Petra ten-Doesschate Chu

The proposed workshop is intended to explore artistic relations between China and the West during the late Qing dynasty (19th c). It focuses on a period that came after an era of intensive cross-cultural exchange during the height of that dynasty (late 17th and 18th c), when chinoiserie was all the vogue in the West and when in China an openness to Western influences led to a parallel phenomenon sometimes referred to as européenerie. By choosing a, relatively informal, workshop format, we hope to spark a discussion focused on a question that has emerged in the last few years as one that is crucial for our understanding of East-West relations (and of international relations in general): what happens to cultural and artistic exchanges in a politically hostile climate?