance.jpg (466 kB)
Fig. 11 View of the Great Pond
Fig_12_Tsarskoye_Selo.jpg (423 kB)
Fig. 12 View of the Gardens of Tsarskoye Selo, 1790s