Encounters: the meeting of Asia and Europe 1500-1800, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Encounters' main thesis is one that has had a growing currency among a number of scholars - that until the 19th century the engagement between Asia and Europe was more sophisticated and nuanced than we have hitherto acknowledged.
The exhibition curators, Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer, comment in their introduction that 'in the period between 1500 to 1800 Asians and Europeans often met as equals' and what 'is fascinating about this period is that it was characterised by fluidity and hybridity and not by dichotomy'.
William Dalrymple's book White Mughals makes this point convincingly and movingly. But presented in visual terms, the thesis, which to the credit of the curators is carefully understated, has a deeper impact. The beauty and richness, as well as the occasional flamboyance or grotesqueness, of the objects and the paintings are beguiling in their own right.
You have a sense of the seductive power of material history - many of these objects helped shape, record, celebrate or critique important moments in the histories of entire nations, while often telling stories about the lives of individuals and being objects of desire in their own right.
The encounters were based on commerce, exchanges of ideas and technology and lively human interaction, some of which resulted in close relationships between Asians and Europeans. In one 18th-century painting attributed to the Japanese artist Shiba Kokan, a Chinese, Japanese and European sit companionably together, discoursing on scientific matters.
But what grabs my attention is the tiny vignette in the background - three lots of firemen, also Chinese, Japanese and European are putting out a fire, each group using their own technique. All three groups appear to be working to a common aim - to extinguish the fire, but each is doing it separately and differently.
As metaphors go on the nature of the Asian and European interaction in this period, stately discourse on one hand, and hurly burly seemingly disconnected activity on the other, this one is difficult to beat.
This era of feverish international exchange, apparently also ushered in the new age of globalisation. For instance, a six-panelled Japanese screen in gold leaf on paper describes the arrival of a Portuguese ship at a Japanese port. The ship is represented as the traditional Japanese icon of a takara bune (treasure ship).
People are eagerly poring over goods, which include books, Chinese ceramics and a tiger skin, while the Portuguese examine Japanese bronze vessels and cloth. The desire to shop was obviously equally avid on both sides.
What Europe primarily wanted from Asia was its spices, textiles, decorative art objects and trading rights. What Asia appeared to want from Europe was payment in silver bullion, scientific and technological materials and expertise.
It is an exchange that seems to be polarised between the arts and the sciences, with Asia as the cornucopia of artistic treasures and Europe as the source of scientific innovation. It was never this simple of course. While Europe introduced glass to Asia, the Chinese introduced Europe to porcelain, the production techniques of which they guarded jealously.
Its translucent delicacy exercised an almost mystical power over the European imagination when they first encountered it. This is shown in the costly mounting in gold and silver of the early pieces of Chinese porcelain found in various European royal and aristocratic collections.
The intercultural sexual encounters can be hilarious, such as the Japanese courtesan burning incense in order to mask the stench of her Dutch lover. The British, when asked to supply a dozen English slave girls for Shah Abbas ll of Persia in 1651, regretted their inability to do so and supplied a dozen beaver hats instead.
But what the exhibition cannot articulate is how this - the most tangible, potent and explosive legacy of the encounters - is irrevocably trapped in the DNA of all the cultures, the consequences of which reverberate to this day.
The vibrancy and liveliness of the encounters cannot be doubted, but they were clearly not robust enough to withstand the later icy blasts of institutionalised racism and bigotry. The Yongzheng Emperor of China donning European clothes for a portrait, in order to emphasise China's universal sovereignty, becomes a futile gesture charged with pathos in the light of later history.
The rapid disintegration of the relationships between European and Asian powers into ones of dominance and subjugation, shows how the poisonous seeds of discord, greed and mistrust must already have been there for the fragile harmony to crumble so easily.
Nima Poovaya-Smith is the director of Alchemy, a Yorkshire-based cultural enterprise company
Encounters' main thesis is one that has had a growing currency among a number of scholars - that until the 19th century the engagement between Asia and Europe was more sophisticated and nuanced than we have hitherto acknowledged.
