Lianming Wang holds a Ph.D. in East Asian Art History and currently serves as an Associate Professor of History of Art at the Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. Prior to this position, Wang worked as a Lecturer (2009-11) at the University of Würzburg, an Assistant Professor (2014-21) of Chinese Art History at Heidelberg University, and a Visiting Professor (2021/22) at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, as well as the Global Humanities Visiting Professor of East Asian Art and Architecture in the Department of History of Art (Lent Term 2021/22) at the University of Cambridge. Additionally, he was appointed as a Balzan Junior Fellow (2022) in Global Environmental History at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Freiburg (Breisgau). His primary areas of interest include but are not limited to, global encounters of art and architecture in early modernity, animal trade, exchange of objects and diplomatic gifts, export art, Ming-Qing gardens, and Qing court workshops. In 2018, Heidelberg University awarded Wang the Hengstberger Prize for excellent research. His latest volume, "Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume, 1600–1800" (Winter Verlag, 2020), received the Academy Prize (2021) from the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften and was shortlisted for the 2021 ICAS Book Prize – German Language Edition. Currently, Wang is conducting a Gerda Henkel Stiftung-sponsored project (AZ 47/V/20) on Qing global animals.
Supervisors: Senior Prof. Dr. Lothar Ledderose (Heidelberg), Prof. Dr. Claudia von Collani (Würzburg), and Prof. Dr. Melanie Trede (Heidelberg)
Supervisors: Senior Prof. Dr. Lothar Ledderose (Heidelberg), Prof. Dr. Claudia von Collani (Würzburg), and Prof. Dr. Melanie Trede (Heidelberg)
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Dieser Band beschäftigt sich mit dem materiellen Erbe der jesuitischen Mission außerhalb Europas unter Einbezug dreier Pekinger Schlüsselbauwerke. Gestützt auf eine kritische Revision der Baugeschichte, gilt das Interesse zunächst der Transkulturalität und Wirkung der jesuitischen Bautopographie im Kontext flaneuristischer Stadterkundungen. Es gilt insbesondere, die Auswahl der identitätsstiftenden Bautypologien hinsichtlich ihres auf Machtrepräsentation ausgerichteten Mechanismus zu hinterfragen. Zentral sind des Weiteren Fragen zum Einfluss der jesuitischen Räume auf die kaiserlichen, transkulturellen Machträume sowie die Positionierung der jesuitischen Gartenräume im Zuge transkultureller Wissenschaftsnetzwerkbildung im 17./18. Jahrhundert. Gestützt auf eine Vielzahl von Bildzeugnissen, liefert die Studie einen gründlichen Einblick in die globale Entfaltung der Kunst und Architektur eines historisch bedeutenden Klerikerordens und trägt zur aktuellen Debatte um die globale Kunstgeschichte maßgeblich bei.
Additional English abstract:
In the early modern world, no individual, institution, or organization could match the impact and influence of the Jesuit missionaries. As the “global patron” in the Age of the Counter-Reformation, the members of the Society of Jesus consciously promoted the transcultural process of artistic, cultural and intellectual histories on a global scale. By exploring three key built structures and their related transcultural spaces in Beijing, this volume re-evaluates their role in unprecedented global dynamics, which unified various secular interests, institutions, and artistic practices.
First, these built structures served as narrative matrices of dazzling myths associated with imperial patronage; furthermore, as repositories of collective memory and as spaces which attracted the interests of the public and the flaneur alike, these physical structures understood themselves primarily as public monuments that proclaimed the triumph of Catholicism in a monumental way. Second, as suggestive fields of action as well as walk-in spaces of synesthetic experience, the structures’ frescoed spaces played a major role as an experimental field, stimulating transcultural pictorial practices that informed the illusionistic palatial interiors of the eighteenth-century Qing court. Last but not least, the Beijing Jesuit gardens presented themselves as places of fruitful transcultural encounters, which nourished various interest groups with knowledge of European cosmopolitanism and fostered the formation of a global network of knowledge.
Given the multifaceted nature of the topic, this volume questions the limits and singularity of art history, including its Eurocentrism, and provides a new way of re-evaluating the Jesuit global heritage. The first three chapters focus on the questions of historicization, self-expression, and subject formation, which contributed significantly to their establishment as urban highlights and public “contact zones.”
