The Influence Of The Chinese Export Porcelain On The Rococo's Art

Porcelain is one of the important inventions in China and regarded as the symbol of the nation. As the main commodity in the trade exchange from the orient to the west, the Chinese export porcelain has gained the attraction and favor from the merchants and collectors all over the world due to its long history, graceful appearance, practical utility and durability. With the elegant sentiment and variable models, the Chinese export porcelain gave the European society at that time a brand-new view of matters and a sort of yearnings for brighter lives. Based on the Europeans'love for Chinese culture and art and their effort to seek inspiration from the Chinese artistic works, the rococo art was therefore derived from the merging of traditional European artistic style with the oriental one.The rococo art is a French artistic style and characterized by dexterity, elegance, floridity and elaboration. It is mainly used in decoration with curve and inverse curve in the pattern. Natural materials, such as rocks, shell, flower, vines and leaves, are used as decoration materials. The color is always light, soft and merry and asymmetricity is its main form. The rococo art started as a style of interior design and spread gradually to painting, architecture, sculpture, furniture, costume and music. The artistic style of rococo was formed in the early stage when the oriental and western civilizations met and impacted. Therefore, it was considerably influenced by the oriental civilization, especially the Chinese culture and artistic styles based on the Chinese export porcelain. The popularization of rococo art in Europe propelled the'Chinese fashion'in Europe to the climax.The influence of Chinese porcelain, especially the Chinese export porcelain, on the rococo art was in detail discussed in this paper. The paper consists of six chapters. Chapter One is the part of introduction, which described the current related research in China and the research aim and significance of this study. Based on the modern history of Europe, Chapter Two introduced and analyzed the social background of the rococo art's origin, development, prosperity and fading. Chapter Three explained the process of impacting, merging and regeneration of the oriental and western artistic styles from the aspect of the European society's collection and learning of Chinese export porcelain. This chapter described in detail how the graceful porcelain, which represented the Chinese art and culture, brought the Chinese art from the other side of ocean to the western world by the trade exchange between east and west. Chapter Four stated and evaluated rococo artistic style, its development and patterns objectively after wide reference reading. With abundant selected pictures from museums and other rare books, Chapter Five thoroughly researched and analyzed the influence of the charm of Chinese export porcelain on the original rococo art: how the unique way of coloring, ornamentation and artistic conception of Chinese export porcelain was absorbed by rococo art in manifold media and finally became an indispensable part to present foreign sentiment in rococo art. As the conclusion, Chapter Six summarized the influence of Chinese export porcelain on rococo art and discussed on the significance of this study in the current era for the great Chinese revival.