Chinoiserie

Chinoiserie is a European artistic style that reproduces and reimagines Chinese and other East Asian artistic motifs in decorative arts and architecture. The term, from the French chinois for Chinese, emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries as China and other parts of Asia became more accessible to European traders and travelers. It reflects a blend of actual East Asian designs—such as blue-and-white porcelain, lacquerware, and bamboo-and-lattice patterns—with European tastes for fantasy, whimsy, and exotically styled landscapes.

Motifs commonly associated with chinoiserie include pagodas, bridges, gardens with willows and cranes, imaginary mountains, scholars, and figures in exotic dress; stylized animals, cloud bands, and fretwork also appear. In painting, wallpaper, textiles, furniture, ceramics, and silver, the imagery tends toward decorative and picturesque scenes rather than accurate ethnographic representation.

The style flourished most prominently in France and Britain during the Baroque and Rococo periods, and later influenced Neoclassicism and revival movements. It led to the production of chinoiserie-inspired wares by European manufacturers, such as porcelain imitations and furniture carved or painted with these motifs, and it left a lasting imprint on Western design. In scholarship, chinoiserie is appreciated as a historical decorative vocabulary that reveals nineteenth-century and earlier Western responses to East Asia, rather than as a faithful account of Asian art.