Encounters: The Meeting of Asia & Europe 1500 - 1800s
The Victorian & Albert Museum
Thursday 9 September-Sunday 5 December 2004
East Meets Jest
In the battle between cultures, it seems the sense of humour
often wins out. The V&A's Encounters exhibit delves into the
thickets of west-meets-east, forging into the roughest of Western
Europe's cultural embarrassments with a carefully selected collection
and a palpably clever approach.
A giggling Japanese courtesan who burns incense while being romped by a Dutchman -- to avoid that ruddy-European smell -- is a short little joke buried in the annals of imperial history, yet still manages to draw crowds, today. The majority of Encounter's most popular exhibits, are the quirky Japanese paintings of the Dutch, where the artists' intent often led to exaggerated noses, house-like hats and unsightly effeminacies: the Two Dutchmen and Two Courtesans Hanging Scroll, crafted around 1800, displays two Dutchmen tiptoeing around the courtesans, who stare back blankly.
There are portraits and dresses, as well: homages to a foreign culture and quaint in their expert reproduction. The Yongzheng Emperor (1724-1735) is showed tied and pulled into European wares, and an East India official is painted reclining in a great Bengal estate with his Hookah - each testaments to the exciting trends that develop alongside cultural immersion.
The jewel of the exhibit, however, is Tippoo's Tiger, a gigantic automaton with a mechanical organ that depicts a British soldier being mauled by a tiger. It played music and was the pride of Tipu Sultan, who commissioned the work to express his resistance to the British, in that pleasant, virulent sort of way.
The exhibit is course, edgy and fastidiously selected; they are subjects never bridged in general history courses and striking reminders that even the Victorians had a slight sense of humour.
- Megan Retka
