| Description |
In the early seventeenth century, the trading ventures of the Dutch East India; Company (or V.O.C.) introduced the United Provinces to Chinese export porcelain. The; exotic, luminous blue and white ceramics were so in demand amongst Dutch consumers; that, by 1638, over three million Chinese porcelain objects had been imported to the; Republic. This popularity of imported porcelain ensnared and invigorated the; imaginations of Dutch artists and artisans who began to incorporate and adapt Chinese; exports into their own work. My thesis project, "Material Translations: Chinese Porcelain; in the Dutch Golden Age, A Proposed Exhibition," treats this adaptation as a translation.; I focus on the material transformation of porcelain into paint and earthenware clay, as; porcelains moved between cultures in a global economic framework. By juxtaposing and; comparing Chinese export porcelains with Dutch still life paintings and Delftware; ceramics, I examine how the Dutch incorporated, appropriated, adapted, and created; objects in response to the influx of Chinese export porcelain and visual aesthetics as a; result of the introduction of global trade. This project consists of an introductory essay; which discusses scholarship and rationale of the exhibition, an explanation of display; methods, an exhibition floor plan with two photoshopped mockups, object photos, labels; for sections and individual objects, and references. Because this is a proposed exhibition; rather than a staged one, these materials provide the reader with the ideas and visual; details of the show so that they might be able to experience it without a physical space. |
