The first historical landscape in Europe influenced by Chinese images

Ref.: 267
Área temática: 03 Integridad visual de los paisajes urbanos históricos
Fecha de recepción: 15/11/2008

AUTORES (* Autor principal)

TANAKA, Hidemichi * (Japón) - Akita Inernatitoal University

ABSTRACT

The author tries to analyse the ideal landscape of urban life in Europe painted in the Siena' s Town Hall in Italy. This image of the both inside and outside a city by A.Lorenzetti is considered as ideal urban landscape in Europe of 14the century,because the title of this painting is « Good Goverment ». But this image also is significative for understanding the modern life of such a city. More interesting is that the landscpe is influenced much by Chinese image of the Agricultue of that period. Italian dealers like Marco Polo went to Mongolian China ( Huan Dynasty) brought the landscapes of China, with commercilal goods like silk and porcelain. This cultural interchange between Europe and Asia in that period was more frequant than the historians thought about.
How should be ideal landscape of urban life for today ?
This painting conserved even today in this Italian city represents the harmony of the city and suburb life in which the people are living vividly and cooperatively. The agricultural life of China is shown as cycle of each scene of the cultivation and this landscape is also represented with the cycle of the labors in the field. It is certain that the mechanization of the agriculture in the moderen age changed the image of the agricultural life, but this historical scene suggests well the ideal landscape of the inner and the outside of the city, combining the those of the western and the eastern cultures lifes.
The difference of the concept s of the historic urban landscpae between before modern age and medieval ages is generally considered as contrast between those of capitalism and feudalism.
However the author's analysis of this painting bring us the vies of the continuity of the historical traditions of the relation between the city and the suburb lifes.
Visual integrity of historic urban landscapes was shown already in this image of the medieval age and the policie and strategies were suggested in this landscape painting. Conserving the visual structure of the urban life, we could adapt the modern architecture to this traditional way of life.
Being based of the historical image like thid , it is necessary to construct the new image of the urban landscape.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Hidemichi Tanaka, The Birth of the landscape and cityscape in Europe. A Lorenzetti's Good Government and Chinese Influence, in La Ville Insoutenable edited by A.Berque, Ph. Bonnin, and C.G.-Gobin, Paris, 2006.
H,. Tanaka, Ex oriente lux, The influence of the Far-East on Western Art, Tokyo, 1988.