Ch'ien Mu Lecture in History and Culture : Sino-European In-Betweenness and Displacements: The Circulation of Prints between Europe and China in the Seventeenth Century

This visual presentation focusses on the circulation of prints between China and Europe in the seventeenth century. After an overview of the visual sources and their travels between Europe and China, it shows how images also travelled from one object to another: prints, paintings, cabinets, tapestry, porcelain vases, etc. These travels caused that these images were not only recreated by the new contexts, but also created new contexts, in various images related to medicine, technology, or travel reports. Finally, by examining the power of perspectives, the presentation reveals how travelling perspectives caused displacements. The analysis of the composition of scenes in Sino-European prints discloses how encounters can take place through the mental imagination of the place as represented in the images.