[.ca] Chinoiserie (ISBN 0714838365)

From Amazon.com:
The late-'90s fascination with China in the political and business realms is reflected in fashion as well, and Chinoiserie explores a mix of 14th- to 20th-century decorative styles based on European fantasies of "Cathay." Emphatically not historically correct, chinoiserie is a style that grew out of a mélange of travelers' tales, exaggerations, odd lots from India to Japan, and the European imagination of the exotic. This book is peopled with characters ranging from Marco Polo to Madame de Pompadour to P.T. Barnum. Profuse illustrations conjure the visions of Watteau and Boucher, pot painters in Delft and Minton, garden and kiosk designers from England to Poland, and creators of 1920s movie palaces--the style's final incarnation. Tracing the history of commerce as well as the image, chapters cover the time when intercontinental travel and trade were difficult if not impossible, the flowering of French rococo chinoiserie and its spread across 18th-century Europe. It also looks at the jardin anglo-chinois, the descendants of originally aristocratic styles in middle-class English and American homes, and finally the withering of the fantastic Cathay as more reliable information and objects arrived in the West from China in the 19th and 20th centuries. Should you be curious about the intricately carved dragon on a theater ceiling or wallpaper peopled with "monkeys dressed as Chinamen," this smartly designed book written with verve, a love of the subject, and an insider's point of view provides a jumping-off point for further study and includes a list of places to visit. --Alex Lawrence

West Meets East:
The Far East has inspired Western fashion, interior design and film in recent years: think cropped jeans embellished with embroidered silk, sleeveless Mandarin collar tops, Ralph Lauren's bold mix of red and pink silk bedding, or the profusion of Asian-focused films including Seven Years in Tibet. But this trend is nothing new. Eastern imagery has appeared in Western design for centuries, never really going out of style, and peaking in popularity at various points in history. Ever since the fourteenth century when Europeans first read The Travels of Marco Polo, Westerners have romanticized China and its neighbors, and Western decorative arts have been especially affected by Eastern style. In her book Chinoiserie, Dawn Jacobson explains the phenomenon in great detail. Her focus is on furniture, accessories, interiors and architecture and she highlights the Chinoiserie craze in creations ranging from Chippendale furniture to Delftware to Grauman's Chinese Theater. The illustrations are exquisite and plentiful. Jacobson's text is scholarly-this is an art history text as well as a coffee table book-and the chapters are well organized.