The exhibition curators, Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer, comment in their introduction that 'in the period between 1500 to 1800 Asians and Europeans often met as equals' and what 'is fascinating about this period is that it was characterised by fluidity and hybridity and not by dichotomy'.
William Dalrymple's book White Mughals makes this point convincingly and movingly. But presented in visual terms, the thesis, which to the credit of the curators is carefully understated, has a deeper impact. The beauty and richness, as well as the occasional flamboyance or grotesqueness, of the objects and the paintings are beguiling in their own right.
You have a sense of the seductive power of material history - many of these objects helped shape, record, celebrate or critique important moments in the histories of entire nations, while often telling stories about the lives of individuals and being objects of desire in their own right.
The encounters were based on commerce, exchanges of ideas and technology and lively human interaction, some of which resulted in close relationships between Asians and Europeans. In one 18th-century painting attributed to the Japanese artist Shiba Kokan, a Chinese, Japanese and European sit companionably together, discoursing on scientific matters.
But what grabs my attention is the tiny vignette in the background - three lots of firemen, also Chinese, Japanese and European are putting out a fire, each group using their own technique. All three groups appear to be working to a common aim - to extinguish the fire, but each is doing it separately and differently.
As metaphors go on the nature of the Asian and European interaction in this period, stately discourse on one hand, and hurly burly seemingly disconnected activity on the other, this one is difficult to beat.
This era of feverish international exchange, apparently also ushered in the new age of globalisation. For instance, a six-panelled Japanese screen in gold leaf on paper describes the arrival of a Portuguese ship at a Japanese port. The ship is represented as the traditional Japanese icon of a takara bune (treasure ship).
People are eagerly poring over goods, which include books, Chinese ceramics and a tiger skin, while the Portuguese examine Japanese bronze vessels and cloth. The desire to shop was obviously equally avid on both sides.
What Europe primarily wanted from Asia was its spices, textiles, decorative art objects and trading rights. What Asia appeared to want from Europe was payment in silver bullion, scientific and technological materials and expertise.
It is an exchange that seems to be polarised between the arts and the sciences, with Asia as the cornucopia of artistic treasures and Europe as the source of scientific innovation. It was never this simple of course. While Europe introduced glass to Asia, the Chinese introduced Europe to porcelain, the production techniques of which they guarded jealously.
Its translucent delicacy exercised an almost mystical power over the European imagination when they first encountered it. This is shown in the costly mounting in gold and silver of the early pieces of Chinese porcelain found in various European royal and aristocratic collections.
The intercultural sexual encounters can be hilarious, such as the Japanese courtesan burning incense in order to mask the stench of her Dutch lover. The British, when asked to supply a dozen English slave girls for Shah Abbas ll of Persia in 1651, regretted their inability to do so and supplied a dozen beaver hats instead.
But what the exhibition cannot articulate is how this - the most tangible, potent and explosive legacy of the encounters - is irrevocably trapped in the DNA of all the cultures, the consequences of which reverberate to this day.
The vibrancy and liveliness of the encounters cannot be doubted, but they were clearly not robust enough to withstand the later icy blasts of institutionalised racism and bigotry. The Yongzheng Emperor of China donning European clothes for a portrait, in order to emphasise China's universal sovereignty, becomes a futile gesture charged with pathos in the light of later history.
The rapid disintegration of the relationships between European and Asian powers into ones of dominance and subjugation, shows how the poisonous seeds of discord, greed and mistrust must already have been there for the fragile harmony to crumble so easily.
Nima Poovaya-Smith is the director of Alchemy, a Yorkshire-based cultural enterprise company
Project data
Exhibition design: Line Lund, V&A Lighting: DHA Design
Audiovisual: Ken Priddy Sound Lighting Communication
Graphics: Suzy McGrath
Contractor: Clements and Street
Exhibition design: Line Lund, V&A Lighting: DHA Design
Audiovisual: Ken Priddy Sound Lighting Communication
Graphics: Suzy McGrath
Contractor: Clements and Street
