Western Style

This paper focuses on the the port of Guangzhou in the 18th century,and makes a historical study on the cultural exchanges between eastern and western design.The paper starts with introducing the important transportation and geographical location of Guangzhou since ancient times,combined with comparison and contrast between various commercial intercourse objects in different historical periods,explores the change of Guangzhou port in design style and aesthetic idea,influenced by its particular history and geographic position,during the transition from the Ming to the Qing dynasty.With the increasingly deep and frequent trade intercourse with western countries,Chinese and western communication levels had been gradually expanded,western paintings,various living appliances,architectures and furniture also entered the vision of Chinese people in a variety of ways in the middle term of Qing dynasty.The life style and utensils of royal nobility and government officials were more or less changed compared with the traditional patterns lasted for thousands of years in our country.And a Western Style was prevalent in some manufacturing fields.This phenomenon was highly represented in Guangzhou,a heartland for trade exchange between China and the west.Due to the implementation of the policy of One Treaty Port in the Qian-Long period of Qing dynasty,all trade of imperial China and western powers were conducted in Guangzhou at that time.With economic prosperity,the culture and art in Guangzhou also developed vigorously.In order to satisfy the demand of export and cater to the aesthetic habits of westerners,local traditional artistic designing forms were constantly mingled with new skills introduced from the west.Especially in the 18th century,the local handicraft industry in Guangzhou incessantly got rid of the stale and brought forth the fresh,and the craft gradually became mature,unique artistic features with strong regionalism were presented in a variety of handicrafts.Among them,Guangzhou items represented by exporting paintings,exporting wallpapers,Kwon-Glazed Porcelain,Canton hardwood furniture,clocks and watches,rattan-weaved products,Canton embroidery,exporting fans,ivory carving and tinware,gradually became the most welcomed handicrafts among westerners in trade exchanges at home and abroad.This paper mainly adopts the research method of corroboration of original evidence,made a comparison and mutual confirmation between relevant historical classics,document literature and the existing archaeological objects of the same period in the 18th century.At the same time,the methods in history,stylistics and iconography are also adopted to have a comprehensive and extensive discussion of the design phenomenon newly appeared in Chinese and western trade exchanges in the 18th century.Though a study on the design phenomenon of this historic period,this paper aims to have a deep exploration of the new phenomenon of unique social economy and design culture field in this place when China is undergoing the historical process of transformation form traditional tributary trade to commercial trade.And from a broader multi-dimensional angle,this paper aims to restore important events and figures of this period,and strives to make a more realistic and scientific explanation about the causes for the mixed style of Chinese and western of handicraft industries,which centered on furniture and porcelain during this period.As a result,this paper is of great supplement value to the study on design history in Guangdong with regional features.