Description In the Collection of National Palace Museum, Taibei This monumental scroll, a unique example of a Castiglione preparatory drawing, is the model for one of his most famous paintings. The drawing, Although done with a brush rather than a pen, is executed almost exclusively in the European manner. Landscape is represented using Western-style perspective, figures are often shown in dramatically foreshortened views, and vegetation is depicted with spontaneous arabesques and cross-hatching. The large scale of the painting also suggests a European influence, as if Castiglione had taken a typical Western canvas and extended its length to make an architectural frieze. Horses with heavy outlines: Some of the horses have reinforced outlines to enable the artist and his assistants to trace them accurately onto the silk of the finished version. Man in water: In the finished version of this painting, Castiglione gave the water a bluish tint and depicted reflections on its surface—attributes that almost never appear in traditional Chinese landscape painting. Half-naked groom: In the finished version of this painting, this figure appears entirely clothed. Whereas European artists have a long tradition of painting and sculpting nudes, naked figures rarely appear in Chinese art.
Biographical Details Giuseppe Castiglione(Lang Shining, 1688-1766) is an Italian painter, court artist, Jesuit missionary to China. Born in Milan’s San Macellino district, Castiglione studied painting in Italy with Carlo Cornara of the renowned Botteghe degli Stampator painting studio. In Europe he worked as a muralist While in China, Castiglione took the name Lang Shining. His skill as an artist was appreciated by the Emperor Qianlong(1711-1799) and Castiglione spent many years painting various subjects. He was also in charge of designing the Western-Style Palaces in the imperial gardens of the Old Summer Palace. He died in Beijing. During the eighteenth century, the Qing dynasty sponsored a major revival of courtly arts, which attained a new monumental scale, technical finish, and descriptive intricacy. A key figure in establishing this new court aesthetic was Giuseppe Castiglione, a master of vividly naturalistic draftsmanship and large-scale compositions. Castiglione helped to create a new, hybrid style that combined Western realism with traditional Chinese conventions of composition and brushwork, a unique blend of European painting with Chinese subjects and themes.
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