Based on a critical revision of the buildings’ histories, the volume first places its interest in the deconstruction of a glittering, widely circulated “Jesuit myth” – that the construction of their residences and churches was patronized by the Chinese emperors – and further evaluates the social effect of Jesuit topography in the context of urban exploration. The latter is crucial for understanding the choice of identity-granting “architectural modules” in terms of their power mechanism inside the Society of Jesus.
A heuristic tool for elucidating the practices that were connected with the making, entanglement, and unfolding of the Jesuit transcultural spaces is the praxeological concept of “aesthetic practices.” It highlights the fact that certain historical, social and transcultural practices, despite being hardly recognizable in the final architectural products, were essential components of the material heritage of the Beijing Jesuits. Following this concept, finally, the sociological, cognitive, and receptive dimensions of the Jesuits’ physical spaces and their function as “contact zones” urge us to look at processual and temporary moments in the course of global aesthetic entanglements, reversals, and penetrations.
In the last two chapters, case studies from Emperor Qianlong’s (r. 1735–1796) court, ranging from palatial spaces linked to events, to political spaces of negotiation, and to the emperor’s personal spaces of representation, are used to illustrate how aesthetic and intellectual implications were determined by actors and the public and were in turn instrumentalized for the purpose of the Qing political agenda and the subject-formation of the Manchu elites. In doing so, the last chapters discuss the entanglement of Jesuit sacred spaces with Qing imperial, transcultural spaces and positions the Beijing Jesuit gardens in the global dynamics of horticultural and hydraulic practices of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Drawing on a variety of images, the volume provides a thorough insight into the global entanglement of the art and architecture of a historically important religious order, and significantly contributes to the current debate on global art history.
una varietà di specie botaniche, attualmente conservato presso la Bibliothèque nationale de France, il contributo cerca di rintracciare il graduale mutamento degli scambi botanici sino-europei, effetto del movimento fisiocratico. La committenza del dipinto, attribuito ai missionari gesuiti che si trovavano presso la residenza di Beitang, può rivelare non solo le sue possibili fonti e i protagonisti implicati, ma anche le modalità con le quali le reti globali di conoscenza erano stabilite nel XVIII secolo. Il saggio identifica le piante rappresentate nel dipinto, collegandole al più ampio contesto delle pratiche botaniche dei gesuiti a Pechino, e sottolineando che le piante
cinesi da giardino, più che le erbe o altri tipi di flora esotica, costituivano il principale oggetto di desiderio dei committenti europei. Dietro tale domanda, vi era la convinzione dei fisiocratici che la superiorità dell’agricoltura cinese avrebbe dato spinta all’economia, portando vantaggi alle società europee. Il contributo fornisce infine un contesto alla committenza del dipinto, considerandolo come
una delle rappresentazioni ordinate da Henri-Léonard Jean-Baptiste Bertin (1720-1792), figura chiave del movimento fisiocratico francese nonché degli scambi sino-europei nel XVIII secolo.
Dieser Band beschäftigt sich mit dem materiellen Erbe der jesuitischen Mission außerhalb Europas unter Einbezug dreier Pekinger Schlüsselbauwerke. Gestützt auf eine kritische Revision der Baugeschichte, gilt das Interesse zunächst der Transkulturalität und Wirkung der jesuitischen Bautopographie im Kontext flaneuristischer Stadterkundungen. Es gilt insbesondere, die Auswahl der identitätsstiftenden Bautypologien hinsichtlich ihres auf Machtrepräsentation ausgerichteten Mechanismus zu hinterfragen. Zentral sind des Weiteren Fragen zum Einfluss der jesuitischen Räume auf die kaiserlichen, transkulturellen Machträume sowie die Positionierung der jesuitischen Gartenräume im Zuge transkultureller Wissenschaftsnetzwerkbildung im 17./18. Jahrhundert. Gestützt auf eine Vielzahl von Bildzeugnissen, liefert die Studie einen gründlichen Einblick in die globale Entfaltung der Kunst und Architektur eines historisch bedeutenden Klerikerordens und trägt zur aktuellen Debatte um die globale Kunstgeschichte maßgeblich bei.
