Giuseppe Castiglione
The Jesuit at the Chinese court.
Giuseppe Castiglione, Lang Shining in Chinese, came to Beijing in 1715 and painted for three emperors. He combined European perspective and shading with Chinese materials.
Giuseppe Castiglione was born in 1688 in Milan and trained as a painter there. He entered the Jesuit order as a lay brother and was sent to China as a missionary in 1715. In Beijing he became a court painter instead and served three emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. He was given the Chinese name Lang Shining and remained in China for the rest of his life. He died in Beijing in 1766 and was buried in the Jesuit cemetery there.
At court he had to learn Chinese materials and techniques: ink and colour on silk and paper. He developed a hybrid style in which European perspective, light and shade were combined with Chinese compositions. The emperors did not want strong shadows on faces, so the portraits were given an even, soft light. He painted flowers, birds, dogs and, above all, horses.
His best-known work is One Hundred Horses of 1728 in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, a long handscroll in which horses graze, play and bathe in a landscape with real depth. He also painted official portraits of the Qianlong Emperor and the empress, hunting scenes and court ceremonies, and he led the work on pictures of Qianlong's military campaigns, which were then engraved in Paris.
Castiglione also helped design the European palaces in the imperial garden of Yuanmingyuan outside Beijing, with fountains and Baroque façades. They were destroyed by British and French troops in 1860, and today only ruins remain. Castiglione is regarded as the most important link between European and Chinese painting in the 18th century, and he is highly esteemed both in China and in Europe.