Imperial Illusions: Crossing Pictorial Boundaries in the Qing Palaces

by Kristina Kleutghen

In the Forbidden City and other palaces around Beijing, Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736-1795) surrounded himself with monumental paintings of architecture, gardens, people, and faraway places. The best artists of the imperial painting academy, including a number of European missionary painters, used Western perspectival illusionism to transform walls and ceilings with visually striking images that were also deeply meaningful to Qianlong. These unprecedented works not only offer new insights into late imperial China’s most influential emperor, but also reflect one way in which Chinese art integrated and domesticated foreign ideas.

In Imperial Illusions , Kristina Kleutghen examines all known surviving examples of the Qing court phenomenon of “scenic illusion paintings” (tongjinghua), which today remain inaccessible inside the Forbidden City. Produced at the height of early modern cultural exchange between China and Europe, these works have received little scholarly attention. Richly illustrated, Imperial Illusions offers the first comprehensive investigation of the aesthetic, cultural, perceptual, and political importance of these illusionistic paintings essential to Qianlong’s world.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Art

400 pages, Hardcover

First published December 21, 2014

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a quite heavy book (literally!) - and absolutely fascinating. It offers both an insight into the Jesuit influence on illusion painting at the Chinese court of emperor Qianlong (1711-1799; reign 1735-1796), but also what these paintings represented to a Chinese audience - few things were just decorative, even when beautiful the elements were there for a reason, and not just children playing, a peacock showing off its tale or a women standing by a threshold. This decoding of the images was my greatest reward on reading this book!

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a delight to read this book! The author uses rarely seen paintings, which depicted virtual spaces while hanging on the palace wall, hidden in the Forbidden City, to prove a point that Qianlong Emperor had these paintings made to show his grips and intelligence over the space/boundary.