Arts & Leisure
China on the horizon
By Rose Safran
YORK - There has been talk of adding Chinese to the language curriculum in York. This is a progressive, contemporary, practical thought. After Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin) is the second most spoken foreign language in America.Additionally, Chinese influence is found in many facets of today's American life. At least two of this country's finest museums specialize in on-going cultural exchange with China - namely, the Peabody-Essex Museum in nearby Salem, Mass., and San Francisco's Asia Museum.
Recently, the International Women's Club of New England hosted a benefit luncheon at Portsmouth's Sheraton Hotel with Chinese fashion as a theme. What follows is an adaptation of a feature on the extensive presence of traditional and contemporary Chinese design in America written for that event.
Chinese Style - A Few Comments
Chinese design! Where to begin? With successful Chinese Americans such as the popular Vera Wang who designed dresses for Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan? Or with Honolulu-born Ellery Chun who invented the "Aloha Shirt?" Or with "China Chic" book author Vivien ne Tam? Or should we look to the highly successful jewelry maker Kai-Yin Lo, who bridged the gap between precious and fashion jewelry, blending Eastern sensibility with Western aesthetics in her Yin-Inspired brand that combines pearl, jade and colored stones and can be purchased at Cartier's?
Or perhaps we should list the names of Chinese super-models who travel to various Fashion Weeks in Italy, Great Britain and Brazil, gracing the runways with the latest available Shanghai/Beijing design?
Our global world has opened so many cross-cultural exchanges that it's hard to determine who is setting the immediate fashion trend. Or determine where it first emerged. Or decide who is/was the most successful in promoting the latest fad before it fades into the too recent past, another reflection of our rapidly changing 21st century global milieu.
Chinese-inspired fashion, both traditional and innovative, has shown great vitality in recent years - not counting the vast "made in China" market of budget rip-offs with which we are all too familiar. Renewed interest in traditionally fine Chinese objects that tend to blend the restrained with the extravagant has permeated not just fashion where familiar Chinese animal motifs such as dragons and bears, along with exotic bird and floral images and even calligraphy and jewels adorn clothing, but also home décor where Chinese export porcelain, lacquered objects, old jade and ivory carvings, fantastic animal forms, both antique and reproduction, are entering American homes, creating eclectic settings.
China's influence on western cultures has a long history. One of the greatest contributions of Chinese culture to the world was silk, which the Chinese invented thousands of years ago by cultivating the silkworm, developing the weaving techniques in processing silk, and using the weaving loom. The variety of silk produced by the Chinese was and is impressive: filmy gauze, rich brocade, smooth-sheen satin, deep pile velvet. Although cotton and hemp were also produced, silk (in China, a sign of wealth) was where the demand lay.
A form of slit tapestry weave - called kesi - with sharp color contours, is beautiful on both sides. Then, there was and is the heavy use of embroidery to embellish textiles. Lavishly embroidered Chinese silks won a worldwide reputation; today, silk embroidered Imperial court robes are invaluable treasures, found displayed under glass in leading museums such as in Salem's Peabody-Essex Museum.
While imitations of Eastern art reached Europe in the Middle Ages, and while the earlier Chinese dynasties - the Han (200-214), Tang (618-906), Sung (960-1280) and in particular the Ming (960-1280) included periods when Chinese creativity and trade flourished, it was not until the great Peking (i.e., Beijing) workshops were established during the Kang Hsi (or Kang-he) period (1661-1723) that Chinese goods - ivory carvings, porcelain wares, lacquered objects, wallpapers, bronzes, textiles, paintings, furniture - entered Western collections in significant quantities. The East India Trading companies of the 17th and 18th centuries were instrumental in bringing the Orient wares to the west. (Salem's Peabody-Essex Museum has one of the finest American collections of treasures from this trade.) This hey-day of Chinese export production was followed by eventual decline in quality and/or purity of product as European influence was introduced into traditional Chinese design. These wares appear in American auctions, including locally in York at Hap Moore's where Chinese export is frequently offered for sale.
In ancient China, textiles were draped on chairs, around beds and tables and/or hung on walls. They were also made into purses and cases to hold articles carried on a person - many reproductions of these are manufactured today and sold in the global market place, in particular Europe and America. In religious buildings, textiles were used as canopies or hangings for worship. Both imperial workshops and private studios produced Chinese textiles.
Today, the crosscurrents between East and West commerce are limitless and this includes design/fashion. Leading international couturiers have a presence in elegant shopping centers in Chinese cities. Many outsource production there, using the skilled low-cost labor pool the country still provides. China's Vogue Magazine differs from the American Vogue, employs Chinese talent to create its editorial and design and to promote and distribute the magazine. On the other hand, enter American stateside retailers to find: at New York's Bergdorf Goodman foo dog and classic dragon designs on belts ... in a Los Angeles shop, oversized bubble bracelets featuring old-time Chinese calendar girls ... a necklace made with silk, stone and metal at the Anna Sui (she's a Chinese-American) shop in New York City ... a cotton sweater with gothic lettering "Shanghai" at the upscale Shanghai Tang stores ... and T-shirts with Oriental motifs just about everywhere. The "Cheongsan" dress - clinging, flattering (on the right figure) - is sold on the Internet by many retailers.
Americans and Europeans travel to China and when there are fitted for custom-made garments. The classic frog closure on jackets is a perennial favorite, as is the Mandarin style. The dragon, the phoenix, peach and plum blossoms and many other traditional Chinese motifs proliferate in textiles. Some of the patterns on Chinese-inspired clothing are not just decorative, but carry special meaning to owner and beholder.
Dig deeper, and the melding of cultures surfaces. The revival of the little sleeveless, body-clinging sheath of a mini dress - is it retro-American, or is it the classic derived from the style long popular among the tiny curvaceous-yet-slim Chinese girls who can wear it so well - or a little of both? And the conspicuous attachment of jewelry (e.g., sequins) and fanciful embroidery on utilitarian cotton jean fabric and clothing - doesn't that suggest a literal blending of oriental-inspired exotica with basic American pragmatism?
Then, there's home décor. Traditional Chinese woods such as elm, ash, and others are now found in furniture available on the American market; a red-lacquered ash cabinet was mentioned recently in The New York Times and a pair of Quing dynasty elm chairs was offered with prices in the four digits. Leading artists around the world are responding to China's rich and varied furniture tradition, which includes the Chippendale style of the mid-18th century as well as Aesthetic style of the late 19th century and are coming up with elegant 21st century designs.
Salem's Peabody-Essex Museum is hosting an exhibit of contemporary Chinese furniture-design. At auctions and at antiques shows, Chinese export porcelain objects - vases, pitchers, platters, services and garden seats - proliferate and appear to have no trouble finding deep-pocketed customers. Chinese tomb figures are museum-worthy, highly collectible and also appear in shops, antique shows and auctions.
China is omnipresent. American students routinely study the ancient art of Chinese calligraphy and the tools needed for this refined art form, considered the premier visual art of China's educated elite, are sold in American art goods stores. The Chinese language has certainly entered the American curriculum. To inform visitors about how a Chinese family lived two centuries ago, Salem's Peabody-Essex Museum imported and incorporated into its spectacular new wing, a preserved Chinese merchant's house, the 200-year-old Yin Yu Tang house.
It is the only example of Chinese domestic architecture outside of China.
The Chinese influence in all its progressive, energetic, dynamic, visually original modes marches on, with no brakes on the horizon.