Additional English abstract:
In the early modern world, no individual, institution, or organization could match the impact and influence of the Jesuit missionaries. As the “global patron” in the Age of the Counter-Reformation, the members of the Society of Jesus consciously promoted the transcultural process of artistic, cultural and intellectual histories on a global scale. By exploring three key built structures and their related transcultural spaces in Beijing, this volume re-evaluates their role in unprecedented global dynamics, which unified various secular interests, institutions, and artistic practices.
First, these built structures served as narrative matrices of dazzling myths associated with imperial patronage; furthermore, as repositories of collective memory and as spaces which attracted the interests of the public and the flaneur alike, these physical structures understood themselves primarily as public monuments that proclaimed the triumph of Catholicism in a monumental way. Second, as suggestive fields of action as well as walk-in spaces of synesthetic experience, the structures’ frescoed spaces played a major role as an experimental field, stimulating transcultural pictorial practices that informed the illusionistic palatial interiors of the eighteenth-century Qing court. Last but not least, the Beijing Jesuit gardens presented themselves as places of fruitful transcultural encounters, which nourished various interest groups with knowledge of European cosmopolitanism and fostered the formation of a global network of knowledge.
Given the multifaceted nature of the topic, this volume questions the limits and singularity of art history, including its Eurocentrism, and provides a new way of re-evaluating the Jesuit global heritage. The first three chapters focus on the questions of historicization, self-expression, and subject formation, which contributed significantly to their establishment as urban highlights and public “contact zones.”
Based on a critical revision of the buildings’ histories, the volume first places its interest in the deconstruction of a glittering, widely circulated “Jesuit myth” – that the construction of their residences and churches was patronized by the Chinese emperors – and further evaluates the social effect of Jesuit topography in the context of urban exploration. The latter is crucial for understanding the choice of identity-granting “architectural modules” in terms of their power mechanism inside the Society of Jesus.
A heuristic tool for elucidating the practices that were connected with the making, entanglement, and unfolding of the Jesuit transcultural spaces is the praxeological concept of “aesthetic practices.” It highlights the fact that certain historical, social and transcultural practices, despite being hardly recognizable in the final architectural products, were essential components of the material heritage of the Beijing Jesuits. Following this concept, finally, the sociological, cognitive, and receptive dimensions of the Jesuits’ physical spaces and their function as “contact zones” urge us to look at processual and temporary moments in the course of global aesthetic entanglements, reversals, and penetrations.
In the last two chapters, case studies from Emperor Qianlong’s (r. 1735–1796) court, ranging from palatial spaces linked to events, to political spaces of negotiation, and to the emperor’s personal spaces of representation, are used to illustrate how aesthetic and intellectual implications were determined by actors and the public and were in turn instrumentalized for the purpose of the Qing political agenda and the subject-formation of the Manchu elites. In doing so, the last chapters discuss the entanglement of Jesuit sacred spaces with Qing imperial, transcultural spaces and positions the Beijing Jesuit gardens in the global dynamics of horticultural and hydraulic practices of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Drawing on a variety of images, the volume provides a thorough insight into the global entanglement of the art and architecture of a historically important religious order, and significantly contributes to the current debate on global art history.
una varietà di specie botaniche, attualmente conservato presso la Bibliothèque nationale de France, il contributo cerca di rintracciare il graduale mutamento degli scambi botanici sino-europei, effetto del movimento fisiocratico. La committenza del dipinto, attribuito ai missionari gesuiti che si trovavano presso la residenza di Beitang, può rivelare non solo le sue possibili fonti e i protagonisti implicati, ma anche le modalità con le quali le reti globali di conoscenza erano stabilite nel XVIII secolo. Il saggio identifica le piante rappresentate nel dipinto, collegandole al più ampio contesto delle pratiche botaniche dei gesuiti a Pechino, e sottolineando che le piante
cinesi da giardino, più che le erbe o altri tipi di flora esotica, costituivano il principale oggetto di desiderio dei committenti europei. Dietro tale domanda, vi era la convinzione dei fisiocratici che la superiorità dell’agricoltura cinese avrebbe dato spinta all’economia, portando vantaggi alle società europee. Il contributo fornisce infine un contesto alla committenza del dipinto, considerandolo come
una delle rappresentazioni ordinate da Henri-Léonard Jean-Baptiste Bertin (1720-1792), figura chiave del movimento fisiocratico francese nonché degli scambi sino-europei nel XVIII secolo.