An East-West idea exchange

In 1989, the Getty Research Institute got a proposal that seemed to come out of left field. A rare book dealer was offering a suite of 20 engravings from 18th century China, even though the institute hadn’t yet expressed much interest in Asia. And the prints themselves were oddities.

Reflecting a bizarre mix of cultures, the intricately detailed engravings depict European-style pavilions in Beijing, designed and built for a Chinese emperor by Jesuit missionaries. Although the emperor commissioned the buildings and their elaborately contrived settings for his Garden of Perfect Clarity, the result was neither clear nor pure.

In what looks like an early example of architecture by committee, the Jesuits created a melange of baroque French palaces, Renaissance Italian villas and traditional Chinese motifs. And when Manchu court artist Yi Lantai made engravings of the garden complex in 1783-86, he added another layer of complexity by combining Western and Chinese notions of perspective. Trying to figure out the artist’s point of view can be a dizzying task.

Nonetheless, the prints were irresistible.

“We acquired them because they were so astonishing,” said Marcia Reed, head of collection development. Kurt Forster, the institute’s director at the time, gave his blessing, she said, when he breezed into her office serendipitously, looked at the prints and said: “You’re going to buy them, aren’t you?”

Once the deal was done, Reed embarked upon a new mission -- the result of which will go on view in “China on Paper: European and Chinese Works From the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century.” The exhibition of prints, illustrated books, maps and photographs will open Nov. 6 at the institute’s small gallery at the Getty Center.

“The European Pavilions at the Garden of Perfect Clarity,” as the suite of engravings is called, will be included in all its peculiar glory, along with an assortment of other East-West collisions.

In the opinion of Reed and her co-curator, Paola Dematte, associate professor of Chinese art and archaeology at the Rhode Island School of Design, the time is right.

“For a long time,” Dematte said, “hybrid stuff was not liked either in China or in the West. It didn’t fall into any category. It was considered weird by Chinese art historians. It was considered weird by Western art historians.” But tastes have changed, she said, “maybe because of postmodern thought.”

Reed attributes new interest in such artworks to globalization, China’s rise and America’s large Asian population. At the Getty, she said, “this is part of a serious attempt to make the collection reflect the world instead of just the traditions of art history.”

The attempt didn’t begin 18 years ago, but Reed had thought about broadening the institute’s collections. When it came to China, she wasn’t interested in well known export ceramics, lacquerware and textiles, created for a European market. What she had in mind was a less obvious, “more nuanced view,” inherent in “material that was similarly hybrid or showed the interaction of cultures.” She would look for a lively exchange of ideas that took place on paper.

Science and China

The search soon led her to an illustrated record of Western scientific instruments installed at the imperial astronomical observatory in Beijing as part of the Jesuits’ multifaceted missionary effort.

The two-volume book by Flemish Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest includes 117 woodcuts with Chinese captions documenting mechanical devices, charts and scientific processes that established Western astronomy in China between 1669 and 1674. Another Verbiest creation, an enormous world map, came to the Getty in the form of a 19th century Korean version that closely resembles the original.

Encouraged by such finds, Reed bought an 18th century French book on the life of Confucius at a bookstore on the Santa Monica promenade and other items at auctions in London and Hong Kong. Over time she added Chinese versions of Christian texts; the first Italian edition of a 1585 book on China; and a 17th century volume of Chinese poems and delicately colored woodblock prints illustrating the cultivation of rice and the making of silk, which was distributed in Europe and reproduced in prints.

Fashion, punishment

Two early 19th century books by British artist George Henry Mason, in English and French, document Chinese costumes and criminal justice in brightly colored engravings.

“The Punishments of China” looks like a cheerful children’s book, but it provides graphic detail of ingenious cruelties devised to penalize thieves, disorderly women and translators who willfully misinterpreted others’ words. The punishment for “committing fraud on merchants” was to be suspended face down on a canvas sling that could be tightened to back-breaking extremes.

Dematte became involved with this strange assortment of objects about 10 years ago when she was working on a Chinese archaeology project at the institute.

“I wondered if the Getty happened to have anything on China,” she said. “I did a search and said, ‘Wow, look at all this stuff. There should be an exhibition.’ Marcia [Reed] and I didn’t know each other, but someone said I should talk to her.” Dematte left the Getty, but the conversation -- and collecting -- continued.

For Reed, who does not speak Chinese, Dematte’s appearance was a godsend and the beginning of a working relationship that led to the exhibition and a substantial catalog. In conjunction with the show, which runs through Feb. 10, the Getty Museum’s decorative arts galleries will display 17th century French tapestries from a series on a Chinese emperor.

“It was very complicated to figure out a story for the exhibition,” Reed said. “People usually associate this period with the China trade, materials going back and forth, and silk and porcelain and tea going to Europe. It’s far more interesting to think of it as a time when Europeans and Chinese exchanged ideas and were changed by the experience -- and when things moved ahead as a result of people’s knowledge about each other.”

suzanne.muchnic@latimes.com