HKU Bulletin January 2011 (Vol. 12 No. 1)

Jesuit Influence “The site is very rich in that way,” he says. “For example, in the 18 th century Jesuit missionaries were living and working in Yuanming Yuan, they were painting, building and making scientific instruments, so they designed for the emperor a famous set of western-style palaces in one corner of the garden and because these were made of stone they didn’t burn down completely.” “That little corner now has all these stone ruins and to a lot of people that is Yuanming Yuan, but actually it’s only one small corner, all the rest was Chinese style architecture.” Dr Thomas is looking at what the Jesuits were doing at Yuanming Yuan and the ways in which the Chinese emperor absorbed western styles in architecture and gardening techniques. At the same time the Jesuits were writing about China and describing the palace and the gardens and this had a major influence on European garden design. Although few pictures remain of the original palace – frequently referred to as the Versailles of China – in the 1740s the emperor Qianlong commissioned a set of Research The looting and destruction of one of China’s grandest palaces throws new light on 18 th century Europe’s preoccupation with the exotic. The Rise and Fall of China’s Versailles Outside of China few people may have heard of the palace at Yuanming Yuan but in China it stands as a symbol of western aggression, a humiliating reminder of the Opium Wars and the country’s failure to protect its assets against foreign aggression. Built during the Qing Dynasty, between 1709 and 1772, Yuanming Yuan, often translated as the Garden of Perfect Brightness, was looted and destroyed by invading British and French armies, 150 years ago, in 1860. The palace complex included hundreds of wooden buildings, pagodas and pavilions in the classical Chinese style, vast gardens, lakes and artificial waterways and a set of western style buildings, designed by Jesuit missionaries working for the emperor Qianlong. The modern Summer Palace was also part of the complex, although that was also burned down and later rebuilt. Standing twenty kilometres northwest of Beijing, Yuanming Yuan became the official seat of government and at times was used more often than the Forbidden City. Dr Greg Thomas, Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Arts, has been looking at the ways in which the Chinese and Europeans interacted at the palace. 40 paintings to commemorate its opening when he enlarged it. “He wrote 40 poems to accompany them and these were bound together into an album which is now the main source of images for the Yuanming Yuan complex,” says Dr Thomas. “Interestingly, it was stolen by a French officer during the looting. He took it back to Paris, tried to sell it at auction, but failed, and ended up selling it to the national library, the Biblioth èque Nationale. As the only detailed visual record of the palaces as they appeared originally this is a very, very precious object.” Another soldier involved in the looting described Yuanming Yuan as a ’veritable palace from the Thousand and One Nights’ and further descriptions tell of diamonds and gold statues, a bronze Buddha standing 70 feet high, and white marble buildings covered in dazzling coloured tiles. Dr Thomas views the looting and subsequent display of these objects as an illuminating form of intercultural transmission and says, “I believe the looting acted to appropriate Chinese imperial culture as a way of reinforcing France’s own imperial ambitions.” Re-building the Palace After 1860 the emperors attempted to rebuild some of the palace, concentrating mostly on what is now known as the Summer Palace. But that was destroyed during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion and was later rebuilt again. “I found that what makes Yuanming Yuan so rich is that it has so many types of visual culture and was a main source of influence on Europe in the 18 th century,” says Dr Thomas. “It seemed to me like a case study that brings together a great deal of the history of European interactions with China and opens up into a lot of different areas, because in addition to all these different arts and visual culture it was also important in diplomatic history, in military history, and in the history of Chinese emperors, and it was an important site for China’s own architectural and artistic heritage.“ “So it has an interesting relationship to the rise of modern China and to international relations between China and the rest of the world today.” 25 Dr Greg Thomas A painting of Yuanming Yuen ( 圓明園 ) , often translated as the Garden of Perfect Brightness. The University of Hong Kong Bulletin January 2011