Simply eye candy or something more?

When you look at this painting for the first time you will be in awe. The soft colors, the details in the painting, and last but not least the feeling that overcomes you: amazement. This exact feeling must have been what people felt in the 18th century when they saw this reverse glass painting, since reverse glass paintings were their only source of knowledge about Qing China at the time. It would have also been the ‘truth’ for them. Painters would adjust their paintings to the liking of Europeans. And in turn this would shape the view on China in Europe. The painter of Enjoying Eating Fruit might have chosen to integrate Chinese motifs and symbols to make the painting appear more ‘Chinese’. The setting of the piece, the drinking from the lotus leaf and the women with bound feet are elements that would look ‘exotic’ to the European eye. Only those familiar with Chinese culture would understand that the scene we see in the painting does not depict an average household, but an elite one. Besides, the painting only shows the idealized and idyllic version of a rich household, when in reality servants and the rest of the household lived in different living conditions. In the painting itself, this separation is not visible. For example: the servants have a pale skin tone and clean clothes whereas they are supposed to serve the household all day. The painters often had to use their imagination to create the scenes depicted in reverse glass paintings.

Considering all the above, the painter of Enjoying Eating Fruit may not have intentionally tried to shape the view of China in Europe by painting an idealized Chinese garden scene. However, due to the restrictions on traveling through China, Europeans could only learn about China through paintings. This turned the painting into an important source of knowledge. And because of this, the painting could shape the European’s views on China. Painters were aware of this, and it was common practice to change their paintings to match the existing views on China in Europe. So, on the one hand painters had the agency to shape the views on China, but on the other hand the views were also based on the expectations of Europeans, which reinforced the existing idea of China in Europe even more.

When dealing with objects we tend to forget how these were made by people and how the choices they made can affect our worldview. Reverse glass paintings are a good reminder that it is important to be aware of how objects can shape our views. At the same time, it is also a reminder that we too apply our own knowledge systems onto objects. By doing so, we enforce those knowledge systems, in our case a Eurocentric one.