The Chinese House at Stowe, Buckinghamshire (inv. no. 91820). ©NTPL/Andrew Butler
The February 2012 issue of ABC Bulletin has just come out, with news about the historic houses and gardens of the National Trust. I wrote a short article for this issue on the hitherto hidden meaning of the garden pavilion at Stowe known as the Chinese House.
One of the trompe l'oeil panels with characters painted onto the Chinese House - this particular one was repainted in the mid-1990s on the basis of old photographs. A sequence of three characters derived from Chambers has been highlighted. ©Emile de Bruijn
The painted decoration on the Chinese house dates from the 1820s and includes a series of vertical trompe l’oeil plaques with Chinese characters. Because these were difficult to read it had always been assumed that they were ‘faux‘ characters, made up by the Regency designer or painter as a playful, purely decorative imitation of Chinese writing.
Another plaque with characters, this one with more of the original, worn paint still remaining. A second sequence of four characters from Chambers has been highlighted. ©Emile de Bruijn
A little while ago I discovered that the characters were derived from an illustration in William Chambers’s book Designs of Chinese Buildings, published in 1757.
Plate XVIII from Chambers's 1757 book Designs of Chinese Buildings, with the sequences of characters that can be recognised on the Chinese House highlighted.
More recently one of my former tutors at university, Dr B.J. Mansvelt Beck, who is an expert in classical Chinese, spotted that the Chambers illustration incuded two quotes from the Zhuangzi, a collection of ancient philosophical writings that would become one of the classics of Daoism.
Canton enamel dish with a depiction of Xi Wang Mu, the the Daoist goddess of immortality, at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (inv. no. 107343). ©National Trust/Mike Kennedy
The chapter of the Zhuangzi to which these fragments refer is about man’s insignificance when compared to the hugeness of the universe and the limitlessness of time. So this frivolous-seeming little garden pavilion has a rather weighty subtext, albeit one that the original designer didn’t foresee – and that fact gives the whole thing a suitably paradoxical, Daoist twist.
February 7, 2012 at 17:12 |
Utterly fascinating research on that charming pavilion. The two characters above 松風竹 (song-feng-zhu) on that panel are 而虎 (er-hu, “and the tiger”). I did a quick check, and this sequence occurs twice in the Zhunag-zi.
One refers to “tigers and leopards in cages”, meaning that great powers is useless once constrained. The other reference tells of a hermit who is eaten by a tiger, meaning that all the knowledge he stored up was useless because he separated himself from other people.
Both of these parables do seem to have some applicability to a country estate. Of course, almost any allusion to the Zhuang-zi would probably be notable either for its fitness or its irony.
Incidentally, the copying of Chinese text from a pattern book is reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs used as decoration–either the artist made up pseudo-hieroglyphs, or he copied out of a plate-book, sometimes using a wildly inappropriate original. Still, there is a chance that the Stowe quotations were selected intentionally, and this is worth checking out.
–Road to Parnassus
February 7, 2012 at 22:33 |
What an interesting post and article. I’m wondering whether there are any other examples of this kind of use of Chinese characters. And whether, in the late-19th century, when the fashion for Japonisme came in, the same sort of thing happened. (I seem to remember there’s a Japanese garden building at Batsford Park in Gloucestershire that has quite a prominent inscription.)
February 8, 2012 at 11:22 |
Parnassus, thank you for your informed comment. I am sorry the characters you quote don’t come through – I have tried to fiddle around on the dashboard to make them appear properly, but it seems to be problematic – I will ask about that on the WordPress users forum.
You may be right about the ‘tiger’ reference, but the interesting and complicating factor is that the only clearly recognisable source for the characters on the Chinese House is the Chambers illustration. The painter may have copied characters from other sources, or he may have mangled the Chambers characters to such an extent that they look like other characters or have become unreadable, but we cannot really be certain.
And the Chambers illustration is mysterious too: only two lines in it are obviously quotes from the Zhuangzi, two more lines are readable without it being clear (as yet) where they derive from, and the rest of the text is indecipherable – it almost looks like the engraver got fed up halfway through and botched the second half of the job
So we are talking here about a fragmented copy of an indifferently transcribed copy of a Chinese text that contains two brief out-of-context quotes from the Zhuangzi – which is why it is so amazing that Dr Mansvelt Beck was able to spot the Zhuangzi reference at all!
And yes I agree that it is a similar sort of thing to the European interest in Egyptian writing and decoration. Both Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs were studied by those trying to identify the original universal language, such as the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.
Philip, yes it is worth investigating where else the ‘Chambers’ characters might pop up – especially in illustrations of French and other Continental chinoiserie garden pavilions of the late eighteenth century (mostly now lost), which were often heavily inspired by Chambers’s book.
I seem to remember that the characters on plaques on that pavilion at Batsford are more accurately copied, or are originals – probably because by the late Victorian and Edwardian periods it was easier for British garden-makers have access to original Chinese and Japanese texts.
February 8, 2012 at 22:14 |
What a FAB post dahhling,, I love your post because they are always so informative & full of new discoveries I had not considered or would otherwise discover… Bravo!
February 9, 2012 at 08:22 |
HRH, thanks very much
February 9, 2012 at 20:50 |
What a wonderful pavillion! In addition to being pleasant to look at, was it actually used for tea ceremonies?
February 10, 2012 at 07:55 |
Emile, You did a wonderful post about the Chinese House in November 2010, so good in fact that I saved it. The interior images are well worth your readers looking up, reading and enjoying the visuals. But then all your posts are truly interesting; that remains a favorite.
Thank you as always! Robert
February 10, 2012 at 09:12 |
Classicist, we don’t actually know much about how it was used – more research needed in the family papers, clearly. Initially, in the late 1730s, it had some kind of doll or figurine or mannequin inside of a Chinese lady, plus a few decoy mandarin ducks in the pond in which it sat, and vases with flowers (painted wood? painted tin?) on the balusters of the railing of its little bridge – all very theatrical (perhaps the work of William Kent, who may have originally designed the Chinese House) and presumably meant to heighten the exotic effect.
Pavilions like this were indeed sometimes used as setting for the consumption of tea and snacks, including ice cream in the case of the Chinese House at Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire, and for garden parties as in the case of the Chinese tent at Montagu House, Whitehall.
Robert, you are very kind. For those readers who are inspired by your praise, the post can be found here: http://bit.ly/yMkwJJ (and also through the ‘Stowe’ link on the right). And I would agree with you that the interiors of the Chinese House are extraordinary.