Understanding China observations through images in the West after the eighteenth century: the cases of William Alexander and John Thomson

• Main Authors: Chung, Shu-huey, 鍾淑惠
• Other Authors: Chu, Jing-hua
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/23193105147077394853

博士 === 國立政治大學 === 歷史研究所 === 98 === This dissertation discusses China observation in the West after the eighteenth century. Before the eighteenth century, images about China in the West were very different from the real China. Post-modernists argue that in that period the images about China were distorted or even demonized. This dissertation tries to explore the changes of understanding of China through examining images about China in the West. First, to discuss the emerging of the imagination of China in Europe, it discusses Western texts about China, the images on the eighteenth-century China porcelain and exported paintings, as well as the symbols of the “Chinoiserie” style. Secondly, it examines the drawings of William Alexander in the late eighteenth century and the photographs of John Thomson in the nineteenth century. Not only do they represent the shift of media of image recording images but also the change of the understanding of China. In the conclusion, it tries to understand the factors that brought about the changes of China observations in the West.