Vitreous Views: Materiality and Mediality of Glass in Qing China through a Transcultural Prism

Abstract

This article investigates plate glass as a new material medium in the art, architecture, and design in eighteenth-century China. By situating the production and consumption of plate glass in the processes of material, technological, and artistic and cultural exchanges in the early modern world, I examine how the uses of plate glass during China’s high Qing era (1661–1796) correspond to an epistemological shift to fictionality and illusionism, as well as a scopic culture of observation. Specifically, I look at the use of plate glass in painting, architectural construction (as in windowpanes), and interior display (mirrors and object coverings). Through examining the techniques and methods of using plate glass in those forms, I argue that the use of it as a novel material medium triggered new ways for people to recognize the self in relation to surroundings—knowing and experiencing spaces through bodily movement and action as well as disembodied imagination.